he tenant whom all knew for an honest, hard-working woman, had not
infrequently fastened her door in this manner, in order to safeguard her
child who was abnormally active and had a way of rattling the door open
when it was not thus secured. But she had never refused to open before,
and the child's cries were pitiful.

"'This was no longer a matter of wonder, when, the door having been
wrenched from its hinges, they all rushed in. Across a tub of steaming
clothes lifted upon a bench in the open window, they saw the body of
this good woman, lying inert and seemingly dead; the frightened child
tugging at her skirts. She was of a robust make, fleshy and fair, and
had always been considered a model of health and energy, but at the
sight of her helpless figure, thus stricken while at work, the one cry
was 'A stroke! till she had been lifted off and laid upon the floor.
Then some discoloration in the water at the bottom of the tub led to a
closer examination of her body, and the discovery of a bullet-hole in
her breast directly over the heart.

"'As she had been standing with face towards the window, all crowded
that way to see where the shot had come from. As they were on the fourth
storey it could not have come from the court upon which the room looked.
It could only have come from the front tenement, towering up before
them some twenty feet away. A single window of the innumerable ones
confronting them stood open, and this was the one directly opposite.

"'Nobody was to be seen there or in the room beyond, but during the
excitement, one man ran off to call the police and another to hunt up
the janitor and ask who occupied this room.

"'His reply threw them all into confusion. The tenant of that room was
the best, the quietest and most respectable man in either building.

"'Then he must be simply careless and the shot an accidental one. A rush
was made for the stairs and soon the whole building was in an uproar.
But when this especial room was reached, it was found locked and on the
door a paper pinned up, on which these words were written: Gone to New
York. Will be back at 6:30! Words that recalled a circumstance to
the janitor. He had seen the gentleman go out an hour before. This
terminated all inquiry in this direction, though some few of the excited
throng were for battering down this door just as they had the other one.
But they were overruled by the janitor, who saw no use in such wholesale
destruction, and prese