What does he mean by that, Hugh?
I've seen it mentioned in the papers lots of times." "I believe in cities like New York some of the detectives act roughly with a suspected prisoner, and scare them into saying things.

But a clever head of police once on a time had a smarter way of getting a confession than by rough-house tactics." "Yes?
Tell me about it then," pleaded Thad.
"When he had reason to believe several members of a gang were implicated in a robbery, or other crime, he would have the weakest arrested, and brought into his presence.

Then, while the man sat there nervously waiting for the dreaded ordeal of an interview and looking out of a window, he would see one of his fellow gangsters taken past in charge of several plain clothes men.

Of course that would give him a shock, and when the Chief turned and told him the other fellow had already promised to make a confession in order to save himself, the prisoner nearly always broke down, and told everything to get in ahead." "Well, the last I saw of Chief Wambold," continued Thad, "he was starting out to interview Deacon Winslow.

You see, he believes the old blacksmith must have meant ten-fifteen instead of eleven.