His name was on the door
on a silver plate. As the evening deepened and the news spread, the bell
was pulled so often that it aided the universal alarm following a crime,
and a crowd of people, reinforced by others as fast as it thinned out,
kept up the watch on ever-recurring friends, coroner's officers and
newspaper reporters, as they ascended the steps, looked grave, made
inquiries, and returned to dispense their information.
But there was very little indignation, for Zane had been an insanely
passionate man, rather hard and exacting, and had he been found dead
alone anywhere it would probably have been said at once that he brought
it on himself. His partner, Rainey, however, had conducted himself so
negatively and mildly, and was of such general estimation, that the
murder of the senior member of the film took on some unusual public
sympathy from the reflected sorrow for his fellow-victim. The latter had
been one of Zane's apprentices, raised to a place in the establishment
by his usefulness and sincere love of his patron. Just, forbearing,
soft-spoken, and not avaricious, Sayler Rainey deserved no injury from
any living being. He was unmarried, and, having met with a
disappointment in love, had avowed his intention never to marry, but to
bequeath all the property he should acquire to his partner's only son,
Andrew Zane.
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