appearance to whom they
delivered their unwelcome message. Mrs. Parker seemed overwhelmed at the
news and strongly asserted her confidence in her husband's innocence of
any wrong-doing. Having performed their errand the officers departed.

A certain ineradicable jealousy has always existed between the
plain-clothes men of the various precincts and the sleuths attached to
the Central Office, and in this instance the precinct men, having gained
the credit for the arrest, it did not occur to them as necessary to
communicate the knowledge of their acquaintance with Mrs. Parker to
Detective Sergeants Peabody and Clark, originally assigned at
Headquarters to investigate the case.

It seemed, however, to Peabody very unlikely that Parker had conducted
his operations alone, and he therefore at once inquired at the Tombs
what character of visitors came to see the prisoner. The gateman replied
that as yet none had arrived. At that very instant a young girl stepped
to the wicket and asked if she could be allowed to see Mr. James Parker.
It took the detective but a moment to run across to the Criminal Courts
Building and to telephone the warden to detain her temporarily and then
to refuse her request. Five minutes later the girl emerged
disconsolately from the Tombs and boarded a car going uptown. Peabody
followed her to 110 West Thirty-eighth Street, not for an instant
supposing that the girl herself could be the forger, but believing that
possibly through her he might learn of other members of the gang and
secure additional evidence against Parker himself.

Of course, no intelligent person to-day supposes that, outside of Sir
Conan Doyle's interesting novels, detectives seek the baffling criminal
by means of analyzing cigar butts, magnifying thumb marks or
specializing in the various perfumes in favor among the fair sex, or by
any of those complicated, brain fatiguing processes of ratiocination
indulged in by our old friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes. There are still,
however, genuine detectives, and some of them are to be found upon the
New York police force. The magnifying glass is not one of the ordinary
tools of the professional sleuth, and if he carries a pistol at all it
is because the police rules require it, while those cases may be
numbered upon the fingers of two hands where his own hair and whiskers
are not entirely sufficient for his purposes in the course of his
professional career.

The next morning Peabody donned the