"Tom Burton!" Scanlon's big, ruddy face went a little pale. "Not the 'Bounder'?"
"Yes, they did call him that," confessed the other, a little resentfully. "But that was all wrong. Burton was a good fellow when you knew him."
But Bat Scanlon was not listening; he had snatched up one of the newspapers. In staring head-lines he was reading:
MYSTERIOUSLY STRUCK DOWN
Strange Deed at Stanwick!
Tom Burton, Well-Known Man About Town, the Victim.
Police Are Puzzled!
In the body of the type the hurried details of the crime were given—or as many of them as the journal had been able to gather before going to press.
Stanwick was a new suburb on a branch line; and some time after midnight a policeman, Colby by name, had been patrolling his beat, which was along Duncan Street. A girl in the dress of a nurse, and much frightened, rushed up to him, and in great agitation announced that there was a man lying dead on the floor at 620. Colby, startled and excited, accompanied the girl to the house indicated, and there found the body of Thomas Burton, a "well-known clubman," stretched out upon the floor of the sitting-room—dead—and with a frightful wound in the head.
"The house is occupied by Frank Burton, the cartoonist for the Morning Standard, and his sister Mary, who has been an invalid for some years. These are the son and daughter of the dead man. They say they had not, up to last night, seen their father for a long time; his visit was a surprise and not at all a welcome one, it would appear, as they had not been upon good terms. According to the story told by young Burton, he and his sister left the room in which their father sat; when the young man returned, he found his father dead, as stated."