"Good! Now, we're going somewhere. There are very few people who have no skeletons in their closets."
The hand of the employer came up with fastidious distaste. "Let this be understood from the beginning, Mr. Hagan, I have no wish to hear anything but reports of results obtained. In the details of your work I have not the slightest interest."
Mr. Hagan nodded, and inquired, "Is it with a view to criminal prosecution, now, that this case is to be worked or—?" He paused interrogatively.
"It is not. It is only necessary to convince a young lady, whose family disapproves of the man, that their suspicions are based on fact. She is so prejudiced in his favor, however, that the facts must be substantial—and of a character calculated to weigh with a woman."
Hagan drew a cigar-case from his pocket, and proffered it, but his offer being declined with a cold shake of the head, he settled himself as comfortably as possible in his uncomfortable chair and engaged in reflection. After digesting the preliminaries, he began to speak musingly, as though to himself.
"Of course if the lady knew that detectives were working on the case, the force of any disclosure would be discounted."
His eyes were on his employer as he spoke and he saw Tollman start. Tollman's words, too, came with an impulsiveness which had been absent heretofore.
"Neither of them must know, of course, that this investigation is being made. Unless you can assure me on that point you mustn't undertake the business."
With some difficulty the detective repressed a smile. "That goes without saying, Mr. Tollman. Now if it could be shown that this man was mixed up in some sort of a scandal—with a married woman, or a shady one, for instance—that ought to fit the case, oughtn't it?"
"Precisely." Again Tollman's voice was tinged with an unaccustomed quickness of interest, but at once, as though he had made a mistake, he amended with a heavy gravity, "However, we can hardly forecast what you will learn. I understand that he has directed his mail forwarded to an apartment hotel near Washington Square in New York."