street door; had Mary been at home, and three persons at once had combined
to distract the purposes of the murderer, it is barely possible that one
of them would have succeeded in reaching the street. But the dreadful
swing of the heavy mallet intercepted both the boy and his mistress before
they could reach the door. Each of them lay stretched out on the centre of
the shop floor; and the very moment that this disabling was accomplished,
the accursed hound was down upon their throats with his razor. The fact
is, that, in the mere blindness of pity for poor Marr, on hearing his
groans, Mrs. Marr had lost sight of her obvious policy; she and the boy
ought to have made for the back door; the alarm would thus have been given
in the open air; which, of itself, was a great point; and several means of
distracting the murderer's attention offered upon that course, which the
extreme limitation of the shop denied to them upon the other.

Vain would be all attempts to convey the horror which thrilled the
gathering spectators of this piteous tragedy. It was known to the crowd
that one person had, by some accident, escaped the general massacre: but
she was now speechless, and probably delirious; so that, in compassion for
her pitiable situation, one female neighbor had carried her away, and put
her to bed. Hence it had happened, for a longer space of time than could
else have been possible, that no person present was sufficiently
acquainted with the Marrs to be aware of the little infant; for the bold
pawnbroker had gone off to make a communication to the coroner; and
another neighbor to lodge some evidence which he thought urgent at a
neighboring police-office. Suddenly some person appeared amongst the crowd
who was aware that the murdered parents had a young infant; this would be
found either below-stairs, or in one of the bedrooms above. Immediately a
stream of people poured down into the kitchen, where at once they saw the
cradle--but with the bedclothes in a state of indescribable confusion. On
disentangling these, pools of blood became visible; and the next ominous