[CHAPTER III]
To say that Waynscott was amazed on the appearance of the News the next morning would be to put it mildly. That a prominent lawyer should be found dead in the best residence quarter of the city at the early hour of ten, and that the police authorities should have nothing to offer, was enough to set the whole city talking. Fullerton had not been particularly popular, but he was a man of mark. A bachelor, he had lived at a fashionable apartment house, the Wellington; he had no family, no intimate friends, and there were men at his club who would not play with him, but still he was a personage. The city buzzed with the decorous joy of discussing a full-fledged sensation of its own.
Was it murder? Was it an accident? Had he any personal enemies? Was it highway robbery? What were the police good for, anyhow? The result of the coroner's inquest was awaited with the keenest interest.
The body had been taken to the morgue, and the inquest was held there the next day. The significant testimony, as it was sifted out, was as follows:
Donohue, the police officer, was called first. He testified that he had been at the corner of Oak and Grant Streets when he heard the Court House clock strike the quarter before ten. He had walked down Oak Street one block at a slow pace, and had turned south on Sherman Street, when his attention was caught by a gray something on the ground at the edge of the sidewalk. At first he thought it was a large dog. Then, as he walked toward it, he saw that it was a man fallen against the curbing. He touched him, lifted his head, and found that the man was not drunk but dead. He had heard no outcry, no disturbance, no sound of running.
After satisfying himself that the man was dead he had blown his whistle to call the officer on the next beat, and had sent him to telephone for the patrol wagon. The first person who came up was Mr. Lyon, but there soon was a crowd about them.
"Did you recognize the body as Mr. Fullerton?" the county attorney asked.
"Not just at first," Donohue answered with some hesitation.
"Did you know him by sight?"
"Yes, sir."