Capone then came forth with an emphatic denial that a theft of any kind had taken place. He tried to cover it up with a statement that the ring had been found in the powder room where it had been all the time, but a day before the fight, he confided to Runyon and me that it had not been recovered. Al told us that he was certain one of the guests had taken it. It was a party I shall never forget. There were gunmen to the right and gunmen to the left, most of them veterans of the many Chicago massacres which Capone had engineered during prohibition days. It was during the Frawley Law period that I exposed gangsterism in boxing, and it almost cost me my job on the New York _Press_. The famous Rosenthal murder case had broken. Police Lieutenant Charles Becker and the four gunmen—Dago Frank, Whitey Lewis, Gyp the Blood, and Lefty Louis—were all awaiting trial for the crime. The murderers were East Side gangsters allied with the big gambling interests. They needed considerable money to obtain proper legal talent. They had to have ready cash, and the usual extortion methods practiced by criminals were put into use. East Side boxers and fight promoters were assigned to canvass the district for a collection. Small merchants within a designated area were each to be asked for a contribution of one hundred dollars and the more thrifty ones were to be taxed a flat one hundred and fifty. Secrecy was necessary. I was assigned to cover a fight at the Roman Athletic Club where Frankie Madden, a popular lightweight, was one of the principals in the main event. The house was packed. Many of New York’s most notorious gamblers and criminals were among those present, including Spanish John. As I entered the club, I was accosted by Kid Twist, a well known East Side gangster, who asked me for a contribution. It was then that I got an inkling of what was going on. The story of the “hold-up” appealed to me far more than the fight that night, and I decided to dig in for material. I was fortunate in meeting Izzy Einstein, who, during the prohibition era, was the team mate of Moe Smith, Uncle Sam’s star snooper and raider of illicit liquor joints. From him I learned that at a special meeting attended by friends of the Rosenthal gunmen, it was decided to obtain a fund of fifty thousand dollars for legal fees through “donations,” voluntary or otherwise. Three days later I went to the Dry Dock Club where I gathered sufficient evidence to enable me to publish my story. It created a sensation. The headline read: “Gangsters In Extortion Plot. East Side Criminals Force Merchants to Contribute For Defense of Rosenthal Gunmen.” In the story I used the name of a prominent sports figure, and the day following its publication he brought suit for libel against the paper. I was called into the office of the managing editor, John Hennessey, who asked if I had sufficient facts to back up my story. He told me that unless I could stop the suit, I would lose my job.