“The person,” continued Keene, with a curious twinkle in his eyes, “is a young lady--one of whom you are very fond, and who regards you as a very dear friend. She is young, and, I should say, was quite recently married; but her husband is not a clever man, nor one of much ability, and is most likely----” “Hold, hold! You will next be telling me what sort of a woman my grandmother was!” cried the attorney, who, in truth, was amazed at the acumen of the young detective. “How on earth did you guess these facts?” “They are facts, then?” “Precisely.” “I do not guess them,” Keene laughed lightly. “They are apparent through a very simple process of deduction.” “Will you tell me how?” “Certainly! That the person you suspect may be guilty, is not the same person you fear may be implicated, is at once suggested by your haste in procuring the aid of a special detective. If the guilty one were likely to be involved, you would have at first examined the case more calmly.” “That is true enough,” laughed the attorney. “But why do you infer my interest to be in a lady?” “If it were a man, you would be less anxious to relieve him of what you fear may be a distressing situation. Men can face such things more easily than women,” added Keene significantly. “Moreover, that you take this very active interest indicates both that you are fond of her and that you know that she will expect you to do it, which indicates, in turn, that she relies upon you. This suggests inexperience, hence she probably is young. So serious a crime as murder very rarely involves a young single girl, however; hence she very likely has been recently married. But her husband is not a clever man, capable of handling so serious a situation, or you would have left this matter to him rather than plunging into it so hurriedly.” “Dear me! You should have been a lawyer. I cannot but admire----” “Ah, but we waste time, Mr. French,” said Keene, quietly checking the lawyer’s expressions of approval. “What I wish to avoid, sir, are the very suspicions by which you are actuated, and under which you are laboring. I do not want to know whom you suspect, nor why. These things only tend to draw a detective from the straight line of true detective work. I want only the bare facts, from which, and from my own observations of the evidence in the case, I may make unbiased deductions. This is the only reliable method of detective work. With a half dozen visionary motives suggested to him, a detective becomes a weather vane. Who is this man Moore, sir?” “He has been a client of mine for many years--more than twenty, I should say. He is a man of some considerable means, with an old country house out here a dozen miles or so.” “A married man?”