“There! there!” cried the man, pointing to the passage.
The policeman was immediately encompassed by the other frightened faces.
“You’re just in time,” said the violinist. “There’s been murder done.”
“Who’s been murdered?” asked the policeman.
“That’s to be found out,” was the answer. “It’s a girl, we believe.”
“Ah,” remarked the policeman, with a certain thoughtfulness; “the last was a girl—an unfortunate girl—and he’s not been caught.”
Cautiously they re-entered the house, the policeman with his truncheon drawn, and ascended the stairs to the drawing-room. No person, dead or alive, was found.
“It’s downstairs,” said the violinist.
They crept downstairs in a body, keeping close together. There, an awful sight met their eyes. On the floor of the kitchen lay the body of the stranger who, on the 1st of July, had engaged a room on the first floor, and had paid a month’s rent in advance. He had been foully murdered. The servant girl was sound asleep in her bed. It is strange, when she returned home from the Alhambra, and crept through the passage and the kitchen to bed, that she did not herself make the discovery, for the soles of her boots were stained with the evidences of the crime, and she must have passed within a foot or two of the lifeless body; but satisfactory explanations have since been given, with which and with the details of the murder, as far as they are known, the public have already been made fully acquainted through our columns.
Our business now is with Antony Cowlrick.