Beard, the confidential secretary, had taken possession of his employer's office, and to all inquiries regarding Whitmore's absence, made the same reply:
"He is gone indefinitely on a business trip."
Not even the persistent Collins was able to elicit anything additional. No further information was vouchsafed Mrs. Collins, who had taken up her abode with her brother; the financially troubled Ward, desperately fighting off ruin, could learn nothing from the silent, inscrutable Beard.
Then, one morning, unostentatiously as he had disappeared, Whitmore returned to his office. He wore a new spring coat, a new soft hat, new gloves and shoes, an unfamiliar brown tie against a striped shirt-bosom, as if he had just stepped out of a haberdasher's shop.
Down the long aisle, between the two rows of desks he passed, nodding with that air of pleasant kindliness that had endeared him to his hundreds of employés.
"Good morning, Mr. Whitmore—glad to see you back!" was fired at him with respectful familiarity from a score of clerks.
He smiled amiably, replying occasionally with a cheery rejoinder. Evidently he was in excellent spirits.
Whitmore's private office, at the rear of the long hall, ran the full width of the room. It was partitioned off from the main room by a glass partition through which he was at all times visible to his employés. The office contained no windows, being shut in on three sides by the thick walls of the building, and obtained its light through the glass paneling of the partition. The floor was covered by a green carpet and three or four chairs rested against the wall.
"Sam!" the merchant called to his office boy. "I shall be very busy with my papers this morning. Permit no one to enter my office and don't bring any visitors' cards."
Whitmore placed his hand affectionately on the boy's touseled hair.