O’Mally and Babbitts had their plans all laid beforehand. They were two plain-clothes men from Philadelphia, who had just come on a new lead—the finding of Sammis. When they’d opened that up before him, they were going to pass on to the murder—take him by surprise. If Ford made the confession they hoped to shake out of him, the warrant for his arrest would be issued and the Harland case come before the public in its true light. Babbitts had never seen Ford and when he described him to me it didn’t sound like the same man. He was lying propped up with pillows, his head swathed in bandages, and his face pale and haggard. Under the covers his long legs stretched most to the end of the cot, and his big, powerful hands were lying limp on the counterpane. He was in a private room, in an inside wing of the hospital, very quiet and retired. When the attendant left and they introduced themselves he looked sort of scowling from one to the other. Both noticed the same thing—a kind of uneasiness, as if his apprehensions were aroused, and for all his broken head he was on the job, not weak and indifferent, but wary and alert. This wasn’t what they wanted so they started in telling him the news they thought would please him and put him at his ease. A clue had been picked up in Philadelphia that looked like the mystery of his attack was solved. "In fact," says O’Mally, "a man’s been run to earth there that we’re pretty sure is the one." Both men were watching him and both saw a change come over him that caught their eyes and held them. Instead of being relieved he was scared. "Have you got the man?" he said. O’Mally nodded: "That’s what we have." "Who is he?" "Party called Sammis. Answers to the description——" Before he could go further Ford raised himself on his elbow, looking downright terrified. "Joseph Sammis?" he said, his eyes set staring on O’Mally. "That’s it. We tracked him up and found him. But I don’t want to raise any false hopes. We were too late. When we got there he was dead." It had an extraordinary effect upon Ford. He gave a gasp, and raised himself up into a sitting posture, his mouth open, his eyes glued on O’Mally. For a minute not one of them said a word—Ford evidently too paralyzed at what he’d heard, and the others too surprised at the way Ford was acting which was exactly different to what they’d expected. It was he who spoke first, his voice gone down to a husky murmur: "_Dead?_" O’Mally answered: "Heart disease, angina pectoris. The doctor down there said some strain or effort had finished him. That, as we see it, was the attack he made on you." Then Ford did the most surprising thing of all. Raising his hands he clapped both over his face, and with a big, heaving sob from the bottom of his chest, fell back on the pillows and began to cry.