Marr's
back-door stood wide open. Probably the murderer had passed through it one
half minute before. Rapidly the brave man passed onwards to the shop, and
there beheld the carnage of the night stretched out on the floor, and the
narrow premises so floated with gore, that it was hardly possible to
escape the pollution of blood in picking out a path to the front-door. In
the lock of the door still remained the key which had given to the unknown
murderer so fatal an advantage over his victims. By this time, the heart-
shaking news involved in the outcries of Mary (to whom it occurred that by
possibility some one out of so many victims might still be within the
reach of medical aid, but that all would depend upon speed) had availed,
even at that late hour, to gather a small mob about the house. The
pawnbroker threw open the door. One or two watchmen headed the crowd; but
the soul-harrowing spectacle checked them, and impressed sudden silence
upon their voices, previously so loud. The tragic drama read aloud its own
history, and the succession of its several steps--few and summary. The
murderer was as yet altogether unknown; not even suspected. But there were
reasons for thinking that he must have been a person familiarly known to
Marr. He had entered the shop by opening the door after it had been closed
by Marr. But it was justly argued--that, after the caution conveyed to
Marr by the watchman, the appearance of any stranger in the shop at that
hour, and in so dangerous a neighborhood, and entering by so irregular and
suspicious a course, (_i.
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