“As nine o'clock strikes, which the coachman hears as usual and is the usual signal for Garrettson's appearance, the coachman sees a man running from round the corner, pursued by a well-dressed woman with a horsewhip; also six urchins yelling, 'Give it to him, Liz!' This attracts the coachman's attention. The man stops just across the street from the Garrettson house and the woman lashes him. Of course the coachman has turned his head away from his master's house on the left to the horsewhipping on the right. Suddenly he hears the door of the coupé slam--a rebuking sort of slam! He turns round, gathers up the reins and prepares to start. He doesn't have to be told where to go. It's always the office. While he was looking at the horsewhipping Mr. Garrettson has come out of the house and entered the waiting carriage, as he has done every day for thirty years. “Out of the corner of his eye the coachman sees the footman returning to the house--a bareheaded footman in the dark-green Garrettson livery, a bundle of newspapers in his hands. The footman stops short and turns round. He is smooth-shaved, as all footmen are. The coachman hears him say, 'Beg pardon--here they are, sir!' and sees the footman hand papers to Mr. Garrettson inside; for who should be inside but Mr. W. H. Garrettson? The footman returns to the house and the coachman drives away, sure that his master is within. His customary route has been studied and it is easy to cause delays, so as to make the carriage arrive at the office fifteen minutes late. No Garrettson! Why? Because he was in the library! The footman was an accomplice. The syndicate has in readiness an exact replica of the Garrettson carriage, of the horse, and even of the coachman; and when Garrettson and his cranky visitor do come out, Garrettson sees his carriage waiting for him, gets in, and is driven away--but not to his office! And there you are.” “Do you really think that is what happened?” “It is what a gang of intelligent men would do.” “It is very fine--only it cannot happen.” “Why not?” “The coachman would never swallow such a fool trick as that.” “If you knew the history of our old New York families you would recall the episode of Mrs. Robert Nye, whose old coachman, English and stiff-necked, one day drove the empty victoria round Central Park, thinking he carried his mistress, because the lap-robe had been placed in the carriage by the footman before the old lady had gotten in--and usually the old lady got in first and the lap-robe followed.” “But he said he saw Garrettson get in,” objected Kidder; “and the cigar-ashes were there on the floor!” “The ashes were thrown in by the footman for the very purpose of making Argus-eyed reporters make a point of it. That and the crumpled newspapers clinched it, so that the coachman thought he remembered seeing Garrettson get in. It is what psychologists call an illusion of memory.” “Oh, well--”