or, stone dead.
Life had been thrust out of him with the first blow dealt him by Tom's
claspknife, which had been aimed at his throat as a butcher aims at the
throat of a swine. His bleeding corpse presented a frightful spectacle,
the head being nearly severed from the body.

Brookfield, shaking all over, turned his back upon the awful sight, and
kept on running to and fro and up and down the street, clamouring like a
madman for the police. Two sturdy constables presently came, their
appearance restoring something like order. To them Tom o' the Gleam
advanced, extending his blood-stained hands.

"I am ready!" he said, in a quiet voice. "I am the murderer!"

They looked at him. Then, by way of precaution, one of them clasped a
pair of manacles on his wrists. The other, turning his eyes to the
corpse on the floor, recoiled in horror.

"Throw something over it!" he commanded.

He was obeyed, and the dreadful remains of what had once been human,
were quickly shrouded from view.

"How did this happen?" was the next question put by the officer of the
law who had already spoken, opening his notebook.

A chorus of eager tongues answered him, Brookfield's excited explanation
echoing above them all. His dear friend, his great, noble, good friend
had been brutally murdered! His friend was Lord Wrotham, of Wrotham
Hall, Blankshire! A break-down had occurred within half a mile of Blue
Anchor, and Lord Wrotham had taken rooms at the present inn for the
night. His lordship had condescended to enter into a friendly
conversation with the ruffian now under arrest, who, without the
slightest cause or provocation whatsoever, had suddenly attacked and
overthrown his lordship, and plunged a knife into his lordship's throat!
He himself was James Brookfield, proprietor of the _Daily Post-Bag_, the
_Pictorial Pie_, and the _Illustrated Invoice_, and he should make this
outrageous, this awful crime a warning to motorists throughout the
world----!"

"That will do, thank you," said the officer briefly--then he gave a
sharp glance around him--"Where's the landlady?"

She had fled in terror from the scene, and some one went in search of
her, returning with the poor woman and her two daughters, all of them
deathly pale and shivering with dread.

"Don't be frightened, mother!" said one of the constables kindly--"No
harm will come to you. Just tell us what you saw of this affair--that's
all."

Whereat the poor hostess, her narrative inter