But Cass did not hear her, as the wind was high and he was already some distance away. As he sped along the silent streets storm-clouds were racing across the face of a watery moon, and a drizzle of rain moistened his face. Being a reporter, Cass was friendly with constables, and knew the station at Dukesfield well, having often gone there to glean paragraphs. This time he went to give more terrible and sensational news than he had ever received, and stumbled almost into Inspector Drake's arms in his haste. "Steady there," said Drake, gruffly, then recognising the agitated face of Cass in the flaring gaslight, he added, in a tone of surprise: "You, sir; whatever's come over you at this time of night?" "Drake, there has been a murder at Myrtle Villa down the Jubilee Road, leading to the brickfields. A man called Moxton has been stabbed. His wife came for Dr. Ellis, and I ran on to tell you!" The inspector heard this startling intelligence with a phlegm begotten by twenty years' experience of similar reports. "Who done it, Mr. Cass? Does the wife know?" "No; she says she heard a cry, and ran out to find her husband dying on the garden path. He died in her arms." "Did she see anyone about?" "I don't know. I never asked her. That is your business, Drake. Come along, Ellis is with her and the dead man." "Oh, he is dead, then?" remarked the inspector, leisurely putting on his cap and cloak. "So Mrs. Moxton says. Come!" Leaving the station in charge of an underling, Drake called a policeman, and followed Cass into the windy night. The two, with the constable tailing after them, marched military fashion along several deserted and lampless streets, until they turned into the Jubilee Road, a dark thoroughfare of empty, roofless houses and incomplete pavements. Civilisation had not yet established order in this region, and the street in embryo ended suddenly on the verge of naked lands. Beyond twinkled the red and green signal lights of the railway, and between, piles of bricks were heaped in Babylon-like mounds. Myrtle Villa was the last house on the right abutting on this untrimmed plain; and the three men were guided to it by a winking light in the garden. It was that of a lantern held by Mrs. Moxton, and shed yellow rays on the face of the dead man. Ellis, kneeling beside the corpse, completed a startling and dramatic picture. "Oh!" cried the woman, with something like dismay, as the light revealed uniforms, "the police!" "Yes, ma'am," said Drake, glancing sharply at her white cheeks, "we have come to see about this matter. Is the gentleman dead, doctor?" "I should think so. Look here!" Ellis rolled over the body and showed a wound under the left shoulder-blade, round which the blood had coagulated. "The poor devil must have died within ten minutes after the blow was struck." "He died in my arms," moaned Mrs. Moxton. "Oh, Edgar!" "Did he tell you who stabbed him, ma'am?" "No; he never spoke a word."