By the time they came to the house near Washington Square, Dorothy was all but asleep from exhaustion. The strain, both physical and mental, to which she had been subjected during some time past, and more particularly during the past two days, told quickly now when at last she felt ready to place all dependence on Garrison and give up to much-needed rest.
The meeting of Miss Ellis and Dorothy was but slightly embarrassing to Garrison, when it presently took place. Explaining to the woman of the house that his "wife" desired to stop all night in town, rather than go on to Long Island, while he himself must be absent from the city, he readily procured accommodations without exciting the least suspicion.
Garrison merely waited long enough to make Dorothy promise she would take a rest without delay, and then he went himself to a hotel restaurant, near by in Fifth Avenue, devoured a most substantial meal, and was five minutes late at his office.
Tuttle had not yet appeared. The hall before the door was deserted.
The sign on his glass had been finished.
Garrison went in. There were letters all over the floor, together with Dorothy's duplicate telegram, a number of cards, and some advertising circulars. One of the cards bore the name of one J. P. Wilder, and the legend, "Representing the New York Evening Star." There was nothing, however, in all the stuff that appeared to be important.
Garrison read the various letters hastily, till he came to one from the insurance company, his employers, requesting haste in the matter of the Hardy case, and reminding him that he had reported but once. This he filed away.
Aware at last that more than half an hour had gone, without a sign from his man, he was on the point of going to the door to look out in the hall when Tuttle's shadow fell upon the glass.
"I stayed away a little too long, I know," he said. "I was trying to get a line on old man Robinson, to see if he'd give anything away, but I guess he's got instructions from his son, who's gone away from town."
"Gone away from town?" repeated Garrison. "Where has he gone?"
"I don't know. The old man wouldn't say."