The cross-examination as to his associates, and the motive of the attempted robbery, was absolutely futile.
Phineas Duge kept up during the day the assumption of severe indisposition.

No one was allowed to see him.

A bulletin posted outside announced that he had been ordered complete and entire rest; and all the time the telephone wires from his bedroom, high up in the back of the house, were busy flashing messages east and west, all over the country.
The work in which he had been engaged was zealously pushed home.

No one saw his secretaries coming and going so often from his room, and neither of them was willing to admit, in fact they flatly denied when questioned, that they had seen their chief at all.

Towards afternoon, Virginia returned from a short drive in the park to be told that two gentlemen were waiting to see her.