He had a trying struggle with her
infirmity and stupidity, but finally was rewarded. On the afternoon of the
murder, in its very hour (which the police had been able to discover), she
had seen a man and woman in the bathroom of the Thayer house. Both were
agitated and the man washed his hands again and again, carefully rinsing
the bowl afterward. From her description Cumnock got upon the track of
Thayer's niece and her husband, found the proof of their guilt, had them
watched until the _News-Record_ came out with the "beat," then turned
them over to the police.
Also, Cumnock was keen at taking hints of good news-items concealed in
obscure paragraphs. The Morris Prison scandal was an example of this. He
found in the New England edition of _The World_ a six-line item giving
an astonishing death rate for the Morris Prison. He asked the City Editor
to assign him to go there; and within a week the press of the entire
country was discussing the _News-Record's_ exposure of the barbarities
of torture and starvation practised by Warden Johnson and his keepers.
"We are going to print the news, all the news and nothing but the news,"
Howard said to Cumnock. "They've put you here because, so they tell me, you
know news no matter how thoroughly it is concealed or disguised.
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