As the crowd at the foot of the stairs, having more freedom, fell away to let him pass Harper sprang forward.  “Jarette!  Jarette!” he cried.

Dr. Helberson seized Harper by the collar and dragged him back.  The man looked into their faces without seeming to see them and sprang through the door, down the steps, into the street, and away.  A stout policeman, who had had inferior success in conquering his way down the stairway, followed a moment later and started in pursuit, all the heads in the windows—­those of women and children now—­screaming in guidance.

The stairway being now partly cleared, most of the crowd having rushed down to the street to observe the flight and pursuit, Dr. Helberson mounted to the landing, followed by Harper.  At a door in the upper passage an officer denied them admittance.  “We are physicians,” said the doctor, and they passed in.  The room was full of men, dimly seen, crowded about a table.  The newcomers edged their way forward and looked over the shoulders of those in the front rank.  Upon the table, the lower limbs covered with a sheet, lay the body of a man, brilliantly illuminated by the beam of a bull’s-eye lantern held by a policeman standing at the feet.  The others, excepting those near the head—­the officer himself—­all were in darkness.  The face of the body showed yellow, repulsive, horrible!  The eyes were partly open and upturned and the jaw fallen; traces of froth defiled the lips, the chin, the cheeks.  A tall man, evidently a doctor, bent over the body with his hand thrust under the shirt front.  He withdrew it and placed two fingers in the open mouth.  “This man has been about six hours dead,” said he.  “It is a case for the coroner.”

He drew a card from his pocket, handed it to the officer and made his way toward the door.

“Clear the room—­out, all!” said the officer, sharply, and the body disappeared as if it had been snatched away, as shifting the lantern he flashed its beam of light here and there against the faces of the crowd.  The effect was amazing!  The men, blinded, confused, almost terrified, made a tumultuous rush for the door, pushing, crowding, and tumbling over one another as they fled, like the hosts of Night before the shafts of Apollo.  Upon the struggling, trampling mass the officer poured his light without pity and without cessation.  Caught in the current, Helberson and Harper were swept out of the room and cascaded down the stairs into the street.

“Good God, Doctor! did I not tell you that Jarette would kill him?” said Harper, as soon as they were clear of the crowd.

“I believe you did,” replied the other, without apparent emotion.

They walked on in silence, block after block.  Against the graying east the dwellings of the hill tribes showed in silhouette.  The familiar milk wagon was already astir in the streets; the baker’s man would soon come upon the scene; the newspaper carrier was abroad in the land.