"You just go and get me that paper," she commanded. "I wants to see for myself."
Bunting went into the next room; then he came back and handed her silently the odd-looking, thin little sheet.
"Why, whatever’s this?" she asked. "This ain’t our paper!"
"’Course not," he answered, a trifle crossly. "It’s a special early edition of the Sun, just because of The Avenger. Here’s the bit about it"—he showed her the exact spot. But she would have found it, even by the comparatively bad light of the gas-jet now flaring over the dressing-table, for the news was printed in large, clear characters:—
"Within fifty yards of the deserted warehouse yard where he had lured his victim to destruction were passing up and down scores of happy, busy people, intent on their Christmas shopping. Into that cheerful throng he must have plunged within a moment of committing his atrocious crime. And it was only owing to the merest accident that the body was discovered as soon as it was—that is, just after midnight.
"Dr. Dowtray, who was called to the spot at once, is of opinion that the woman had been dead at least three hours, if not four. It was at first thought—we were going to say, hoped—that this murder had nothing to do with the series which is now puzzling and horrifying the whole of the civilised world. But no—pinned on the edge