The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1884-03-01
How ..shadows" Work.

ing about detective work salu man hIIeu
to shadow party, or a shadow, as we call
him, gets about 81 day and expenses and
is paid for the time he works. A shadow
is expected to watch man from the time
he gets up in the morning till he goes to
bed. If it happens to be party who
must he Swallowed night and day, it re-
ouires two men to watch him. A shadow
must watch his man closely without him
self being seen or allowing the party to find
out that he is being Swallowed. L meet
the shadow, for instance, and tell him he
must keep his eyes on certain man whom
I will designate by brushing on the shout
der with my handkerchief. Then / enter
place and as the man comes out pretend
to see a bug on his shoulder and brush 1t
off. Then l go away, knowing that until
| give the word that man will never be out
of the sight of my shadow. The shadow
takes him to dinner and back to his place
of business. Then to supper and then
down town in the evening. Then it is that
his hardest work begins. He may have to
suddenly hire hack at big expense and
lOllOW Tie HAL Oub Ou oOiAC
petition. He finally takes him home at
night, secures cover and catches little
sleep himself. The securing of a cover is
sometimes the most difficult part of the
work, for the young man may live In an
aristocratic locality where there are no rooms
for rent. | have known our man Boland
to sleep night after night in coal bunk on
the street when it was nipping cold. There
are in New York certain banks and large
corporations which every year along about
the holidays have each one Of their men
Swallowed about week. At the end Of a
week full report of mans habits, haunts,
style of living, and even of his weeks ex-
penses is given his employer. The most
extensive job of shadowing l have known
was that which resulted in the arrest of
Kindt, the man who robbed the Brooklyn
watch company of $4,000 worth of gold
watch cases, dividing up with man who
aided him. When one Of our men was
taken through the watch company's works
he pointed out Kindt, to the assistant super
intendent, as the man who, in his opinion,
had done the job. He had been told that
Kindt was a splendid mechanic Of wonder
full ingenuity. Kindts employers, for
whom he had worked long time, would
not at first listen to the theory of his guilt,
but they finally consented to allow him to
be Swallowed. He lived in small rooms on
the fourth floor of tenement house, where
he had little shop of his own. 1t was
weeks before anything was discovered. He
had wife and she was sharper than the
average detective. At length he was seen
one night to board street car and ride
away out in thinly settled portion of New
York. When he left the front end of the
car the shadow left the rear platform and
fell out of sight into ditch in Il vacant
lot. He lay concealed until the suspicious
Kindt, after looking cautiously about him,
had entered the basement of u new house.
He remained there half an hour and then
returned home At last we had gotten
clue We searched the court house records
and found that he owned the new house
that the shadow had seen him enter, and
that, although poor man on asmall salary,
he was building another. Then we shadow
ed his wife, and followed her one day to
the United States mint, where she took a
$4,000 nugget of gold to be coined. 1t had
been buried in the sand, and it was proba-
bly, to bury or get this nugget that Kindt
entered his new house that night We
could learn nothing more, and one of our
men entered the watch factory as work
man under Kindt. He was compelled to
work at breaking up mortars, which are
treated to get from them the gold that in
almost invisible specks attaches itself to
them He finally worked himself into the
confidence of Kindt, who proposed to him
a scheme to rob the safe the second time.
Kindt secured pair of powerful glasses
and placed them where he could command
a view of the safe. He hung his coat over
them when the men were in the shop. He
came before the other employees did, and
with his eye at the powerful glasses set in
the partition, saw each letter of the combi-
nation us the only member of the firm who
knew it unlocked the safe. He marked
these down on board, and had gotten all
the combination, save one figure, when he
was arrested. He refused to tell where
the rest of the gold was secreted, and the
officers were about to leave his rooms after
fruitless search, when one Of them CHANGED
to step ON Il window ledge which tipped up
and revealed beneath it $4,000 nugget of
gold and many dollars worth Of gold filings
and scraps Kindt was sent to states pris-
on for ten years His wonderful mechan-
iscal abilities stood him in good stead even
there. Heinvented patent lock by which
line of cells could be locked with the