[3.5] Building the Baker Street Irregulars, or, Group Contacts in general

[Kalaska'Agathas]

I was thinking about how I'd build Sherlock Holmes, or a Sherlock type character, and I've come to a problem: I'm not sure the followers granted by Leadership would quite cover what I'd want to do with the Baker Street Irregulars. This got me to thinking - if I were building something like the Assassin Order from Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, Followers definitely wouldn't cover it. You really couldn't effectively send them into combat against CR appropriate targets (even those who would be total pushovers to you), as most of them are first level. So, I was wondering, how do you improve your Followers?

[Seharvepernfan]

The BSI would be contacts as from Unearthed Arcana, or else just paid hirelings.

[Kalaska'Agathas]

The BSI would be contacts as from Unearthed Arcana, or else just paid hirelings.

The Contacts system is interesting, but I was hoping for something rather more that 'paid hirelings'. I'm looking for my character to have followers who would be safe to deal with sentries, create a distraction, or do some smuggling or spying.

So, are there any other options I should look into?