Also, he must be sharp to think and act, and full of enterprise.

To keep at the heels of a gentleman who may take a cab, or a street-car, or enter a building by one door for the purpose of leaving it by another, is no simple task; so I brought with me the best in the business." "How did your men come to be outside the door ?" asked Richard, whose curiosity concerning metropolitan detective methods had been sensibly aroused.
"To save delay," returned Inspector Val, "which is the great rule in detective work.

They were within ten feet of us when I met you; they saw us drive away, called a coupe, and followed.

I should have given them a jacketing if they hadn't." Inspector Val asked Richard to slowly translate the note, while he made a copy in English.

This Richard did; at the close, being interested in the workings of the man-hunting mind, he asked Inspector Val for his theory of its truth and origin.
"Why, then," observed Inspector Val, pausing over Richard's translation as he had written it down, "this would be my surmise.