e
who may or may not be a professional detective. I have frequently
utilized with success in peculiar and difficult cases the services of
men whom I knew to be common-sense persons, with a natural taste for
ferreting out mysteries, but who were not detectives at all. Your head
bookkeeper may have real talents in this direction--if he is not above
using them. Naturally, the first essential is brains--and if you can
give the time to the matter, your own head will probably be the best
one for your purposes. If, then, you are willing to undertake the job
yourself, all you need is some person or persons to carry out your
instructions, and such are by no means difficult to find. I have had
many a case run down by my own office force--clerks, lawyers, and
stenographers, all taking a turn at it. Why not? Is the professional
sleuth working on a fixed salary for a regular agency and doing a dozen
different jobs each month as likely to bring to bear upon your own
private problem as much intelligence as you yourself?

There is no mystery about such work, except what the detective himself
sees fit to enshroud it with. Most of us do detective work all the time
without being conscious of it. Simply because the matter concerns the
theft of a pearl, or the betraying of a business or professional secret,
or the disappearance of a friend, the opinion of a stranger becomes no
more valuable. And the chances are equal that the stranger will make a
bungle of it.

Many of the best available detectives are men who work by themselves
without any permanent staff, and who have their own regular clients,
generally law firms and corporations. Almost any attorney knows several
such, and the chief advantage of employing one of them lies in the fact
that you can learn just what their abilities are by personal experience.
They usually command a high rate of remuneration, but deductive ability
and resourcefulness are so rare that they are at a premium and can only
be secured by paying it. These men are able, if necessary, to assume
the character of a doctor, traveller, man-about-town, or business agent
without wearing in their lapels a sign that they are detectives, and
they will reason ahead of the other fellow and can sometimes calculate
pretty closely what he will do. Twenty-five dollars a day will generally
hire the best of them, and they are well worth it.

The detective business swarms with men of doubtful honesty and morals,
who are under a con