Another thing that I sensed very clearly at this time was the fact that the average newspaper reporter was a far better detective in his way than the legitimate official detective, and not nearly so well paid. The average so-called “headquarters man,” was a loathsome thing, as low in his ideas and methods as the lowest criminal he was set to trap. The criminal was at least shrewd and dynamic enough to plot and execute a crime, whereas the detective had no brains at all, merely a low kind of cunning. Often red-headed, freckled, with big hands and feet, store clothes, squeaky shoes—why does such a picture of the detective come back to me? Pop-eyed, with a ridiculous air of mystery and profundity in matters requiring neither, dirty, offensive, fish-eyed and merciless, the detectives floundered about in different cases without a grain of humor; whereas the average reporter was, by contrast anyhow, intelligent or shrewd, cleanly nearly always, if at times a little slouchy, inclined to drink and sport perhaps but genial, often gentlemanly, a fascinating story-teller, a keen psychologist (nearly always one of the best), frequently well read, humorous, sympathetic, amusing or gloomy as the case might be, but generally to be relied upon in such emergencies for truly skillful work. Naturally there was some enmity between the two, a contempt on the part of the newspaper man for the detective, a fear and dislike and secret opposition on the part of the detective. The reporter would go forth on a mystifying case and as a rule, given time enough, would solve it, whereas the police detectives would be tramping about often trailing the reporters, reading the newspapers to discover what had been discovered, and then, when the work had been done and the true clew furnished, would step forward at the grand moment to do the arresting and get their pictures and names in the papers. The detectives were constantly playing into the hands of the police reporters in unimportant matters during periods between great cases, doing them little favors, helping them in small cases, in order that when a big case came along they might have favors done unto them. The most important of all these favors, of course, was that of seeing that their names were mentioned in the papers as being engaged in solving a mystery or having done thus and so, when in all likelihood some newspaper man had done it.