More quick work! The amateur's method had been very simple.

He knew that the loan had been made and the bonds sent to the bank.

So he forged a check, certified it himself, and collected the securities.

Of course, he was a bungler and took a hundred rash chances.
A good example of the value of the accumulated information--documentary, pictorial, and otherwise--in the possession of an agency was the capture of Charles Wells, more generally known as Charles Fisher, alias Henry Conrad, an old-time forger, who suddenly resumed his activities after being released from a six-year term in England.

A New York City bank had paid on a bogus two hundred and fifty dollar check and had reported its loss to the agency in question.