Believing that the forger had at last been caught, the precinct detectives later on, during the evening of Parker’s arrest, visited no West Thirty-eighth Street, and on inquiring for “Mrs. Parker,” were introduced to a young girl of attractive appearance to whom they delivered their unwelcome message.  Mrs. Parker seemed overwhelmed at the news and strongly asserted her confidence in her husband’s innocence of any wrong-doing.  Having performed their errand the officers departed.

A certain ineradicable jealousy has always existed between the plain-clothes men of the various precincts and the sleuths attached to the Central Office, and in this instance the precinct men, having gained the credit for the arrest, it did not occur to them as necessary to communicate the knowledge of their acquaintance with Mrs. Parker to Detective Sergeants Peabody and Clark, originally assigned at Headquarters to investigate the case.

It seemed, however, to Peabody very unlikely that Parker had conducted his operations alone, and he therefore at once inquired at the Tombs what character of visitors came to see the prisoner.  The gateman replied that as yet none had arrived.  At that very instant a young girl stepped to the wicket and asked if she could be allowed to see Mr. James Parker.  It took the detective but a moment to run across to the Criminal Courts Building and to telephone the warden to detain her temporarily and then to refuse her request.  Five minutes later the girl emerged disconsolately from the Tombs and boarded a car going uptown.  Peabody followed her to 110 West Thirty-eighth Street, not for an instant supposing that the girl herself could be the forger, but believing that possibly through her he might learn of other members of the gang and secure additional evidence against Parker himself.

Of course, no intelligent person to-day supposes that, outside of Sir Conan Doyle’s interesting novels, detectives seek the baffling criminal by means of analyzing cigar butts, magnifying thumb marks or specializing in the various perfumes in favor among the fair sex, or by any of those complicated, brain fatiguing processes of ratiocination indulged in by our old friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes.  There are still, however, genuine detectives, and some of them are to be found upon the New York police force.  The magnifying glass is not one of the ordinary tools of the professional sleuth, and if he carries a pistol at all it is because the police rules require it, while those cases may be numbered upon the fingers of two hands where his own hair and whiskers are not entirely sufficient for his purposes in the course of his professional career.