This information was so important that extraordinary methods were pursued.  Communications were immediately made with the State Department, and with the higher police authorities; and it was quickly determined that, whatever else might be done, the strictest secrecy must be enforced.  The coroner’s jury was carefully selected and earnestly admonished; and, early the next morning, when the captain and Olive were required to testify before it, they were made to understand how absolutely necessary it was they should say nothing except to answer the questions which were asked them.  The coroner was eminently discreet in regard to his questions; and the verdict was that Olive was acting in her own defense as well as that of her uncle when she shot his assailant.

Among the officials whose positions enabled them to know all these astonishing occurrences it was unanimously agreed that, so far as possible, everybody should be kept in ignorance of the crime which had been attempted, and of the deliverance which had taken place.

Very early the next afternoon the air was filled with the cries of newsboys, and each paper that these boys sold contained a full and detailed account of a remarkable attempt by an unknown foreigner upon the life of Captain John Asher, a visitor in Washington, and the heroic conduct of his niece, Miss Olive Asher, who shot the murderous assailant with his own pistol.  There were columns and columns of this story, but strange to say, in not one of the papers was there any allusion to the two gentlemen in the barouche, or to the air-gun.

How this most important feature of the occurrence came to be omitted in all the accounts of it can only be explained by those who thoroughly understand the exigencies of the stock-market, and the probable effect of certain classes of news upon approaching political situations, and who have made themselves familiar with the methods by which the pervasive power of the press is sometimes curtailed.

In the later afternoon editions there were portraits of Olive, and her uncle.  Olive was broad-shouldered, with black hair and a determined frown, while the captain was a little man with a long beard.  There were no portraits of the anarchist.  He passed away from the knowledge of man, and no one knew even his name:  his crime had blotted him out; his ambition was blotted out; even the evil of his example was blotted out.  There was nothing left of him.

When they were released from detention the captain and Olive quickly left the station—­which they did without observation—­and entered a carriage which was waiting for them a short distance away.  The fact that another carriage with close-drawn curtains had stopped at the station about ten minutes before, and that a thickly veiled lady (the matron) and an elderly man with his collar turned up and his hat drawn down (one of the police officers in plain clothes) had entered the carriage and had been driven rapidly away had drawn off the reporters and the curiosity mongers on the sidewalk and had contributed very much to the undisturbed exit of Captain and Miss Asher.