"_Starkey told me that Cronin was at his house_," exclaimed Long, who by this time was in a condition, bordering on the hysterical. "Why didn't you bring Cronin out to your house?" the visitor asked. "Why should I?" replied Long. He had evidently forgotten that two weeks before he had assured Detective Reburn that Cronin had visited his residence. Two days afterward, when confronted with Reburn, he repeated his original statement. "Cronin _was_ at my house," he said. "Why didn't you say so in your dispatches? Why did you tell another story the other morning?" asked the visitor. "I did not telegraph everything that passed between Cronin and myself, nor did I tell you everything the other day." "Who saw Cronin at your house?" "My wife." "Did the servants?" "Well, they wouldn't remember him." "Did you present him to your father and mother?" "They were away." It was apparent by this time, even apart from the fact that the body had been discovered and the circumstances demonstrated that it was in the catch-basin at the time Long's dispatches were filed, that his carefully prepared story would not hold water. Still the visitor persisted, and literally compelled the reporter to drive him to the different points at which he claimed to have seen Cronin, and over the route he followed him the first day. Long took him to the Yong Street Arcade, thence to the Union Depot, thence up to King and Ontario streets; thence to Adalaide and Toronto streets, where Cronin was alleged to have taken a hack, and Long had taken another and followed him. Pressed to give the name of the hackman, his number or his description, Long said that he was in such a hurry that he paid no attention to any of these details. He was reminded that Alexander Craig, clerk at the Rossin House, had declared that no such guests as he, Long, had described were ever at the hotel, that no one had turned up to say that Long and Cronin had been seen in conversation, that the hackman had faded into air, and that Starkey remained the only bulwark of the story. "Make a clean breast of it," he was urged. "Tell the public the truth regarding the circumstances under which your stories were originated." "I will never retreat," was Long's reply. "I would drag no one else through the mire of calumny I am now going through." "How do you happen to know so much about Cronin's St. Louis record?" he was asked. "I was in St. Louis a little over a year ago and made inquiries about him." "What prompted you to do that?" Long declined to answer, but said that he had a copy of the pamphlet entitled, "Is It A Conspiracy?" This was important, because it was known that a number of copies had been sent to Starkey, whose name figured in the pamphlet as one of Cronin's enemies.