Archie did not have his hearing the next morning. The newspapers said "the State" was not ready, which meant that Allen, the prosecutor, and the police were not ready. Quinn and Allen had conferences. They felt it to be their duty to have Archie put to death if possible, and they were undecided as to which case would the better insure this result. Allen found legal difficulties; there was a question whether or not the murder of Kouka had been murder in the first degree. Hence he wished to have Bridget Flanagan identify Archie. Several days elapsed, and then one morning, Bentley, the sheriff, brought Bridget Flanagan to the Central Police Station in a carriage. Allen and Cleary and Quinn, with several officers and reporters, were waiting to witness her confrontation of Archie. The old woman was dressed in black; she wore a black shawl and a black bonnet, but these had faded independently of each other, so that each was now of its own dingy shade. The dress had a brown cast, the shawl a tone of green, the bonnet was dusty and graying, and the black veil that was tightly bound about her brow, like the band of a nun, had been empurpled in the process of decay. She leaned heavily on Bentley, tottering in her weakness, now and then lifting her arms with a wild, nervous gesture. Bentley’s huge, disproportionate bulk moved uncertainly beside her, lurching this way and that, as if he feared to step on her feet or her ancient gown, finding it difficult, at arm’s length, to support and guide her. But at last he got her to a chair. At the edge of the purplish veil bound across the hairless brows, a strip of adhesive plaster showed. The old woman wearily closed the eyes that had gazed on the horrors of the tragedy; her mouth moved in senile spasms. Now and then she mumbled little prayers that sounded like oaths; and raised to her lips the little ball into which she had wadded her handkerchief. And she sat there, her palsied head shaking disparaging negatives. The police, the detectives, the prosecutor, the reporters looked on. They said nothing for a long time. Cleary, trying to speak with an exaggerated tenderness, finally said: "Miss Flanagan, we hate to trouble you, but we won’t keep you long. We think we have the man who killed your dear sister--we’d like to have you see him--"