CHAPTER XVII.
_The Detective._--_His Experience and His Practice._--_A Plan of Detection Perfected._--_The Work is Begun._ The detective occupies a peculiar position in society, and is a prominent actor in many scenes of which the general public can have no knowledge.

In his breast may be locked the secrets of many men who stand in proud pre-eminence before the public, and who are admired and respected for the possession of virtues that are but the cloak with which they hide the baser elements of their dispositions.
The canting hypocrite, whose voice may be loudest in chapel or meeting-house, and whose sanctimonious air and solemn visage will cover the sins of his heart to the general observer, is well known to the detective, who has seen that same face pale with apprehension, and has heard that same voice trembling with the fear of exposure.
That dapper young gentleman, who twirls his moustache and swings his cane so jauntily upon the promenade, is an object of admiration to many; but to the man who knows the secrets of his inner life another scene is opened, and he remembers when this same exquisite walked the cell of a prison--a convict guilty of a crime.
Through all the various grades of society the detective has wended his way, and he has looked into men's hearts when infamy stared them in the face and dishonor impended over them.
His experience has rendered him almost incapable of surprise, or mobility of feeling.

He is ever watchful for the deceptiveness of appearances, ever prepared to admit everything, to explain everything, and to believe nothing--but what he sees.
The judicial officer, with the nicety and legal acumen of a thorough jurist, applies the technicalities of the law to the testimony submitted to him, but the detective observes with caution, and watches with suspicion all the odious combinations and circumstances which the law with all the power at its command cannot successfully reach.
He is made the unwilling, but necessary recipient of disgraceful details; of domestic crimes, and even of tolerated vices with which the law cannot deal.
If, when he entered upon his office, his mind teemed with illusions in regard to humanity, the experience of a year has dissipated them to the winds.
If he does not eventually become skeptical of the whole human race, it is because his experience has shown him that honor and vice may walk side by side without contamination; that virtue and crime may be closely connected, and yet no stain be left upon the white robe of purity, and that while upon the one hand he sees abominations indulged in with impunity, upon the other, he witnesses a sublime generosity which cannot be weakened or crushed.

The modest violet may exhale its fragrance through an overgrowth of noxious weeds--and humanity bears out the simile.
He sees with contempt the proud bearing of the impudent scoundrels who are unjustly receiving public respect, but he sees also with pleasure many heroes in the modest and obscure walks of life, who deserve the rich rewards which they never receive.
He has so often pierced beneath the shining mask of virtue and discovered the distorted visage of vice, that he has almost reached a state of general doubtfulness until results shall demonstrate the correctness of his theories.

He believes in nothing until it is proven--not in absolute evil more than in absolute good, and the results of his teachings have brought him to the conclusion that not men but events alone are worthy of consideration.
A knowledge of human nature is as necessary to him as that he shall have eyes and ears, and this knowledge experience alone can give.
In my eventful career as a detective, extending over a period of thirty years of active practice, my experience has been of such a character as to lead me to pay no attention to the outward appearance of men or things.