She called out, "Who's there?"
but got no answer. As she went to the door her father succeeded
in opening it and staggered in. He sank down into a chair near
the center table. She saw then that he was very pale, and had a
wound upon his head from which blood was still flowing. Much
alarmed, she inquired of him what had occurred. The deceased
was unable to answer. He seemed to be approaching a sort of
coma.

"Who was it? Who did it?" Miss Audrey Tarbush demanded of him.
It was a dramatic situation.

The deceased was unable to make an intelligent reply. "Someone
hit me," he muttered. That was all he could manage to say, and
that was all she could catch of his last words. Before long his
head sank forward and he breathed his last almost in her arms.
Unassisted she was able to carry the body of her father to the
near-by sofa.

At that late hour the telephone operator had gone home, so she
was unable to call any of the neighbors by means of the
telephone. She does not recall how long she was alone with the
dead body of her esteemed parent, but after a time her cries
from the front porch were heard. The neighbors came to her
assistance, but nothing could be done.

Examination of the remains of the deceased revealed a long and
ragged wound over the upper and left-hand part of the head,
breaking the cuticle for a distance of some four or five
inches. The marshal's hat had been on when he was struck. The
skull was broken for a distance of more than two inches,
according to the examination of Dr. Amos N. Beals, who examined
the body, the left parietal bone being crushed in as by some
heavy instrument.

Your reporter deduces the following theory of the crime. At a
late hour, after City Marshal Tarbush had finished his duties
in the public square, he went towards his home, the public
meeting at the library having by this time been dismissed. At a
distance of perhaps fifty feet west of the front gate of his
own home the deceased was approached by some miscreant, who
with some heavy blunt instrument struck him down from behind,
and who then made his escape, leaving no sign behind him. No
club or weapon of any kind was found.

After receiving his death blow this estimable citizen seems to
have walked, steadying himself against th