"In twenty minutes," said the rare voice. "Good-bye."
The blank which followed told him that the girl had hung up; he turned to the boy.
"Danny," said he, "there'll be a lady along in a little while. Have her come in here and let me know right away."
With his brows puckered in perplexity Bat went back to the lounging room. Ashton-Kirk was looking out at the crowds passing in the street; Dennison was reading a blackly headlined story on the front page of one of the newspapers, his pudgy hands shaking and his eyes feverish.
"The worst thing of the kind I ever heard of," said he with a kind of gurgle of horror. "The very worst. The police have been bragging about their efficiency during this last administration; now let's see what they can do. Here's a case that'll try them out."
"Oh, yes," said Bat, absently. "You were talking about being upset by this thing. It was----" He paused suddenly, remembering that he had not yet heard.
"A murder," said the detective, as he threw down the newspaper. "A most brutal and devilish murder. I talked with Tom Burton last night only a few hours before this terrible thing must have happened."
"Tom Burton!" Scanlon's big, ruddy face went a little pale. "Not the 'Bounder'?"
"Yes, they did call him that," confessed the other, a little resentfully. "But that was all wrong. Burton was a good fellow when you knew him."
But Bat Scanlon was not listening; he had snatched up one of the newspapers. In staring head-lines he was reading:
MYSTERIOUSLY STRUCK DOWN STRANGE DEED AT STANWICK! _Tom Burton, Well-Known Man About Town, the Victim._ _Police Are Puzzled!_
In the body of the type the hurried details of the crime were given--or as many of them as the journal had been able to gather before going to press.
Stanwick was a new suburb on a branch line; and some time after midnight a policeman, Colby by name, had been patrolling his beat, which was along Duncan Street. A girl in the dress of a nurse, and much frightened, rushed up to him, and in great agitation announced that there was a man lying dead on the floor at 620. Colby, startled and excited, accompanied the girl to the house indicated, and there found the body of Thomas Burton, a "well-known clubman," stretched out upon the floor of the sitting-room--dead--and with a frightful wound in the head.