EIGHT O'CLOCK From one aspect, Curtis's sense of dread and horror was merely altruistic, the natural welling forth of the springs of human sentiment.

If the man now lying stark and lifeless in that dreary official bureau had in truth been hurrying on his way to a marriage feast, then, indeed, tragedy had assumed its grimmest aspect that night in New York.

But, beyond an enforced personal contact with a ghastly crime, Curtis had no vital interest in its victim, and it should have occurred to him, as a law-abiding citizen, that his instant duty was to communicate this new discovery to the authorities.

Nay more, such definite information would help the police materially in their pursuit of the murderers.

It might lay bare a motive, put the bloodhounds of the law on a well-marked trail, and render impossible the escape of the guilty ones.
That was the sane, level-headed, man-of-the-world view, and, to one inured to deeds of violence in a land where the Foreign Devil oft-time holds his life as scarce worth an hour's purchase, no other solution of the problem should have presented itself.