"Officer, this is murder!" he exclaimed excitedly. "Notify the detective bureau. And don't permit anyone to leave this building."
CHAPTER V
While awaiting the arrival of the Headquarters men, the coroner busied himself with a preliminary examination of the clerks. The coroner was a small, fussy individual, smooth-shaven, with reddish-brown hair brushed back in pompadour fashion. Because of his small stature and insignificant appearance he was compelled to adopt a brisk air of command, lest witnesses presume to trifle with his authority.
"Gentlemen, I am Coroner Hart," he announced, stepping into the outer office and addressing the assembled clerks. "I shall immediately begin a preliminary inquest and you will all regard yourselves summoned as witnesses. The policeman will permit no one to leave the room without my permission."
The clerks, unfamiliar with the legal proceedings attached to a homicide case, exchanged puzzled glances. In the presence of their beloved dead, this man's unsympathetic attitude seemed almost a profanation. The policeman, in passing through the office on his way to the door, had let drop the remark that murder had been committed, yet none of the employés could bring himself to believe that an alien hand had fired the mortal bullet. No visitor had entered Whitmore's office; none of the clerks had been within. Who could have done it?
The coroner called one of the clerks who had sat within a dozen feet of the door all morning.
"Did you see anyone enter the office?" he asked.
"No, sir," the clerk replied.
"Could anyone have entered without passing you or without your noticing him?"