While the crime was being dealt with, the police were subjected to pretty severe criticism. They felt that the facts would make it clear that they knew their trade and had been working at it diligently. The story gives an insight into real police methods. These are very different from the methods of the fiction detective, and also from the average citizen’s idea of police work. They ought to be better known. When the public understands that there is nothing secret, tyrannical or dangerous in good police practice, and that our laws safeguard even the guilty against abuses, there will be helpful public opinion behind officers of the law, and we shall have a higher degree of order and security. The directing mind in this case was that of Commissioner George Dougherty, executive head of the detectives of the New York Police Department. Thousands of clean, ambitious young fellows are constantly putting on the policeman’s uniform all over the country, and rising to places as detectives and officials. The manufacturer or merchant may find himself in the police commissioner’s chair. Even the suburbanite, with his bundles, may be, out at Lonesomehurst, a member of the village council, and thus responsible for the supervision of a police force that, though it be only two patrolmen and a chief, is important in its place. So in writing the story there has been an effort to show how a first-rate man like Commissioner Dougherty works. His methods are plain business methods. Most of his life he has earned his living following the policeman’s trade as a commercial business. What he did in a case of this kind, and how, and why, are matters of general interest and importance. Finally, the story throws some useful light on criminals. It shows the cunning of the underworld, and also its limitations. To free the law-abiding mind of romantic notions about the criminal, and show him as he is, is highly important in the prevention of crime. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS FACING PAGE Rhinelander Waldo, Commissioner of Police, New York City _Frontispiece_ George S. Dougherty, Second Deputy 20 Police Commissioner Edward P. Hughes, Inspector in Command 40 of Detective Bureau, and Dominick G. Riley, Lieutenant and Aide to Commissioner Dougherty Geno Montani, Eddie Kinsman, Gene 60 Splaine, “Scotty the Lamb” and John Molloy James Pasquale, Bob Delio, Jess 80 Albrazzo, and Matteo Arbrano “Scotty” Receives Final Instructions 110