The detective had seen on the instant that his old-time friend was disturbed—Joe’s countenance had a gloomy look, totally at variance to the cheerful expression that generally marked it. Of course Eric Darrell wondered to what he owed this visit. Was it brought about by the fact that Joe’s wife had just been seated in the very chair he now threw his long form upon? Since Joe’s marriage he had seen very little of him—their lines ran apart and seldom crossed, yet they had once been pretty good friends. Again the detective closed the door and fastened it against interruption. Whatever the cause of Leslie’s visit, he meant to have a quiet chat with him. If the husband of the pretty lady who had just quitted his office demanded to know why Lillian Leslie had visited him, he would have to confess the truth, but he knew enough to keep a close tongue until the lay of the land was made manifest. Before sitting down himself he took up a box of cigars and offered it to Joe. The other looked at it rather sheepishly and then declined with a wave of the hand. “Ah! sworn off, eh? Something I never expected such an old smoker as you to do; but every man to his taste. Now, old fellow, to what am I indebted for this visit—a desire to talk over old times, or business?” Leslie seemed to swallow a lump in his throat, and playing nervously with the paper-cutter on the desk—which was a dagger taken from a notorious assassin whom Darrell had assisted to the gallows years before, said huskily: “Eric, you are the only man in the world I would come to with domestic troubles. What I am about to confide in you now I do as to a friend. At the same time I ask for your assistance in a professional way.” Then he seemed lost in deep thought for a minute, and was no doubt collecting his energies to speak to the point. As for Eric Darrell, he surveyed the other in deepest surprise. What was coming? Was Joe Leslie deep in the mire, and had he come to have his old friend extricate him? One thing seemed certain—he did not appear to know that his pretty wife had been in this very room less than five minutes before. Believing this, the detective considered it a peculiar freak of fate that these two should visit him on the same day and almost the same hour, each without the knowledge of the other. At length Joe had recruited his energies to equal the occasion. He looked up. The detective was leaning back in his chair and calmly observing him, wreaths of blue white smoke curling up from his Havana. “Eric, you never met my wife?” he said. The other did not by any start betray himself. “That is your fault, old man. You were married in Chicago, and after settling down here you never invited us old bachelors to visit you,” he replied, quietly. “Forgive me. But see, here is her photograph. Take a look at the girl who captured the man who used to laugh at all Benedicts.” Darrell took the picture.