On the steps she opened her umbrella and made her way through the increasing crowd toward the taxi-cab.
She had no morbid curiosity concerning such painful scenes, when curiosity alone could afford no aid. She heard a ragged boy say something about “a coupla guys dead acrost the street”—and shuddered as she stepped into the taxi-cab.
The driver turned around and opened the front window:
“When I heard that first shot,” he said excitedly, “I tuk it f’r a blow-out. Yes, ma’am. Then come two more shots an’ I gets wise an’ ducks. I hear them two fellas are dead. Some gun-play. I’ll say so.... Where to, lady?”
CHAPTER XXXV
ONLY in books does the story of an individual begin and end.
But birth cannot begin that story; nor can death end it.
Sequel and sequence, continued and continuous, serial interminable.
At the autopsy enough coal-tar was discovered in the viscera of Mr. Carter to account for the large orifice he blew in the abdomen of Mr. Smull.
The motive, too, seemed to be clear enough. Smull had been instrumental in sending Carter to prison, where he had become an addict.