The Amateur | Page 3

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Prepared by Don Lainson
THE AMATEUR

I
It was February off the Banks, and so thick was the weather that, on the
upper decks, one could have driven a sleigh. Inside the smoking-room
Austin Ford, as securely sheltered from the blizzard as though he had
been sitting in front of a wood fire at his club, ordered hot gin for
himself and the ship's doctor. The ship's doctor had gone below on
another "hurry call" from the widow. At the first luncheon on board the
widow had sat on the right of Doctor Sparrow, with Austin Ford facing
her. But since then, except to the doctor, she had been invisible. So, at
frequent intervals, the ill health of the widow had deprived Ford of the
society of the doctor. That it deprived him, also, of the society of the
widow did not concern him. HER life had not been spent upon ocean
liners; she could not remember when state-rooms were named after the
States of the Union. She could not tell him of shipwrecks and salvage,
of smugglers and of the modern pirates who found their victims in the
smoking-room.
Ford was on his way to England to act as the London correspondent of
the New York Republic. For three years on that most sensational of the
New York dailies he had been the star man, the chief muckraker, the
chief sleuth. His interest was in crime. Not in crimes committed in
passion or inspired by drink, but in such offences against law and
society as are perpetrated with nice intelligence. The murderer, the
burglar, the strong-arm men who, in side streets, waylay respectable
citizens did not appeal to him. The man he studied, pursued, and
exposed was the cashier who evolved a new method of covering up his
peculations, the dishonest president of an insurance company, the
confidence man who used no concealed weapon other than his wit.
Toward the criminals he pursued young Ford felt no personal animosity.
He harassed them as he would have shot a hawk killing chickens. Not
because he disliked the hawk, but because the battle was unequal, and
because he felt sorry for the chickens.
Had you called Austin Ford an amateur detective he would have been
greatly annoyed. He argued that his position was similar to that of the
dramatic critic. The dramatic critic warned the public against bad plays;

Ford warned it against bad men. Having done that, he left it to the
public to determine whether the bad man should thrive or perish.
When the managing editor told him of his appointment to London, Ford
had protested that his work lay in New York; that of London and the
English, except as a tourist and sight-seer, he knew nothing.
"That's just why we are sending you," explained the managing editor.
"Our readers are ignorant. To make them read about London you've got
to tell them about themselves in London. They like