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One day last week a stocky, swarthy, middle-aged man ate luncheon, as was his wont, in the Coffee Shoppe of the Hotel Sherman, Chicago. When he was finished he bought a cigar and a form sheet for that afternoon's horse races at Washington Park. Smoking and reading he walked toward the Illinois Central railroad station, entered the crowded pedestrian tunnel passing under Michigan Avenue. As he neared the tunnel's exit, another man stepped behind him, thrust a "belly-gun" (sawed-off revolver) close to the back of his head, fired a .38-calibre bullet through his brain. With the cigar still clenched in his teeth, the form sheet still clutched in his hand, the short, stocky man plunged forward on his face, dead. The killer leaped over the body, ran through the stupefied crowd, flung away the gun and a black silk left-hand glove (anti-finger print), disappeared in the swarm of Chicago's midtown traffic. A warm corpse lying in a bloody welter is not an unusual sight for Chicago. This was Chicago's eleventh murder in ten days, its 43rd thug-killing of the year. But the newsgatherers, camera men and police who soon congregated in the pedestrian tunnel were profoundly impressed, agitated, angry. For this corpse had not been a gangster, or a policeman, or a mere citizen. He was a Newspaper Reporter -- Alfred ("Jake") Lingle, the loud and powerful Chicago Tribune's seasoned expert on Chicago crime, a man acquainted with under-worldlings from the meanest racetrack tipster to Alphonse ("Scarface") Capone himself, whom he visited for the Tribune winter before last at the Capone estate in Miami Beach, Fla. From the Tribune's tower on upper Michigan Avenue soon issued a grim proclamation: "The Tribune accepts this challenge. It is war. There will be casualties, but that is to be expected, it being war. . . . The challenge of crime has been given with bravado. It is accepted, and we'll see what the consequences are to be."

As its first move the Tribune offered $25,000 reward for capture of the killer. Next it caused its own lawyer, Charles F. Rathbun, to be appointed Special Assistant State's Attorney in charge of the Lingle case.

Quick to put aside professional rivalries were the rest of Chicago's newspapers. They joined the Tribune in demanding vengeance for Martyr Lingle. The Daily News demanded the instant removal of Police Commissioner William J. Russell and Chief of Detectives John Stege. The Hearst Herald-Examiner matched the Tribune's $25,000 reward offer. The Evening Post offered $5,000. The Chicago Press Club ''stood ready" to post $10,000 more. By the end of the week there was $55,725 on the killer's head. The newspapers reprinted each other's editorials proclaiming that the shot which killed Reporter Lingle must end forever gangland's power in Chicago.

With the City Council and Association of Commerce stirring at the outcry of the Press, the Chicago police were filled with confusion and dismay. A general round-up of "Who's Hoodlum" (list lately compiled and .published by a citizens' committee) was ordered and the police stations were crowded with hundreds of idlers, toughs, men out of work. A few with police records were detained, but most were released. The Tribune roared that a certain gunman would soon be apprehended. Into the Detective Bureau marched Sam Hunt, one of the Capone ''mob," with a onetime city alderman, his lawyer. Smiling, he showed news reporters he was not left-handed (the glove clue), established an alibi, marched out. Chief Detective Stege announced the qualifications of his six search-squad leaders in terms of their crook-shooting records: "Lieut. Frank Reynolds, who has killed 11; Lieut. Al Booth, who has killed 6," etc. etc.

To other cities word was flashed to be on the lookout for underworld arrivals. But the week ran out with no progress reported, the killer still at large. From the very nature of Reporter Lingle's work, his wide knowledge of underworld activities, it was difficult to guess who might have avenged a grudge by a gunshot. Lingle had a room in the Hotel Stevens where he lived regularly. Occasionally he spent a night with his family in the suburbs. To the hotel room had gone many and many a caller in recent weeks--impossible to single out one character more suspicious than the other. Friends said he had been betting on horses more heavily than normal lately. Experts said it did not look like a gang murder, more like a private feud. But no one knew.

While the Chicago Press roared and the investigations continued, Reporter Lingle was given a funeral of civic proportions and dignity--a squad of mounted police, more police and firemen on foot, the Great Lakes Naval Station band (Lingle had served in the Navy intelligence service), an American Legion firing squad, four American Legion posts in uniform, Police Commissioner Russell, Detective Chief Stege and many another city official and magistrate whom Lingle had known well. Only conspicuous absentee was Mayor William Hale ("Big Bill") Thompson, whose ineptitude as the city's leader has for so long been so apparent that he now figures scarcely at all in Chicago affairs.

After a frantic weekend, Police Commissioner Russell and Detective Chief Stege handed in their resignations. However they remain on the force as captains. The Tribune took the Lingle story off Page One, perhaps aware that the Chicago Press was far more excited over the case than the Chicago Public.* To the Chicago Public there was an ironic aspect to the matter. Some Chicagoans will tell you that it was the Chicago newspapers which invented racketeering. That is not a fact. Sluggers were imported and organized violence indulged in by warring Chicago building trades unions a quarter-century ago. But it is a fact that the newspapers, in their great pre-War circulation battles, notably between the Chicago Tribune and Hearst, circulation managers hired hard-boiled "wagon bosses," armed them and sent them forth to battle on the streets. The police were given to understand that these fights were private, above the law, even if men were killed (and some were killed). Greatest general of those circulation wars was Max Annenberg, first for Hearst, then for the Tribune (he is now Liberty's circulation generalissimo--TIME, July 29). Many a name then or later famed in Chicago's gangland appeared on the payrolls of the newspapers--Gus Altman, Boston Tommy, the Delehanty brothers. Great wonder it would have been if such under-worldlings had not learned from their smart newspaper employers a lot about organized violence and contempt for the law.

Sorry for Reporter Lingle though they were, Chicagoans last week waited to see whether his would be a really fruitful martyrdom; whether, its heart touched, its majesty outraged, its power challenged, the Press of Chicago would lead or prod the leaderless city out of its uncivilized predicament.

*Tribune advertisements have lately been explaining: "The crime problem in Chicago is rendered acute by the ease with which criminals can enter and leave the city. . . . Yet it is this geographical position that makes it a city of over 3,000,000 population. . . . You have found time to read about crime in Chicago without profit to yourself. Spend a little more time and learn how you can take up the slack in your business by sales in the Chicago area."

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