They watched the man go up Seymour-grove, but finding that he did not pass the gates leading to the house of a Mr. Gatrix, Beanland said he would go and see who the man was.
The officer accordingly went up to the gate, and finding it open passed in and went up to the house. He tried both doors and windows, and found them safe, and was turning to leave the grounds when he heard two shots, and saw two flashes of fire.
At the same time he heard some one shout, “Oh, murder, murder! I’m shot, I’m shot!” Scarcely half a minute had elapsed since he had left Cock, and, running back to the spot, he found the officer lying on the kerbstone. He was bleeding from a wound in the breast.
Police-sergeant Thompson, who was on duty in Whalley Range, and had heard the shots, came running up, and joined Beanland, at the same time that Mr. Simpson returned.
That gentleman also heard the firing when he was about two hundred yards from the end of Upper Chorlton-road. At that moment a night-soil cart came past, and the injured man was lifted into it and taken to Dr. Dill’s surgery in Lower Chorlton-road.
Cock was unsconcious when he arrived there, but after stimulants had been administered he revived a little, and was repeatedly asked who had shot him.
Once he said “I don’t know,” but afterwards relapsing into semi-unconsciousness, he said “Leave me a-be. Oh, Frank, you are killing me.” There was no one named Frank in the room.
He died shortly afterwards, and at the post-mortem examination made by Dr. Dill, a gun-shot wound was found in the breast near the right nipple.
The ball had struck the fourth rib, shattered the bone, and had then gone through the right lung to the spine, where it had lodged. Death had resulted from hæmorrhage, which was very great, both internal and external.
Suspicion fell upon three brothers named John, William, and Frank Habron, the first of whom had been employed for nine years, the second for seven years, and the third for eight years, by Mr. Francis Deakin, nurseryman, of Chorlton-lane. Cock being a young officer, was disposed to take notice of things that older and more experienced men would have tolerated with impunity.