The detective was a little proud of his collection, as well as the Rogue’s Gallery over the desk, where some hundreds of faces were represented, many extremely brutal and some good-looking, while the pictures of women were not infrequent.
“My clerk is out this afternoon, madam—we are quite alone, so that you may speak without any fear of being overheard,” he said, as he took a chair, and sat down facing his unknown client.
“I am glad of that, Mr. Darrell, for what I have to say to you must be kept a dead secret.”
The detective was more than ever convinced that he had to deal with a young woman—her figure was exceedingly pleasing, and her voice a sympathetic one.
“Madam, I am daily entrusted with secrets by all manner of persons. You can rely upon it that anything you tell me in confidence will be as safe as though whispered in the ear of a father confessor. That is my business—we detectives rival the family doctors in being made the repository of secrets.”
This was well put and quite reassuring, as he had intended it should be.
The lady must have confidence in him now.
“Mr. Darrell, I want your assistance in a little domestic matter. I am a young married woman—have been married a year, and my husband is a man you would call one in a thousand—a truthful, honorable gentleman, a favorite with every one he knows.
“I love him deeply, esteem his noble qualities, and believe we could be happy through life, but there is a canker sore eating my heart—Joe has a secret, a terrible secret, and the knowledge of it is making me miserable.”
She seemed a little overcome, and Darrell waited; meantime he grimly thought to himself how many Joes here in this wicked city of New York kept terrible secrets from their wives—yes, and the boot was on the other leg too.