e for speculation or doubt.

"Murder! Help!" cried the woman in a staccato sharpness that carried the
length of many blocks.

Bristow sprang to his feet and started down the short flight of stairs
leading from his porch to the street. Before he had taken three steps, he
saw the frightened girl standing on the porch of No. 5, two doors to his
left. Although he was lame, he displayed surprising agility. His left
leg, two inches shorter than the right and supported by a steel brace
from foot to thigh, did not prevent his being the first to reach the
young woman's side.

Late as it was, half-past ten, she was not fully dressed. She wore a
kimono of light, sheer material which, clutched spasmodically about her,
revealed the slightness and grace of her figure. Her fair hair hung down
her back in a long, thick braid.

Neighbours across the street and further up Manniston Road were out on
their porches now or starting toward No. 5. All of them were women.

The girl--she was barely past twenty, he thought--stopped screaming, and,
her hands pressed to her throat and cheeks, stared wildly from him toward
the front door, which was standing open. He entered the living room of
the one-story bungalow. A foot within the doorway, he stood stock still.
On the sofa against the opposite wall he saw another woman. He knew at
first glance that she was dead.

The body was in a curious position. Apparently, before death had come,
the victim had been sitting on the sofa, and, in dying, her body had
crumpled over from the waist toward the right, so that now the lower part
of her occupied the attitude of sitting while the upper half reclined as
if in the posture of natural sleep. One thing which, perhaps, added to
the gruesomeness of the sight was that she had on evening dress, a gown
of pale blue satin embellished in unerring taste with real old Irish
lace.

Although the face had been beautiful under its crown of luxuriant black
hair, it now was distorted. While the eyes were closed, the mouth was
open, very wide--an ugly, repulsive gape.

He was aware that the woman in the kimono was just behind him--he could
feel her hot breath against the back of his neck--and that behind her
pressed the neighbours, their number augmented by the arrival of two men.
He turned and faced them.

"Call a doctor--and the police, somebody, will you?" he said sharply.

"They have a telephone back there in the dining room," volunteered one of
the women on