aid. "He was eating a
biscuit, and a piece probably stuck in his throat and choked him. As to
his being wet through, it was raining hard at the time."

The Spanish authorities were informed of this theory, and the body of
the "murdered" man was exhumed. Still in the throat was the biscuit
which had choked him.

There was, too, the case of an old woman murdered at Slough. Chief
Detective-Inspector Bower, now head of the Port of London Authority
police, ultimately arrested a man against whom there was nothing but
suspicion, as apart from legal proof. And on the suspect was found a
slip of crumpled paper in which coins had apparently been wrapped. The
marks of the milling were plainly discernible. Mr. Bower wrapped
twenty-one sovereigns--the amount of the money stolen from the
victim--in another piece of paper. The marks corresponded, and it was
mainly on that evidence that the prisoner was convicted.

CHAPTER V.

MAKING A DETECTIVE.

The detective net drawn round London is close and complete. Within the
last two or three years the headquarters staff at Scotland Yard has
completely changed, although there is no man with less than twenty
years' service among the five chief detective-inspectors who act as Mr.
McCarthy's chief-lieutenants.

These are the men who meet in special council when some great crime
stirs London, and whose wits are bent to aid the active efforts of those
deputed for the actual investigation. With them at Scotland Yard are
some seventy or eighty subordinate detectives. Crime that affects London
as a whole is usually dealt with direct from headquarters.

Every division of police in London has its detective detachment of from
twelve to thirty men under divisional inspectors. Except in a very few
of the outlying rural districts of London, there is no police station
without one or more detectives. They are expected to hold local crime in
check. But the machine is adaptable to contingencies. The "morning
report of crime" sent to headquarters shows daily the ebb and flow of
crime. A sudden wave of burglaries, for instance, might be met by
reinforcements from another district or from the Yard itself.

Twice a month the big Council of Crime meets--a gathering at New
Scotland Yard at which thirty or forty of the senior detectives of the
metropolis, heads of districts, and headquarters men meet in conference
and compare notes. The movements of criminals are checked, particular
mysteries discuss