Explore "The Diamond Master" by Jacques Futrelle on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Some years ago a famous head of the police department clearly demonstrated the superiority of a knock-out blow, frequently administered, as against moral suasion, and from that moment the "third degree" became an institution. Whatever sort of criticism may be made of the "third degree," it is, nevertheless, amazingly effective, and beyond that, affords infinite satisfaction to the administrator. There is a certain vicious delight in brutally smashing a sullen, helpless prisoner in the face; and the "third degree" is not officially in existence.
Red Haney was submitted to the "third degree. " His argument that he found the diamonds, and that having found them they were his until the proper owner appeared, was futile. Ten minutes after having passed into a room where sat Chief Arkwright, of the Mulberry Street force, and three of his men, and Steven Birnes, of the Birnes Detective Agency, Haney remembered that he hadn't found the diamonds at all -- somebody had given them to him.