round the table, gazing at the remains.

THE REMAINS!

One or two were crying; one or two were whispering; awed into a
strange stillness of voice and action by the presence of the dead.
When Mr. Carson came in they all drew back and looked at him with
the reverence due to sorrow.

He went forward and gazed long and fondly on the calm, dead face;
then he bent down and kissed the lips yet crimson with life. The
policemen had advanced, and stood ready to be questioned. But at
first the old man's mind could only take in the idea of death;
slowly, slowly came the conception of violence, of murder. "How did
he die?" he groaned forth.

The policemen looked at each other. Then one began, and stated that
having heard the report of a gun in Turner Street, he had turned
down that way (a lonely, unfrequented way Mr. Carson knew, but a
short cut to his garden door, of which Harry had a key); that as he
(the policeman) came nearer, he had heard footsteps as of a man
running away; but the evening was so dark (the moon not having yet
risen) that he could see no one twenty yards off. That he had even
been startled when close to the body by seeing it lying across the
path at his feet. That he had sprung his rattle; and when another
policeman came up, by the light of the lantern they had discovered
who it was that had been killed. That they believed him to be dead
when they first took him up, as he had never moved, spoken, or
breathed. That intelligence of the murder had been sent to the
superintendent, who would probably soon be here. That two or three