I smiled in a skeptical way, such as newspapermen are wont to
affect toward a thing until it is done--after which we make a
wild scramble to exploit it.

Nothing more on the subject passed between us for several days.



I. The Silent Bullet

"Detectives in fiction nearly always make a great mistake," said
Kennedy one evening after our first conversation on crime and
science. "They almost invariably antagonize the regular detective
force. Now in real life that's impossible--it's fatal."

"Yes," I agreed, looking up from reading an account of the
failure of a large Wall Street brokerage house, Kerr Parker &
Co., and the peculiar suicide of Kerr Parker. "Yes, it's
impossible, just as it is impossible for the regular detectives
to antagonize the newspapers. Scotland Yard found that out in the
Crippen case."

"My idea of the thing, Jameson," continued Kennedy, "is that the
professor of criminal science ought to work with, not against,
the regular detectives. They're all right. They're indispensable,
of course. Half the secret of success nowadays is organisation.
The professor of criminal science should be merely what the
professor in a technical school often is--a sort of consulting
engineer. For instance, I believe that organisation plus science
would go far toward clearing up that Wall Street case I see you