"I will not testify falsely on this stand," replied the unhappy witness, "to whatever has happened during my term as Supervisor." But complicated as the position in which the prosecution found its principal witness, it might have been more complicated had all the plans of the agents for the defense been carried out. On the night before Lonergan was to take the stand against Ford, Dorland, the alleged magazine writer, called him up by telephone and invited him "to make a night of it." Dorland stated two women would accompany them. Before accepting the invitation, Lonergan notified Detective Burns. Burns instructed him not to go on the trip, but to meet Dorland and to take Mrs. Lonergan with him. Lonergan, with his wife, accordingly met Dorland and the two women at the appointed place. Dorland expressed his chagrin when he found Lonergan not alone. "He said," Lonergan testified, "he was sorry I was not alone; two nice young ladies were there." Lonergan's testimony of Dorland's dismay when the detective found that Mrs. Lonergan accompanied her husband, was received with amusement. The one-time Supervisor went on no automobile ride that evening. Thus tamely ended what the prosecution insisted was a plot to kidnap, or at least compromise, Lonergan on the eve of his appearance as a witness against General Ford.[300] Out of this attempt to involve Lonergan, grew the scarcely less astonishing kidnaping of Fremont Older, managing editor of the San Francisco Bulletin. Among those alleged to have participated in the Lonergan affair was an employe of the graft defense by the name of Brown. The defense had at the time two employes of that name, "Luther" and "J. C.," the latter of whom is alleged to have been the one who co-operated with Dorland in his attempt upon Lonergan. The Bulletin, in its account of the affair, confounded Luther with J. C. Brown. Based on the Bulletin's allegations against Luther Brown, warrants were sworn out at Los Angeles, charging Managing Editor Older with criminal libel. The manner of serving these Los Angeles warrants was characteristic of the times. Late in the afternoon of September 27, Older, while at Heney's office, received a telephone message that he was wanted at a prominent hotel. As he approached the hotel in response to the message, he was stopped by a number of men who claimed to be peace officers from Los Angeles. These displayed the warrant, and hustled Older into an automobile. Older demanded that he be taken before a local court. His captors promised him he should be. But instead they headed the machine for Redwood City, a town some twenty miles south of San Francisco on the line of the Southern Pacific. When Older protested a revolver was pressed against his side, and he was ordered to keep silent.