By now Blake had identified the Mayor’s handwriting with the writing on the baker’s death-warrant, and getting out the latter, placed the two papers in front of the General, who at once taxed the Mayor with being the head of the Inner Circle in Esker. This he denied, but on being confronted with the two papers, broke down and made a complete confession. It appeared that for a long time past he had been the leader of Sinn Fein in that district, and though himself a moderate man, he had been unable to control the wild men, who had forced him, as head of the Inner Circle, to sign the death-warrants of the men condemned to be “executed,” or, in other words, the men they wished out of the way. After a time, being a very religious man, his conscience had rebelled against wholesale murder, and he had refused to sign any more death-warrants. Whereupon the wild men, being afraid that the Mayor might give them away, had signed his death-warrant themselves, and that very morning he had received by post a warning to prepare for death. The General was now quite satisfied to order his arrest and deportation forthwith; but the Mayor asked that he should be allowed to go home to say good-bye to his family, and that he might be arrested in his own house at some early hour in the morning. It was now nearly midnight, and the General, after granting his request, arranged that a patrol should arrest him at 4 A.M. At 4 A.M. to the minute Blake drove up to the Mayor’s house in a lorry with an officer and fifteen men, but at once saw that something was wrong. Instead of the house being in complete darkness, most of the windows were lit up, and the loud wails of women could be heard in an upstairs room. Leaving the officer to post sentries at the front and back of the house, Blake knocked at the door, which was opened after some delay by a woman, who, on seeing a police officer, tried to slam the door in his face. Blake, however, managed to slip into the hall, and asked the woman what was wrong, but she ran upstairs, calling out to some one above that the police had returned. On the first landing the woman was joined by another woman and a man, and after a lot of trouble Blake at last got out of them that an hour previously a party of tall men in black mackintoshes, with soft hats pulled over their eyes, had gained admittance to the house, and made their way straight to the Mayor’s bedroom, where they found him kneeling down by his bed praying. After pushing the Mayor’s wife out of the room they shot him, threw his body on the bed, and rushed out of the house. Blake asked to be shown the Mayor’s body, and the man led him to a bedroom at the back and opened the door. After making certain that the dead man was the Mayor, Blake left and drove straight back to the General. That day the town was seething with excitement, and it was openly stated by many men that the Mayor had been murdered by the police.