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Roche related to a Gazette reporter between quiet sobs early this morning. ‘I warned him that it was dangerous and reminded him of the threatening letters he had recently received which I am sure were sent by Brand or some member of the subversive group who are responsible for this terrible strike.
    “‘But Charles insisted he had to go, and he scoffed at the idea of any personal danger. He was so fearless, and he had a foolish idea that if he and the labor leader could sit down together quietly, they might be able to settle the strike by compromise.
    “‘I could say nothing to dissuade him, though I pleaded with him to think of me if he refused to consider his personal safety. I think, now, that I had an awful premonition of what was to come. I remember I stood in the door and watched his car disappear down the drive until I couldn’t see for the tears. I didn’t go to bed. I stayed up all night waiting for him to come home. Somehow when the telephone rang at six-thirty, I knew before I answered it what the terrible message would be.’
    “At this point in her recital, Mrs. Elsa Roche (nee Maywell of Boston) became hysterical and her physician forbade further questioning and ordered her to bed with a sedative.
    “From another source, your reporter learns that this courageous woman did not sit idly during those long hours of waiting, and that her presentiment of danger upon her husband’s departure must have been very very real, indeed.
    “At four o’clock this morning, unable to endure the strain of anxiety longer, she aroused Mr. Seth Gerald, General Manager of Roche Mining Properties, from his sleep by a telephone call which sent him out seeking to avert the tragedy which may or may not have already occurred. Mr. Gerald’s story follows, verbatim, as given in a signed statement in Chief Elwood’s office early this morning:
    “‘It was five minutes after four when the telephone wakened me. I am a light sleeper, and I answered it at once. It was Mrs. Roche and she sounded terribly worried and distraught. She told me that Charles had left home almost two hours previously to keep a secret appointment with Brand to seek some compromise settlement of the unauthorized mine strike which George Brand has fomented here, and she begged me to see if everything was all right.
    “‘I assured her over the telephone as best I could, and promised to go to Brand’s home immediately and see whether things were all right. Frankly, I was worried myself, and I lost no time dressing and getting in my car, for I certainly wouldn’t trust George Brand any further than I would any other racketeer who seeks to overthrow the American way of life and substitute a Totalitarian rule of force.
    “‘In fact I have repeatedly warned Charles that the only way to deal with radicals like Brand is with a machine gun, but he was young and had certain idealistic beliefs which led him to assume that a rat like Brand might respond to reason and logic more quickly than to the mailed fist.
    “‘So I must admit I felt he had foolishly taken his life in his hands by going alone and unarmed to meet his most vicious enemy secretly at that hour of the morning, though I could not possibly foresee the tragic result of that unfortunate meeting.
    “‘I drove directly from my home at 1812 Hawthorne Road to the shack George Brand is known to be occupying on Magnolia Avenue. It was not yet daylight, and the house was dark. The garage door was closed and there was no automobile in sight. I don’t know what impelled me to go up to the door and knock, since everything appeared to be in order, but I did, leaving my car parked outside with the engine running.
    “‘I knocked loudly and received no response, and naturally I assumed that Brand was either absent or in such a drunken stupor that it was impossible to rouse him. There was a light across the street in Mrs. Cornell’s house and I could hear her radio. I went over to ask her if she had observed a