Within the hour, however, Boyd's friends and those who had been friends of his father, rallied about him, ready and eager to furnish bonds for any amount. Not one of them knew aught of the merits of the case, and not one of them asked a question concerning it. They simply did not believe that Boyd Westover had broken by night into a girls' school for any purpose whatever, and they were determined that he should not go to jail while awaiting indictment and trial on so absurd a charge. "Now come with me," said Jack Towns as soon as the matter of the bail bonds was settled. "We'll go to my house, not to my office, to avoid interruptions. I must get at the very marrow of this matter before a word is said about it. Come." When the two were seated in an untidy room of Jack Towns's untidy bachelor establishment, and Jack had locked the front door for the first time within his recollection, he turned to his friend, saying: "I want you to tell me every thing you did last night--the unimportant things even more than the important. Don't be afraid of boring me with details, and relate everything in the order in which it occurred. Then I'll cross-examine you as rigidly as if you were a witness concealing something. Perhaps we may discover something to shed light upon what seems the most perplexing mystery I ever knew. Go on." Boyd told the story in minute detail, ending it by saying: "I can make oath to all that and swear that nothing else of any kind occurred." "No, you can't," said Jack Towns. "The court won't let you swear to any of it." "Can I not make a statement of facts in a case that involves my liberty, my reputation, and everything else that I care for?" "No. The law of Virginia does not permit an accused person to testify in his own behalf. That is the Common Law rule, and Virginia is under the Common Law. Don't tell me the thing is absurd, unjust, cruel, barbaric, and all that; for I know it already. It is the law, and you and I cannot change it. Let us go on with our inquiry instead. Do you know approximately at what hour you passed Le Voiser's school on your return from your visit to Milhauser?" "I know exactly. It was precisely half-past twelve. I saw lights carried about in the school and, wondering at the fact, looked at my watch to see the hour." "And you left Milhauser's house at what time?" "Half-past ten." "Why did it take you so long to get back to the hotel?" "Milhauser's house, as you know, is away out of town--beyond Richmond College. There's a horse car which runs at irregular intervals between the college and the Broad Street end of the Fredericksburg Railroad, using the track of that railroad when no train is due. When I got to the college gate it was raining heavily and I took shelter under a sort of shed opposite the gates to wait for the car. It didn't come, and at last I decided to walk on." "Why did you turn south and into Grace Street, instead of coming on down Broad?"