Having collected his royalties, Means cheerfully repudiated his own book. He had moved on to a new set of victims, a group of New York men who were interested in subversive Soviet activities. Means claimed to have the goods on two Soviets intent on wreaking havoc in the United States with $2 million earmarked for that purpose. He took on the case at his usual price of $100 per day. His investigation dragged out for three years as Means promised to bring the secret agents to justice and to capture 24 trunks and 11 suitcases full of secret orders, plans and diaries. He claimed several times that he almost got those trunks and suitcases and once did so, he said, but upon his return to New York, the secret agents stole them back again. Finally, he delivered the news that one of the Russians had murdered the other and all the documents had been burned. He told his story so convincingly that an arrest warrant was sworn out against the killer, for a murder that existed only in Means's imagination.