The probabilities of the case were much discussed that night at police head-quarters, in conferences from which the reporters were rigorously excluded, and the next morning the city newspapers revelled in the sensation.  They vied with each other in inventing attractive head-lines and startling theories.  The Bale-Fire began its leader with the impressive sentence:  “Has a carnival of crime set in amongst us?  Last night the drama of Algonquin Avenue was supplemented by the tragedy of Dean Street, and the public, aghast, demands ‘What next?’ A second murder was accomplished by hands yet dripping with a previous crime.  The patriotic witness who, yesterday, with a bleeding heart, denounced the criminality of his friend, paid last night with his life for his fidelity.”  In another column called for a “monument, by popular subscription for Andrew Jackson Offitt, who died because would not tell a lie.”  On the other hand, The Morning Astral, representing the conservative opinion of the city, called for a suspension of judgment on the part of its candid readers; said that there were shady circumstances about the antecedents of Offitt, and intimated that documents of a compromising character had been found on his person; congratulated the city on the improved condition of Captain Farnham; and, trusting in the sagacity and diligence of the authorities, confidently awaited from them a solution of the mystery.  Each of them, nevertheless, gave free space and license to their reporters, and Offitt was a saint, a miscreant, a disguised prince, and an escaped convict, according to the state of the reporter’s imagination or his digestion; while the stories told of Sleeny varied from cannibalism to feats of herculean goodness.  They all agreed reasonably well, however, as to the personal appearance of the two men, and from this fact it came about that, in the course of the morning, evidence was brought forward, from a totally unexpected quarter, which settled the question as to the burglary at Farnham’s.

Mrs. Belding had been so busy the day before, in her constant attendance upon Farnham, that she had paid no attention to the story of the arrest.  She had heard that the man had been caught and his crime clearly established, and that he had been sent to jail for trial.  Her first thought was, “I am glad I was not called upon to give evidence.  It would have been very disagreeable to get up before a court-room full of men and say I looked with an opera-glass out of my daughter’s window into a young man’s house.  I should have to mention Alice’s name, too,—­ and a young girl’s name cannot be mentioned too seldom in the newspapers.  In fact, twice in a life-time is often enough, and one of them should be a funeral notice.”