Page:Lynch Williams--The stolen story and other newspaper stories.djvu/208

 his business. So usually he only yawned and called out from his seat in the sun, "Anything good, Tom," without stopping his legs. Tom, the driver, generally said, "Naw, only a floater from North River," with some contempt, for Tom was blasé; a good murder was what he appreciated, an Italian murder, with much cutting.

Murders were what Knox wanted, too, murders or suicides with romantic interest; but when it was a good story the police head-quarters man had already been sent out on it, or else some of the crack general-work reporters, while Knox was left to follow up the dull routine part of it, with the other Morgue and Coroner's Office men, to find out when the inquest was to be held, by which more-or-less-Americanized coroner, etc.; then to come back to the monotonous Morgue and observe the people who came to look at the dead face. "Watch their eyes when the cover is first taken off—maybe you can catch the murderer yourself," said the crack reporter, striding off impressively with the Central Office detectives. But such delights never came to Hamilton Knox,