The Nether Side of New York

Private Detectives

by Edward Crapsey

I.

Broadway is a street of marvels and mysteries, where all tricks of trade have place and the last resorts of scheming knavery are found. These are of many kinds, of which some have mounted to the decrepitude of lofts, while others are lodged in the dignity and prosperity of second floors. One of these latter is situated in the commercial heart of the city. It is a Private Detective office. 

The visitor going up the broad stairs finds himself in a large room, which is plainly the main office of the concern. There is a desk with the authoritative hedge of an iron railing, behind which sits a furrowed man who looks like an animated corkscrew, and who, the inquiring visitor soon discovers, can’t speak above a whisper, or at least don’t. This mysterious person is always mistaken for the chief of the establishment; but in fact, he is nothing but the “Secretary,” and holds his place by reason of a marvellous capacity for drawing people out of themselves. A mystery, he is surrounded with mysteries. The doors upon his right and left — one of which is occasionally opened just far enough to permit a very diminutive call-boy to be squeezed through — seem to lead to unexplored regions. But stranger than even the clerk or the undefined but yet perfectly tangible weirdness of the doors is the tinkling of a sepulchral bell and the responsive tramp of a heavy-heeled boot. And strangest of all is a huge blackboard whereon are marked with the… Read More