“I'm willing to wager you a box of cigars that you don't know the most
fascinating story in your own paper to-night,” remarked Kennedy, as I
came in one evening with the four or five newspapers I was in the habit
of reading to see whether they had beaten the Star in getting any news
of importance.
“I'll bet I do,” I said, “or I was one of about a dozen who worked it
up. It's the Shaw murder trial. There isn't another that's even a bad
second.”
“I am afraid the cigars will be on you, Walter. Crowded over on the
second page by a lot of stale sensation that everyone has read for the
fiftieth time, now, you will find what promises to be a real sensation,
a curious half-column account of the sudden death of John G. Fletcher.”
I laughed. “Craig,” I said, “when you put up a simple death from
apoplexy against a murder trial, and such a murder trial; well, you
disappoint me--that's all.”
“Is it a simple case of apoplexy?” he asked, pacing up and down the
room, while I wondered why he should grow excited over what seemed a
very ordinary news item, after all. Then he picked up the paper and read
the account slowly aloud.