I looked at him curiously, struck all at once by an air of concealment. He was not as friendly as usual. “That’s funny,” I said. “I’ve just come from there and they told me he was here. It would be on the blotter, wouldn’t it? Were you here an hour or two ago?” For the first time since I had been coming here he grew a bit truculent. “Sure. If it’s not on there it’s not on there, and that’s all I know. If you want to know more than that you’ll have to see the captain.” At thought of the police attempting to conceal a thing like this in the face of my direct knowledge I grew irritable and bold myself. “Where’s the captain?” I asked. “He’s out now. He’ll be back at four, I think.” I sat down and waited, then decided to call up the office for further instructions. Wandell was in. He advised me to call up Edmonstone at the Four Courts and see if it was recorded, which I did, but nothing was known. When I returned I found the captain in. He was a taciturn man and had small use for reporters at any time. “Yes, yes, yes,” he kept reiterating as I asked him about the case. “Well, I’ll tell you,” he said after a long pause, seeing that I was determined to know, “he’s not here now. I let him go. No one saw him commit the crime. He’s an old man with a big wholesale business in Second Street, never arrested before, and he has a wife and grown sons and daughters. Of course he oughtn’t to be doin’ anything of that kind—still, he claims that he wasn’t. Anyhow, no good can come of writin’ it up in the papers now. Here’s his name and address,” and he opened a small book which he drew out of his pocket and showed me that and no more. “Now you can go and talk to him yourself if you want to, but if you take my advice you’ll let him alone. I see no good in pullin’ him down if it’s goin’ to hurt his family. But that’s as you newspaper men see it.” I could have sympathized with this stocky Irishman more if we had not all been suspicious of the police. I decided to see this old man myself, curiosity and the desire for a good story controlling me. I hurried to a car and rode out to the west end, where, in a well-built street and a house of fair proportions I found my man sitting on his front porch no doubt awaiting some such disastrous onslaught as this and anxious to keep it from his family. The moment he saw me he walked to his gate and stopped me. He was tall and angular, with a grizzled, short, round beard and a dull, unimportant face, a kind of Smith Brothers-coughdrop type. Apparently he was well into that period where one is supposed to settle down into a serene old age and forget all one ever knew of youth. I inquired whether a Mr. So-and-So lived there, and he replied that he was Mr. So-and-So. “I’m from the _Republic_,” I began, “and we have a story regarding a charge that has been made against you today in one of the police stations.”