The police also searched the Balfame house from top to bottom for the pistol the prisoner indubitably had carried from the house to the grove; nor did they neglect the garden, yard and orchard, or any of the old wells in the neighbourhood. They even dragged a pond. Their zeal was but a further waste of time. It was then they concluded that Mrs. Balfame had gone out deliberately to meet a confederate and that he had carried off both pistols. But who was the confederate and how did he know at what hour Balfame would reach his front gate? It was as easily ascertained that Mrs. Balfame had telephoned no message--from her own house--that night as that she had received one from her husband which would give her just the opportunity she wanted. But how had she advised the other guilty one? The poor police felt as if they were lashed to a hoop driven up and down hill by a mischievous little girl. All the men who had been at Cummack's when Balfame called up his wife had left the house before he did, and proved their alibis. Even Cummack, who had "sweat blood" during the elimination process, had finally discovered that the janitor of his office-building had seen him go in and come out on that fatal night. Did Mrs. Balfame go forth some time after Dr. Anna brought her home from the Country Club, find her partner in crime and secrete him in the grove? If so, why did she not remain in the grove with him instead of returning to the house to leave it again by the devious route that delivered her almost into the arms of young Kraus? Above all, who was the man? It was at this point that the police gave up, although they still maintained a pretence of activity. Not so the press. Almost daily there were interviews with public men, authors, dramatists, detectives, headed: "Did Mrs. Balfame Do It?" "What Did She Do With the Pistol?" "Was She Perchance Ambidexterous? Could She Have Fired Both Pistols at Once?" "Will She Be Acquitted?" "Was It a German Plot?" "If Guilty, Would She Be Wise to Confess And Plead Brain Storm?" The interviews and symposiums that illuminated the Sunday issues were conducted by men, but the evening papers had at least one interview or symposium a week on the subject between a sister reporter and some woman of local or national fame. Nothing could have been more intellectual than the questions asked save, possibly, the answers given.