Who could have told that before many months had rolled away, that old man would have been brutally beaten to death, and that the bright-faced young man who sued for his favor would be sitting in a lonely cell under the dreadful charge of committing the foul deed!
Perhaps could either have glanced with prophetic vision into the future, their paths, by mutual consent, would have widely diverged, and their intimacy have ceased forever on that August afternoon.
THE DETECTION.
The Detective.—His Experience and His Practice.—A Plan of Detection Perfected.—The Work is Begun.
The detective occupies a peculiar position in society, and is a prominent actor in many scenes of which the general public can have no knowledge. In his breast may be locked the secrets of many men who stand in proud pre-eminence before the public, and who are admired and respected for the possession of virtues that are but the cloak with which they hide the baser elements of their dispositions.
The canting hypocrite, whose voice may be loudest in chapel or meeting-house, and whose sanctimonious air and solemn visage will cover the sins of his heart to the general observer, is well known to the detective, who has seen that same face pale with apprehension, and has heard that same voice trembling with the fear of exposure.
That dapper young gentleman, who twirls his moustache and swings his cane so jauntily upon the promenade, is an object of admiration to many; but to the man who knows the secrets of his inner life another scene is opened, and he remembers when this same exquisite walked the cell of a prison—a convict guilty of a crime.
Through all the various grades of society the detective has wended his way, and he has looked into men's hearts when infamy stared them in the face and dishonor impended over them.