Secret Service; or, Recollections of a City Detective. Andrew Forrester

have done my duty,” said the officer, in an apologetic tone, glancing at the door, as if desirous of withdrawing.

      “You may leave,” said Mr. Delmar.

      I draw a veil over the scene which followed. It is enough, at all events, the reader should know that Mr. Delmar read the document to his wife, explained its exact purport, and craved her assistance in penetrating the mystery. He had no occasion to ask her whether she believed him guilty of the offence attributed to him. She volunteered an assurance of her belief in its untruthfulness. She felt and declared that it was the result of some awful mistake of personal identity, or some most foul conspiracy.

      It would be incorrect to say that the interchange of confidence did not leave a painful sense of the possible consequences of this mysterious incident; yet it may be affirmed that the event did not estrange a particle of that woman’s love, nor for a moment excite in her breast one flimsy or evanescent doubt of the fidelity of her husband.

      The unfortunate man who was thus called upon to defend himself against a charge of which he was no more guilty than my reader is, went to his lawyer, who said he could not make it out. This gentleman, Mr. Drawly, was at a loss to determine whether his client was fool enough to be deceiving him, or whether he was the victim of what Mrs. Delmar had called a foul conspiracy, or whether an artfully planned scheme of extortion had been practised against him.

      I was now consulted. I should have liked to have been intrusted with full personal discretion, so that I might have investigated the mystery in my own way. I think I might have more easily cleared it up, if I had not been embarrassed by the definiteness of my instructions. I was, however, told to inquire, in the first place, whether Selina Wilkins had employed any solicitor, and if so, to put myself in communication with him. I was told to use my best skill in tracing what I could; at the same time, if the professional man on the other side were a man of reputation, to deal frankly with him. I was to explain the position in life and the character of the defendant, and urge the improbability of his having committed any such offence against domestic propriety as that he was charged with; and I was told to endeavour to get the affair cleared up or settled without scandal or notoriety.

      I did as I was requested. My habit, when my instructions from solicitors were definite, was to follow them implicitly. This commonly saved me much trouble, and when the result was not unsatisfactory I liked that course all the better; but sometimes the plan a little tantalised and vexed me, because I conceived that through it I missed my aim, and did not obtain the credit by success I might otherwise have done.

      In this case I ascertained that the young woman had, on the recommendation of her former master and mistress, employed a solicitor, who stood very high among the lawyers in that part of the country where he dwelt. He received me courteously, and expressed his willingness to tell me all about the case. He, however, insisted that the defendant must be a wily rascal, a consummate hypocrite, a mean-spirited fellow, &c. &c. He told me there could not be the shadow or shade of a doubt about the case; and he entered into the matter in the spirit of a partisan imbued with the righteousness of the side he was engaged to fight on.

      As to the identity of the person, he thought any defence on that head must break down; for he had obtained, through his agents in London, a description of Mr. Delmar, which corresponded exactly to the description given him by his “unfortunate client.” It is true that the poor girl had not, he said, seen the fellow since her misfortune, because she had not the money to pay visits to London; nor, indeed, was her strength sufficient to enable her to make that journey and back without peril to her life. Grief and shame and bitter mortification had held her tongue until the last possible moment; and it was only when material evidence of her wrong-doing became palpable to her mistress, that she admitted the injury which had been done her. “Why, sir,” observed the provincial lawyer, “even after the poor girl’s condition had been ascertained, she refused to tell who was the author of her misery, and clung to the foolish belief that, as he was a perfect gentleman, he would one day redeem his promise by making her his wife. The way it was found out, sir, was this. She went home to be confined. Her mother one night searched her little portmonnaie, and there found the blackguard’s card. So her friends ascertained his name and address.”