"I--I know," faltered Mazie. Now, for the first time, she noticed a man
who had entered after her. He stepped to the desk and asked a question
regarding a person she knew nothing of. Then he went silently out again.
Mazie sat quite still, then rising, she smiled faintly at the sergeant.

"I--I guess you must be right--but--but the papers are full of it."

"Oh, the papers!" The officer spread his hands out in a gesture of
contempt. "They'd print anything!"

As Mazie stepped out into the street she was approached by a man, and
with a little start, she noticed that it was the one who had entered the
police station a few minutes before. Halting, she waited for him to
speak.

"You were looking for Johnny Thompson?" He said the words almost in a
whisper.

"Yes."

"Well, he is alive. He is not dead. He was arrested, but has been
discharged. I can take you to him. Shall I?"

"Oh, will you?" Mazie's voice echoed her gratitude.

"Sure. There's a taxi now," the man replied in a foreign accent.

* * * * *

Johnny had not been released; far from it. And yet it was true, he was