“We ought to shut down all we can on the Banneker follow-up.  An investigation with our man as prosecuting witness would put us in the position of trying to reform the police, and would play into the hands of the Enderby crowd.”

The managing editor shook a wise and grizzled head.  “If The Patriot keeps up its whooping and The Sphere its demanding, the administration will have to do something.  After all, Mr. Greenough, things have become pretty unendurable in the Murder Precinct.”

“That’s true.  But the signed statement of Banneker’s in The Patriot—­it’s really an interview faked up as a statement—­is a savage attack on the whole administration.”

“I understand,” remarked Mr. Gordon, “that they were going to beat him up scientifically in the station house when Smith came in and scared them out of it.”

“Yes.  Banneker is pretty angry over it.  You can’t blame him.  But that’s no reason why we should alienate the city administration....  Then you think, Mr. Gordon, that we’ll have to keep the story running?”

“I think, Mr. Greenough, that we’ll have to give the news,” answered the managing editor austerely.  “Where is Banneker now?”

“With Judge Enderby, I believe.  In case of an investigation he won’t be much use to us until it’s over.”

“Can’t be helped,” returned Mr. Gordon serenely.  “We’ll stand by our man.”

Banneker had gone to the old-fashioned offices of Enderby and Enderby, in a somewhat inimical frame of mind.  Expectant of an invitation to aid the Law Enforcement Society in cleaning up a pest-hole of crime, he was half determined to have as little to do with it as possible.  Overnight consideration had developed in him the theory that the function of a newspaper is informative, not reformative; that when a newspaper man has correctly adduced and frankly presented the facts, his social as well as his professional duty is done.  Others might hew out the trail thus blazed; the reporter, bearing his searchlight, should pass on to other dark spots.  All his theories evaporated as soon as he confronted Judge Enderby, forgotten in the interest inspired by the man.

A portrait painter once said of Willis Enderby that his face was that of a saint, illumined, not by inspiration, but by shrewdness.  With his sensitiveness to beauty of whatever kind, Banneker felt the extraordinary quality of the face, beneath its grim outline, interpreting it from the still depth of the quiet eyes rather than from the stern mouth and rather tyrannous nose.  He was prepared for an abrupt and cold manner, and was surprised when the lawyer rose to shake hands, giving him a greeting of courtly congratulation upon his courage and readiness.  If the purpose of this was to get Banneker to expand, as he suspected, it failed.  The visitor sensed the cold reserve behind the smile.

“Would you be good enough to run through this document?” requested the lawyer, motioning Banneker to a seat opposite himself, and handing him a brief synopsis of what the Law Enforcement Society hoped to prove regarding police laxity.