To the Detroit Free Press last week Daniel Carbone, a shoemaker, telephoned a strange story: three months before, a well-dressed couple had left 16 pairs of good-quality shoes with him to be repaired, had never returned to pay his $17.05 bill and claim the shoes. Sensing a poignant mystery, the Free Press next morning frontpaged a photo of the mysterious shoes, wondered whether the owners had perished in the S.S. Noronic’s ill-fated voyage from Detroit to Toronto (TIME, Sept. 26). But by nightfall the Free Press picture had produced the footwear’s flesh & blood owner. His explanation: he had not gotten around to collecting the shoes. His name: William J. Scripps, a director and son of the owner of the rival afternoon Detroit News.
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