The sensation grew in importance as the day for the trial approached. All New York was agog with excitement. The handsome Jeffries mansion on Riverside Drive was besieged by callers. The guides on the sight-seeing coaches shouted through their megaphones: "That's the house where the murderer of Robert Underwood lived." The immediate vicinity of the house the day that the crime was made public was thronged with curious people. The blinds of the house were drawn down as if to shield the inmates from observation, but there were several cabs in front of the main entrance and passers by stopped on the sidewalk, pointing at the house. A number of newspaper men stood in a group, gathering fresh material for the next edition. A reporter approached rapidly from Broadway and joined his colleagues. "Well, boys," he said cheerily. "Anything doing? Say, my paper is going to have a bully story to-morrow! Complete account by Underwood's valet. He tells how he caught the murderer just as he was escaping from the apartment We'll have pictures and everything. It's fine. Anything doing here?" he demanded. "Naw," grunted the others in disgruntled tones. "We saw the butler," said one reporter, "and tried to get a story from him, but he flatly refused to talk. All he would say was that Howard Jeffries was nothing to the family, that his father didn't care a straw what became of him." "That's pretty tough!" exclaimed another reporter. "He's his son, after all." "Oh, you don't know old Jeffries," chimed in a third. "When once he makes up his mind you might as well try to move a house." The afternoon was getting on; if their papers were to print anything more that day they must hasten downtown. "Let's make one more attempt to get a talk out of the old man," suggested one enterprising scribe. "All right," cried the others in chorus. "You go ahead. We'll follow in a body and back you up." Passing through the front gate, they rang the bell, and after a brief parley were admitted to the house. They had hardly disappeared when a cab drove hurriedly up and stopped at the curb. A young woman, heavily veiled, descended, paid the driver, and walked quickly through the gates toward the house.