two hundred and fifty dollar check, and he in turn proved
to be another ex-convict well known in the business, whose whereabouts
in New York were not difficult to ascertain. He was "located" and
"trailed" and all his associates noted and followed. In due course he
"connected up" (as they say) with Fisher. Now, it is one thing to follow
a man who has no idea that he is being followed and another to trail a
man who is as suspicious and elusive as a fox. A professional criminal's
daily business is to observe whether or not he is being followed, and he
rarely if ever, makes a direct move. If he wants a drink at the saloon
across the street, he will, by preference, go out the back door, walk
around the block and dodge in the side entrance under the tail of an
ice wagon. In this case the detectives followed the presenter for days
before they reached Fisher, and when they did they had still to locate
his "plant."

The arrest in this case illustrates forcibly the chief characteristic of
successful criminals--egotism. The essential quality of daring required
in their pursuits gives them an extraordinary degree of self-confidence,
boldness, and vanity. And to vanity most of them can trace their fall.
It seems incredible that Fisher should have returned to the United
States after his discharge from prison and immediately resumed his
operations without carefully concealing his impedimenta. Yet when he was
run down in a twenty-six family apartment house, the detectives found in
his valise several thousand blank and model checks, hundreds of letters
and private papers, a work on "Modern Bank Methods," and his "ticket of
leave" from England! This man was a successful forger and because he
was successful, his pride in himself was so great that he attributed his
conviction in England to accident and really felt that he was immune on
his release.

The arrest of such a man often presents great legal difficulties which
the detectives overcome by various practical methods. Of course, no
officer without a search warrant has a right to enter a house or an
apartment. A man's house is his castle. Mayor Gaynor, when a judge, in
a famous opinion (more familiarly known in the lower world even than
the Decalogue) laid down the law unequivocally and emphatically in this
regard. Thus, in the Fisher case, the defendant having been arrested on
the street, the detectives desired to search the apartment of the family
with which he lived. They did this b