THE LIMOUSINE came to a glistening stop before an office building in Monroe Street, and a handsome woman of thirty, expensively and stylishly gowned, emerged from the car and entered the building, her mien bespeaking nervousness.
Furtively, as one who fears pursuit, she hastened across the marble rotunda, edged hurriedly into an elevator and ascended to the ninth floor, where she approached a door bearing upon its opaque glass panel the gilt lettering:
BARRY DETECTIVE AGENCY
She paused here for a moment, in an effort to recover her equanimity; and then, with a brave assumption of self-assurance, she opened the door and entered the room and closed the door behind her.
The room was quite deserted; but promptly from an adjoining chamber there came a lean-faced young man of inquiring blue eyes, who courteously greeted her.
"Is Mr. Barry in?" she asked. "Mr. Herbert Barry?"
"I am Herbert Barry," he said.
"Oh!" Surprised, she eyed the slim young man half incredulously. He seemed scarcely more than a boy. "Mrs. Franklin Parker told me about you—recommended you very highly. Perhaps that is why," she added, with a smile, "I expected to find an older man. . . . I suppose most of the people who come to see you are in trouble of some sort. I am not in trouble, exactly, but—" She glanced around the office. "May I have a word with you in privacy?"
