We have taught the world that a body of police can be none the less efficient although their hands are clean; that honesty is not necessarily a synonym for stupidity; that law and order can be enforced without brutality. There are no _agents provocateur_ in the London police, and the grafter has little opportunity to exercise his talent. In one year 17,910 indictable offences were committed within the boundaries of the Metropolitan Police district. For these 14,525 people were proceeded against, and as some of them were probably responsible for two or more of the offences the margin of those who escaped is very low. There were 178,495 minor offenders, all of whom were dealt with. The machinery of Scotland Yard misses little. How many crimes have been prevented by the knowledge of swift and almost inevitable punishment it is impossible to say, but they have been many. FOOTNOTE: [1] This was before the War. CHAPTER III. THE REAL DETECTIVE. Through a little back door, up a stone flight of stairs, into a broad corridor one passes to the offices where are quartered the heads of the most important branch of Scotland Yard--the Criminal Investigation Department, with its wide-reaching organisation stretching beyond the confines of London over the whole world. It is its business to keep its fingers on the pulse of crime, to watch vigilantly the comings and goings of thousands of men and women, and to bring to justice all those whose acts have made them a menace to society. No department of Scotland Yard has been more written around; none has been more misunderstood. It does its duty effectually, unswervingly, in the same unemotional spirit that marks the other departments of the service, but with perhaps even a keener eye to its own reputation. The C.I.D. knows how high is the reputation it has won among international police forces, and is very properly jealous of its maintenance. There have been critics of the C.I.D. Many have held that the system of recruiting from the uniformed police is wrong in essence--that educated men employed direct from civilian life would be more effective. There is no bar against anyone being appointed direct if the authorities chose--but it has been tried.