“I fear I am not a good conspirator, Phoebe; though you, I admit, seem qualified to be one. But what may two weak, inexperienced girls do, where a powerful banker and a clever lawyer fail?”
“We can do lots,” asserted Phoebe. “I can’t say just what, until I’ve thought it over; but oughtn’t the right to triumph, Cousin Judith!”
“It ought to, Phoebe, but I fear the right is sometimes smothered in false evidence.”
“It mustn’t be this time,” declared the girl. “We must try to save Toby. You think it over carefully, Cousin, and so will I, and perhaps one or the other of us will evolve an idea.”
Judith agreed to this, but added:
“I’ll not be an active conspirator, dear, but the conspirator’s assistant. I’ll help all I can, but I fear my talent for penetrating mysteries is not so well developed as your own.”
Phoebe went to her own room and sat down at her desk to think. She realized that she could not expect much energetic assistance from Cousin Judith and that whatever was accomplished she must undertake single-handed.
“I wish Phil was here,” she reflected, referring to her twin brother; “he’d know just how to tackle this problem.”
As a matter of fact Phoebe was far more resourceful than Phil, who had always come to his sister for advice in every difficulty. But she did not realize this.
“I wonder why Mr. Holbrook refused to have a detective?” she mused. “Was he so sure of his own ability to unravel the mystery, or—was he afraid?”