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Just when it was that her troubled thoughts were succeeded by even more troubled dreams she was not aware, but it was noon the next day when she was awakened by the maid bringing in her breakfast tray.
"Terrible, Miss Jane, wasn't it," said the servant, "about that suicide last night, almost under our noses, you might say."
"Suicide!" cried the girl, at once wide-awake and interested "What suicide?"
"A man was found dead in the side street right by our building with a revolver in his hand."
"What sort of a looking man was he?"
"I didn't see him," said the maid, almost regretfully. "He was taken away before I was up. Cook tells me it was the milkman found him and notified the police."
"Who was he?"
"Nobody round here knows a thing about him. He shot himself through the heart and us sleeping here an' not knowing anything at all about it."
"But didn't any one know who he was?"
"Never a soul. The superintendents from all the buildings round took a look at the body, but none of them knew him. It wasn't anybody that lived around here. There's a piece in the afternoon papers about it."
"Get me a paper at once," directed the girl.
Eagerly she read the paragraph the maid pointed out. It really told very little. The body of a plainly dressed man had been found on the sidewalk. There was a revolver in his hand with one cartridge discharged, and the bullet had penetrated his heart. He had been a short stalky man and had worn a brown soft hat. There was nothing about his clothing to identify him, even the marks where his suit had been purchased having been removed. He had not been identified. The police and the coroner were satisfied that it was a case of suicide.
Suicide!
Jane, reading and rereading the paragraph, recalled the unusual occurrence she had witnessed the night before. Vividly there stood out before her the strange panorama she had seen, the tall young man in evening clothes, and the short stalky man with the soft hat who had followed him. The two of them had run around the corner. Only one of them had come back. Unforgettably there was imprinted in her memory the satanic expression on the young man's face as he had hastened into the house. No wonder he had cast such an anxious glance behind him as he entered.
Suicide!
Jane was certain that it was no suicide. She remembered the curious thud she had heard from around the corner, like a body falling to the pavement. She recalled that it must have been at least ten minutes before the other man reappeared, time enough to have placed the revolver in the dead man's hand, time enough even to have removed all possible means of identification from the man's clothing.