So Mr. Ross set out with a police escort. He rode to New York on the rear platform of one train and to Albany on another. But the agent of the kidnappers did not appear, and Ross returned to Philadelphia crestfallen, only to find that a false newspaper report had caused the plan to miscarry. One of the papers had announced that Ross was going West to follow up a clew. The kidnappers had seen this and decided that their man was not going to make the trip to New York and Albany. Consequently there was no one along the track to receive the valise. Perhaps it was just as well. The abductors would have laughed at the empty police dodge of suggesting a closer and secret method of communication--for the purpose of betraying the malefactors, of course. From this point on, Ross and the abductors continued to argue, through the _New York Herald_, the question of simultaneous exchange of the boy and money. Ross naturally took the position that he could not risk being imposed on by men who perhaps did not have the child at all. The robbers, on their side, contended that they could not see any safe way of making a synchronous exchange. So the negotiations dragged along. The New York police entered the case on August 2, when Chief Walling sent to Philadelphia for the letters received by Mr. Ross from the abductors. They were taken to New York by Captain Heins of the Philadelphia police, and “Chief Walling’s informant identified the writing as that of William Mosher, alias Johnson.” In order to draw the line between fact and fable as clearly as possible at this point, I quote from official police sources, namely, “Celebrated Criminal Cases of America,” by Thomas S. Duke, captain of police, San Francisco, published in 1910. Captain Duke says that his facts have been “verified with the assistance of police officials throughout the country.” He continues with respect to the Ross case: “The informant then stated that in April, 1874--the year in question--Mosher and Joseph Douglas, alias Clark, endeavored to persuade him to participate in the kidnapping of one of the Vanderbilt children, while the child was playing on the lawn surrounding the family residence at Throgsneck, Long Island. (Evidently a confusion.) The child was to be held until a ransom of fifty thousand dollars was obtained, and the informant’s part of the plot would be to take the child on a small launch and keep it in seclusion until the money was received, but he declined to enter into the conspiracy.” With all due respect to the police and to official versions, this report smells strongly of fabrication after the fact, as we shall see. It is, however, true that the New York police had some sort of information early in August, and it may even be true that they had suspicions of Mosher and were on the lookout for him. A history of subsequent events will give the surest light on this disputed point.