Josie is in seclusion in her house on Twenty-third Street. She learned of the shooting an hour after it occurred, from a reporter seeking a reaction. Stunned by the news, she slammed the door in the reporter’s face and has remained behind drawn curtains since.

The silence from her house feeds rumors that she has fled the city. The rumors sound plausible, considering her unsettled state in court on the afternoon of the shooting. New Yorkers want to know the whereabouts of the most notorious woman in their city; the authorities will certainly wish to question her in connection with the shooting.

One reporter plants himself at her residence. He sees nothing: no movement and only the faintest light within. After a long time he ascends the steps and rings the doorbell. Nothing happens. The outside door remains bolted; the hallway is dark. He turns to leave.

But then he hears the bolt being pulled and the door handle turn. A quavering woman’s voice asks through the narrow opening: “What do you want, sir?”

He pulls a card from his wallet, identifying him, and scribbles in the corner: “On business.” He asks the woman to give the card to Miss Mansfield.

The door closes. He wonders whether to stay or go, and decides to stay. The woman returns after a few minutes. “Unless it is very important,” she says, “Miss Mansfield can’t see you.”

But this time she has opened the door a crack wider. The reporter peers through. By the flicker of a gas lamp opposite the door, he recognizes the woman as Josie Mansfield herself.

The reporter declines to press his luck, not least since he has achieved the principal aim of his surveillance: to discover whether Josie is still in the city. He says he will call again when it is more convenient.

He descends the stairs to Twenty-third Street, walks the several steps to the corner, and turns onto Eighth Avenue. Suddenly a policeman with a grimy shawl around his neck, to ward off the cold, and a dirty mass of red hair hurries across the street and waves his nightstick in the reporter’s face. “What was you doing in there?” the officer demands.

“In where?” the reporter says.

“In Miss Mansfield’s.”

“I was doing nothing in there, because I was not in.”

“Didn’t I see you with my own eyes, coming out? Come along, you’re my prisoner.” He grabs the reporter by the shoulder.

“All right,” the reporter says, and lets himself be taken to the precinct house on Twentieth Street. There he is charged with coming out of Miss Mansfield’s residence.

The reporter denies that he has been in the house, before asking why this should be a crime. He says he can prove he wasn’t in the house; Miss Mansfield will be happy to testify to that.

The sergeant on duty sends a second patrolman back to the house, with another of the reporter’s cards. In a few minutes the second man returns and says Miss Mansfield has corroborated the reporter’s story.

The sergeant takes the reporter aside. He explains that the arresting patrolman is new on the job and perhaps overeager. The police higher-ups have given the order to guard the Mansfield house lest Miss Mansfield try to escape. The patrolman must have thought the reporter was the lady in disguise.

The reporter accepts the sergeant’s apology and leaves to file his story.