If you can understand that all the extraordinary events of the previous chapters occurred without the knowledge of Fleet Street, that eminent journalists went about their business day by day without being any the wiser, that eager news editors were diligently searching the files of the provincial press for news items, with the mystery of the safe at their very door, and that reporters all over London were wasting their time over wretched little motor-bus accidents and gas explosions, you will all the easier appreciate the journalistic explosion that followed the double inquest on Spedding and his victim. It is outside the province of this story to instruct the reader in what is so much technical detail, but it may be said in passing that no less than twelve reporters, three sub-editors, two “crime experts,” and one publisher were summarily and incontinently discharged from their various newspapers in connection with the “Safe Story.” The _Megaphone_ alone lost five men, but then the _Megaphone_ invariably discharges more than any other paper, because it has got a reputation to sustain. Flaring contents bills, heavy black headlines, and column upon column of solid type, told the story of Reale’s millions, and the villainous lawyer, and the remarkable verse, and the “Borough Lot.” There were portraits of Angel and portraits of Jimmy and portraits of Kathleen (sketched in court and accordingly repulsive), and plans of the lawyer’s house at Clapham and sketches of the Safe Deposit. So for the three days that the coroner’s inquiry lasted London, and Fleet Street more especially, reveled in the story of the old croupier’s remarkable will and its tragic consequences. The Crown solicitors very tactfully skimmed over Jimmy’s adventurous past, were brief in their examination of Kathleen; but Angel’s interrogation lasted the greater part of five hours, for upon him devolved the task of telling the story in full. It must be confessed that Angel’s evidence was a remarkably successful effort to justify all that Scotland Yard had done. There were certain irregularities to be glossed over, topics to be avoided--why, for instance, official action was not taken when it was seen that Spedding contemplated a felony. Most worthily did Angel hold the fort for officialdom that day, and when he vacated the box he left behind him the impression that Scotland Yard was all foreseeing, all wise, and had added yet another to its list of successful cases.