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investigation. By the appointment of twelve officers - three inspectors and nine sergeants-
to whom six constables were shortly afterwards added as 'auxiliaries' the Detective branch
was formed, which developed later into a force covering the whole district, and finally
became the 'Criminal Investigation Department".
So Bucket was one of those inspectors. Having arrived at this conclusion we have
reason, (another clue about the time setting), to believe that Bucket was not one of the
earliest inspectors. According to Rumbelow, the detectives were at first very easy to
recognize from the police-trousers and the unglazed top hat they wore. Bucket was not
recognized by Snagsby as a detective, Tulkinghorn had to tell him that, so Bucket entered
the detective-force at a later time and was probably a police-officer before that more
rather than a Bow Street Runner.
We saw that in several ways Bucket possessed the basic attitude of a police officer.
Melville (p.367) gives an explanation of this phenomenon in general. According to him,
the small detective force was at first exclusively recruited from the uniformed branch.
"Beat duty", says Melville, "cannot be held as the best possible training for a career as a
detective, but at least he is not untried to many temptations". A second reason to recruit
people from the police officers ranks is that a good and complete understanding between
the uniform and the plain-clothes policeman can be expected.
On several occasions we see that those reasons worked out well in practice. Whereas
Rumbelow says that the early detectives were easily recognizable from their outfit and
because they were frequently seen talking to men on the beat, Bucket dresses and acts
differently. As we saw, he is dresses in black and, viewed through the eyes of Snagsby,
we notice that whenever Bucket approaches a constable on his beat, he gazes into the
blue and so does the constable. This doesn't happen once, but "now and then". So we may
assume that this gazing/mutual ignoring was instructed behavior, maybe to both approachers.
Furthermore, we can point to the cooperation Bucket meets with when he is searching
for Mrs Dedlock. "Single officers on duty could now tell Mr Bucket what he wanted to
know, and point tot him where to go. At last we stopped for a rather long conversation
between him and one of these men". Not once during this search can we see that Bucket
suffers from lack of cooperation of those police-officers.
4d Bucket, the private detective
A last question remains to be resolved. We have found that Bucket most probably
started his career as a plain officer and that he, when we meet him in Bleak House has
made it to an Inspector of the Detective of the M.P.-force. However, on several occasions
he does combine his inspector/detective status with that of a private detective. The first
time we meet Bucket, he is apparently employed by Tulkinghorn; "I wanted him to hear
the story", explains the lawyer to Snagsby, "because I have half a mind to know more of
it, and he (Bucket) is very intelligent in such things".
