, heard his story, and
answered, "Yes." A "prominent railroad official" was next quoted as
having recognized the physician, and on the morning subsequent to his
alleged disappearance from Toronto, the Chief of Police of St.
Catherines, Ontario, positively recognized him in Sherwood, New York!
But with the arrival of McGarry the falsity of one and all of these
stories became apparent, and the infamous prostitution of the liberty
and license of a journalist, of which Long had been guilty, was fully
demonstrated. It took the young Irishman but a few hours of
investigation to convince himself of the fact that the missing physician
had not been seen in Toronto since the day of his disappearance. The
same conclusion was arrived at by Detective Dennis Simmons, of Chicago,
who had been despatched to the scene by Chief Hubbard, and had, unknown
to McGarry, conducted an independent investigation. Simmons wired his
superior briefly and to the point: "No truth in it, Cronin has not been
here," while the same wires carried this message from McGarry to Frank
J. Scanlan:

"Proprietor and clerk on duty do not recognize Cronin's picture as
stopping at Rossin House last week. Name not registered at all. No
signature resembles Cronin's. Sure interview did not take place
with their knowledge."

And, to make the repudiation the more complete, Chief Constable
Grossett, who, earlier in the week, had endorsed the statements of Long
in hap-hazard fashion, retracted his statements in a letter to the
Chicago authorities, in which he said:

"I have caused particular and exhaustive inquiry to be made into
the statements that have appeared in the _Empire_ newspaper of this
city, and have caused the party who gave the information which was
telegraphed you to be questioned closely on the subject. It would
now appear that the identification of Dr. Cronin by the party who
stated he saw him in Toronto last Saturday was by no means
complete; in fact, I think there are the best of reasons for
supposing it to have been a case of mistaken identity. It is quite
true that the party here thought he met Cronin in the street,
stopped him, and afterward saw the man leave the city by train with
a woman. So far as I can learn this is the foundation for the
sensational reports that have been transmitted from here and
published in your papers. I regret that in sending you my telegr