He believed Joe to be an unmitigated scoundrel to treat his young and pretty wife in this way—for the detective had already decided this question and believed the owner of this voice and figure must also be handsome.
So he began to dig for facts, a little ruthlessly perhaps, because it was business.
Your professor of anatomy does not waste time when getting down to a certain nerve or muscle which he wishes to expose to his class—the knife is applied without stint.
So the detective asked questions in order to expose as much of the game as possible. “You have no hint of the truth, madam?”
“None.”
“Before marriage, was your husband a man of the world?”
“He was always steady and quiet. I have never heard that my Joe ever had an entangling alliance before we were married.”
Even this did not reassure Darrell—he was a little skeptical with regard to such a man, being inclined to reflect that still water runs deep.
His daily business brought him in contact with so much of the evil of life that he had a rather poor opinion of mankind in general—though ready to bow before woman’s goodness, even after having had experience with numerous confidence women and others, who were more difficult to manage than male criminals.
For instance, here was a case in point—a confiding, loving wife—a cruel, deceiving husband.