I love this question from one of the tests they made up:
“Define the following: Slander, libel, arson, jury, defendant, alias, accomplice, mutiny, oath, malice, search warrant.”
Mutiny? Doesn’t quite fit with the other words, does it? It sounds like some of the other kids decided that they wanted to take over the T.C.D.A and their coup was put down. Now everyone has to take a loyalty pledge to the bossman.
.High-School Sleuths Run Scientific Detective Agency
By IRWIN KOSTIN
“I WILL always obey my superiors. I will never steal. I will never tell a lie. I will obey all the laws of my country, my state, and my city. I will always respect the Tri-State Detective Agency and protect it.”
Thus runs the “Code of Conduct” of one of the most interesting and unusual organizations on earth, a boys’ detective agency with headquarters in the basement of a West Hartford, Conn., home and branches in various parts of the United States and Canada. Started a few years ago by four schoolboys, led by sixteen-year-old Roy D. Bassette, Jr., the organization now has an amazingly complete scientific crime-detection laboratory, a printing plant, a squad car, and an extensive library of criminological books and magazines. More than eighty-five boy detectives are members of the affiliated agencies.