During the winter of 1927-28 officials of the Federal government made a strange and secret investigation of certain conditions in the ancient Massachusetts seaport of Innsmouth. The public first learned of it in February when a vast series of raids and arrests occurred followed by the deliberate burning and dynamiting-under suitable precautions-of an enormous number of crumbling worm-eaten and supposedly empty houses along the abandoned waterfront. Uninquiring souls let this occurrence pass as one of the major clashes in a spasmodic war on liquor. Keener news-followers however wondered at the prodigious number of arrests the abnormally large force of men used in making them and the secrecy surrounding the disposal of the prisoners. No trials or even definite charges were reported; nor were any of the captives seen thereafter in the regular gaols of the nation. The truth however could drive a man mad.