kind than any we have yet read, and which may, on that account,
prove acceptable, by way of contrast and relief, even if it fails to
attract you by other means. I obtained the original correspondence, I
must tell you, from the office of the Detective Police of London."

Jessie's face brightened. "That promises something to begin with," she
said.

"Some years since," I continued, "there was a desire at headquarters to
increase the numbers and efficiency of the Detective Police, and I
had the honor of being one of the persons privately consulted on that
occasion. The chief obstacle to the plan proposed lay in the difficulty
of finding new recruits. The ordinary rank and file of the police of
London are sober, trustworthy, and courageous men, but as a body they
are sadly wanting in intelligence. Knowing this, the authorities took
into consideration a scheme, which looked plausible enough on paper, for
availing themselves of the services of that proverbially sharp class
of men, the experienced clerks in attorney's offices. Among the persons
whose advice was sought on this point, I was the only one who
dissented from the arrangement proposed. I felt certain that the really
experienced clerks intrusted with conducting private investigations
and hunting up lost evidence, were too well paid and too independently
situated in their various offices to care about entering the ranks of
the Detective Police, and submitting themselves to the rigid discipline
of Scotland Yard, and I ventured to predict that the inferior clerks
only, whose discretion was not to be trusted, would prove to be the men
who volunteered for detective employment. My advice was not taken and
the experiment of enlisting the clerks was tried in two or three cases.
I was naturally interested in the result, and in due course of time I
applied for information in the right quarter. In reply, the originals of
the letters of which I am now about to read the copies were sent to me,
with an intimation that the correspondence in this particular instance
offered a fair specimen of the results of the experiment in the other
cases. The letters amused me, and I obtained permission to copy them
before I sent them back. You will now hear, therefore, by his own
statement, how a certain attorney's clerk succeeded in conducting a very
delicate investigation, and how the regular members of the Detective
Police contrived to help him through his first experiment."

BROTHER G