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 interrupted by tears, explained that Tom o' the Gleam was a frequent customer of hers, and that she had never thought badly of him. "He was a bit excited to-night, but he wasn't drunk," she said. "He told me he was ill, and asked for a glass of brandy. He looked as if he were in great pain, and I gave him the brandy at once and asked him to step inside the bar. But he wouldn't do that,--he just stood talking with the gentlemen about motoring, and then something was said about a child being knocked over by the motor,--and all of a sudden----" Here her voice broke, and she sank on a seat half swooning, while Elizabeth, her eldest girl, finished the story in low, trembling tones. Tom o' the Gleam meanwhile stood rigidly upright and silent. To him the chief officer of the law finally turned. "Will you come with us quietly?" he asked, "or do you mean to give us trouble?" Tom lifted his dark eyes. "I shall give no man any more trouble," he answered. "I shall go nowhere save where I am taken. You need fear nothing from me now. But I must speak." The officer frowned warningly. "You'd better not!" he said.