Albatross: Arthur Mace

The assignment to investigate a private investigator isn’t an unusual one. There are some who are above reproach; they have modelled themselves upon Sherlock Holmes, Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot. They work inside the law, help catch the bad guys and have discretion about which cases they accept. Then there are those who don’t. By all appearances, Arthur Mace is one who doesn’t.

I am a little bit more than suspicious about why we are investigating him though. There are plenty of dirty P.I’s operating in the city that we turn a blind eye to, so why is it that we are looking into the activities of this one?

The trail that we have been following through his accounts and dealings with criminal syndicates seems far too simple to me to be accurate. It’s almost unbelievable how obvious the trail is to follow. I am more than convinced that this is a setup, more than that, I am pretty sure that the trial is being set up for me to follow by the two men that I am supposed to be working with.

I am becoming increasingly concerned with Ellis and his obsession with the two daughters of Arthur Mace. From what I have seen they are both in their late teens and he is a man in his early thirties and all the photographs from the file of the two of them have disappeared. The index of the contents of the file states that there should be seven photos of the two girls in there, but I haven’t seen a single one.

When I tried to broach the subject with Rogers, he told me to mind my own business. I have been tempted three times to contact Arthur Mace directly but what I would say to him, I don’t know, and compromising this case would cost me my job. I don’t know what to do except to keep working on the case and try to expose Ellis and Rogers when evidence presents itself.

Albatross: Ellis and Rogers

This is the first time that I had worked with Sergeant Ellis and Detective Rogers. In all honesty, I never want to again. There is something about the two of them that I just don't trust. I couldn't put my finger on it but there is definitely something they are hiding in the course of this investigation. 


Ellis is a man of ill gotten independent means. This is, of course, conjecture. Ellis is too smart to put anything down on paper or to leave a trail to follow, but his natural propensity to flaunt his imagined genius in the face of people he thinks are stupid by comparison does lead him to almost betray himself.


Rogers is a slimy creature, none of his mistakes ever seem to come back to haunt him. He has the terrible ability to avoid taking responsibility and managing to pass it off onto other people. Looking at the files I can see all the careers he has ruined. He stores up information on people, leads them into situations where he is their only way out and then he has them working for him, forever, doing whatever he tells them to and if they try to walk out on him, he reveals everything they have done and none of it leads back to him.


Funny that it should be these two that were in charge of investigating Arthur Mace. Seems to me that someone has a vested interest in seeing Arthur Mace stopped. There seems to be a lot of interest in his daughters as well. Ellis has been assigned to track them, the way he pours over the photos of the two of them really isn't right. 


Working with them has even made me want to leave the police, but there are people like Harry Lee who make me see the good in those around me, people who want to see the streets clean of criminals. It's people like that, that I want to work with, not people like Ellis and Rogers but I don't think I am going to get much of a choice.