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Additional Transcriber’s Notes are at the end.
In which he lays down some valuable and sensible rules for beginners, and also relates some adventures and experiences of well known detectives.
NEW YORK: FRANK TOUSEY, Publisher, 24 UNION SQUARE.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1902, by
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington, D. C.
INTRODUCTORY. OLD KING BRADY TELLS WHY HE WROTE THE BOOK.
Some of my friends will no doubt wonder why I should leave the beaten track and contrary to the course I have always adopted of furnishing notes to my friend, the New York detective, write a book myself.
The fact of the matter is the number of boys who love to read my adventures has grown to be so numerous--it is away up in the hundreds of thousands Mr. Tousey tells me--that their wishes have got to be respected.
For several years they have been asking for instructions from me which will transform them from school-boys into full-fledged detectives, as though touched by a magician’s wand.
But there are many who would like to become detectives if they could, and are willing to take time to learn the business, which, believe me, has to be learned like everything else.
Of course there may be some “smart Alecks” who have picked up the business--doubtless there are--but like extra smart people in other lines they do not often make it a success.
Therefore I say that to give a series of rules which, if followed, will make a boy a detective, would only be to make a fool of myself and my pupils too.
In our business no two situations are ever alike; the case you are working on to-day is totally different from the case of to-morrow, and the case of next week different again from either, and so it goes.
What I propose to do, therefore, is to tell how I made one boy--no, two--detectives. Let their experiences serve for others to go by.
First, however, let me give a list of the particular qualities and attainments necessary to make a good detective, and say also a few words on the different kinds of detectives--the good and the bad.