"A man . . . he is quite young . . . only about twenty years of age."
"Stabbed through the neck——"
"Stabbed?—Bah?"
"Right through the neck I tell you . . . just below the ear. I can see the wound, quite small as if done with a skewer."
"Allons! Voyons! Voyons!" came the gruff accents from the two portly gardiens who worked vigorously with elbows and even feet to keep the crowd somewhat at bay.
Louisa was on the fringe of the crowd. She could see nothing of course—she did not wish to see that which the chauffeur saw when first he opened the door of his cab—but she stood rooted to the spot, feeling that strange, unexplainable fascination which one always feels, when one of those great life dramas of which one reads so often and so indifferently happens to be enacted within the close range of one's own perception.
She gleaned a phrase here and there—saw the horror-stricken faces of those who had seen, the placid, bovine expression of the two gardiens, more inured to such sights and calmly taking notes by the light of the electric standard.
"But to think that I drove that rascally murderer in my cab, and put him down safe and sound not ten minutes ago!" came with the adjunct of a loud oath from the irate chauffeur.
The gardiens tried to stem the flow of the driver's eloquence; such details should first be given to the police. Voyons! But what were two fat mouchards against twenty stalwart idlers all determined to hear—and then there were the women—they were determined to know more.