Why Not More Women Detectives ?

Taranaki Daily News, 18 August 1934, Page 15 (Supplement)

Why Not More Women Detectives ?

“RIDICULOUSLY EASY FOR A WOMAN TO DECEIVE MEN SLEUTHS”

ASA MEMBER of a certain famclub • whose proceedings are always private, I learn a lot. about crime in real life,: Almost the . only books I read for relaxation are detective stories. Yet in real life, and in that mirror of life which is fiction, I have very seldom been able, to discover a female sleuth (writes Gilbert Frankau, the author, ‘ in the “Daily Mail”). . " ' Last year for the first time women —three members of the. women police—were appointed to the Criminal Investigation Department of Scotland Yard. Now this is a very curious circumstance.; More especially if you consider that we have had a female police force for many years past—and that two of the. best living exponents of the detective, story are women.

In real life, nevertheless, .when we; have to solve a mystery, we still almost invariably rely on a . completely trousered C.1.D., while in fiqtion we turn to Sherlock Holmes, to Monsieur Poirot, to Lord Peter Wimsey, Mr Ellery Queen./Mr. Philo Vance, or Mr Fortune —my latest favourite in the sleuth-hound race. So far, indeed, I have discovered only one story in which a woman solves the murder problem—though dozens in which a woman either instigates the murder or commits it herself.

And this in itself constitutes for me a mystery. Because in my estimation every woman is a natural detective —and that almost from the day she is born. With her, curiosity, at least, is instinctive. And. without that instinct every detective must fail.

Fiction apart, the average work of crime detection is a routine affair. Most criminals are habitual criminals—and not very intelligent ones, either. Very few habitual lawbreakers, moreover, go outside their own particular line. Pickpockets pick pockets. Burglars burgle. Forgers forge. Safebreakers break open safes. Smash-and-grab raiders smash and , grab. Scotland Yard, therefore tabulates them—and even associates with them when they are not receiving his Majesty’s hospitality. So that in nine cases out of 10 suspicion narrows itself to a very limited group.

Suspicion aroused, there follows the procuring of evidence. But there, also, no very great effort of the imagination or the intuition is required. Routine and system, sciences such as that of finger-printing or microphotography, exhaustive inquiries, remorselessly conducted, are the main need. *'■ ’

It is only in the exceptional case, in the case where real life approaches the extravagance of the. fiction writer, that exceptional qualities —the sixth sense of pure logic so dear to the crime novelist —are required at all. It is, however, precisely in such cases that a woman detective might shine.

For to say that the average woman is riot a logical animal is. to prove, oneself even more ignorant about her than the average British husband. While not even the least imaginative British husband can deny that when it comes to that sixth sense which is intuition, she can give him 90 guesses in a 100—and still win. ■ ’ - ■' ‘ ' Your lady secretary, Mr Average Business Man, is a very much better judge of your customers* characters than you are. Your wife a very much better judge of your acquaintances’ characters— especially, if they be female acquaintances. Her sixth sense finds out more about them in 10 minutes than you will in a year. And the reverse applies. Thus when it comes to the concealment , of character, to the hiding of a motive, or to the telling of an untruth (however harmless), I would back your lady secretary, or your wife, or your daughter, or any other female of your acquaintance to pull the wool over your eyes a thousand times for every once you could pull it over .hers. ’ ' It is so ridiculously easy for a woman to deceive a man that ’ the average woman does it with no mental effort at all. If she once sets her mind to deception, even Scotland Yard can throw in its hand. But set another woman to unravel that deception, to unmask the villainess, and no power on earth will keep her long from the truth. In such cases a woman detective

would be invaluable. And'since’her intuition very rarely fails to penetrate the mask of' the male hypocrite either, why should her work stop there? ' " ' The examination of suspects, is a very important part of•’ all police work. If dn averagely intellige:!', woman attended, preferably in concealment, all such examinations I am convinced that; not even the New York police would need to use the Third' Degree. For although science has already produced an elementary lie-detector —and a very uncanny machine it is. as I myself know by personal experience—the finest lie-detector yet created is the average female mind. 'lt is woman’s caipacity for minute observation of purely material matters which could make her so valuable in the elucidation of crime. Woman, by' her very nature, and by the very .employments (mainly domestic) which she has had to practise through. so many centuries, is more aware of, more concentrated on, detail than man is. She notices and remembers daily hundreds of little things that the average man either fails to notice or forgets. Ask her to describe a play she has seen; ask her to describe the people at a party she has attended; ask her for any minute description of any scene she has witnessed —and you -.‘will realise the truth of this at once. In the detection of all crime—any real, as apart from any fictional, detective will tell you— it is nearly always the 'observation of minutiae that eventually brings the criminal, to justice. Even your least intelligent burglar . knows enough nowadays not to leave footprints or fingerprints. But not even in fiction can your master-criminal operate without leaving some clue.