Page:Memoirs of the United States Secret Service.djvu/153



SAM FELKER,—EX-DETECTIVE.

In the tortuous course of duty imposed by the circumstances surrounding their official life, Detectives meet with obstacles which are not conceived of by the public, who hear so little of their actually intricate labors. But among the difficulties these officials encounter, none have proved more obnoxious and disheartening than the studied opposition that is occasionally found in instances where self-constituted, or ex-detectives thrust themselves between discovered criminals and the official operatives—for pay—in the interest of offenders. In our present chapter, we give a brief exemplification of this unfortunate state of things.

The traitorous career of the notorious individual whose name heads this chapter, has been marked by a series of the strangest of developments, indeed.

Under the old regime he was employed for a time in the Secret Service (not under the auspices of Col. Whitley,) and in the course of a brief period he exhibited himself beyond question one of the most finished rascals ever in or 136