Out of Death's Shadow; Or, A Case Without a Precedent — Inside the Classic

A MAN WITHOUT A SECRET.

On the shady veranda of an old-fashioned Southern house, on the outskirts of St. Louis, two men in the prime of life were enjoying their cigars one fine morning.

One, the younger, with a fair, full face and honest, gray eyes, after a long period of silence, said:

"To-morrow will decide her fate, Nick. You have worked up a strong case against her, but I am afraid of the jury."

"The jury is all right. We have seen to that, John. Conviction is certain. It has been an easy case for me."

The woman to whose trial reference had been made had killed her husband, but the deed had not been witnessed, and it was due to Nick Carter's efforts that a complete case for the prosecution had been made out.

"Murder is a secret of such awful weight," said Nick, "that there are few men, to say nothing of women, who are able successfully to carry it."

"It will out some time or other, eh?"

"In the majority of cases, yes. Of course, there are instances where the crime of taking human life has remained an unsolved and seemingly insoluble mystery, but such instances have, in my opinion, resulted either through a chain of accidents, impossible to foresee, or through the negligence or inefficiency of the officers of the law, whose duty it was to use all possible skill and diligence in arriving at the facts. In this woman's case we have, I think, exercised all necessary skill and diligence. To-morrow the end will come, and the next day I shall be on my way to New York."

"You have been here but a week, Nick, and yet I feel as if I had known you a lifetime. When you introduced yourself as an old friend of my mother, I knew in a moment that I had myself found a friend, and one after my own heart."

The young fellow's earnestness and feeling warmed the cockles of the great detective's heart. He liked John Dashwood and he took no pains to conceal the fact. A portly, well-groomed man of sixty, with a self-satisfied smile on his keen, smoothly shaven face, who had come out of the house and approached unperceived, now broke in with the remark:

"I'll bet it's a secret you are discussing."

"What makes you think so?" asked John Dashwood quickly.

"The expression of your face. There is certainly something about the position of your lips, your eyes are slightly narrowed, your head is bowed in a suspicious manner, your----"

"Might we not have been exchanging simple confidences?" put in Nick, with a smile.

"Possibly. But confidences are secrets, you know."

The speaker leaned against the railing in front of the two friends and regarded them benignly.

"We were not discussing secrets," said Dashwood, as he threw back his head, though his manner was pleasant enough.

"No? Then you should have been, for all of us have our secrets."

Dashwood shook his head. "You must except me, Mr. Leonard," he said.

"What? A man without a secret? Come, now, Dashwood, you must be joking. I don't assume, of course, that any secret you may have hidden in your breast is of a shady nature, but to say that your mind is an open book, that during your twenty-six years of life--twenty-six or twenty-seven, which is it?"

"That during your twenty-six years of life you have never had any experience which, for honorable reasons, you have thought best to keep to yourself, or have never been the recipient of another's secret, equally honorable, but not proper for publication, is to stamp you as an exceptional man."

"I am an exceptional man, then, for really I haven't any secrets. But as for Mr. Carter, here," turning and nodding in his friend's direction, "he is nothing less than a walking mystery. He has to be, you know, for he is a detective."

Mr. Leonard looked keenly at Nick Carter.

"How is it?" he asked, in a bantering tone. "Are you as Dashwood says, or is he mistaken, and are you to be placed with him in the category of unfledged innocents? Come now, out with the truth. Are you a man with a corroding secret, or are you not?"

"There are some matters of no concern to the general public," replied Nick, rather coldly, "which I have found advisable to keep to myself. But"--with a smile--"they are honest ones, I assure you."

"Would your enemies think so if they knew them?" queried Leonard provokingly.

"My enemies give me little concern."

"Neither do mine, for I have none," said John Dashwood proudly.