Judge — December 31, 1927 — page 22: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

How to Be a Detective By “Old Sleuth” Perelman II If you have ever stayed at the Ritz—and no doubt you never have—you will have ‘noticed a tall, rather good-looking young man with shell spectacles and a strawberry mark on his left fore leg working as a bus-boy in the steam-room. After your shampoo 1 or whatever you went team-room for, go to the n Room of the Waldorf and order chili con carne. You will notice that the head also wears horn-rimmed ch« riter aters. There’s not much connection in this but I thought you might like to know about it; it shows what these foreigners will do to get an education. The big field in detective work right now is in the hotels. The square-jawed man with the derby and that incisive poise whom you see hanging around the aluminum bird-bath in the lobby is the house richard, or “dick.” His name is not really Dick but it is a sort of nick-name they give him. Hotel detective work is the most profit- able form of sleuthing, for the average hotel operative makes $150 in a very short time. But the best part of detecting in a hotel is that you never get caught. In a large metropolitan hotel there are at least twelve hundred people you can blame and the management never thinks of Radio impression of all Italian tenors. The lad who loved the light- house-heeper’s wife. you in connection with the job. Here is a typical incident which will illustrate my point: I was called in by the Algonquin man- agement to help track down a malefactor several years ago. Two valuable towels had been re- moved from Room 829 and the man in 324 had been seen by the chambermaid two days later dry- ing his hands on a towel. The clue was run to earth but the sus- pect proved that he had been using a sheet and that he never used towels. The house detective was at a loss and I was sum- moned. My first step w: nple. As you know, there are two kinds of towels, huck and crash. My first mission was to ase! in what kind of towels they had been. The last occupant of Room 329 had left a week before for Day- ton. I arrived in Dayton and shadowed my man, a newspaper man named Mencken or Floyd or some funny name like that. Sure enough, there were the tell-tale red marks on the back of his neck ; it had been a huck towel, as I sus- pected. I took the fast mail out of Dayton and upon my arrival back to civilization immediately went to the Algonquin and put the house detective through the third degree. He admitted having swiped the towels and pled tem- porary insanity and_listlessness. We split the haul and hushed up the case. This just goes to show. A word of caution is necessary at this point. Never under any circumstances ,should a detective There fine for carrying con pons and any man who has to carry a knife or bow and arrow should be ashamed of him self. If you must carry thing, carry a handkerchief or a string of beads or even a compact. A shiny nose and piebald) skin have ruined more detectives soci- ally than anything I know, and if you don’t observe the social code you will find yourself eating with the upstairs girl or the fourth gardener in the servants’ wing. parting word as to disguises: Black glasses conceal one's iden- tity very effectively, especially when a long black beard is worn with them, Old-time fly cops still carry green cotton umbrellas and a book, but since it is well known that detectives cannot read, the disguise is obvious. Remember, there are other ways of catching flies besides putting salt on their tails, and anyway, a good detec- tive has no flies on him. Is a strawberry rash? I think soand I'll tell you why next we A prize in every package, gents; lady in Row B gets a pair of tin dress-shields! Don’t miss this wonder offer! ry concealed weapons. heavy cealed w some- The “Sir Tumbling Fine- bergs” manage to keep warm if dhere’t ong heal in: the rae diator at all. comicbooks.com