The place was thronged with police officers and reporters.
Adjoining Colton's sleeping-apartment, on the second floor, was a small room with a window looking out on the back yard, and with one door opening from the hall.

In this room, let partly into the wall, was an iron safe in which the old man kept "the little money" that he had decided to invest in real estate.

The window was protected by upright iron bars.

At night, a gas-jet, turned low, threw dismal shadows about the room, and it was the old man's habit to light the gas at bed-time and to turn it off the first thing at morning.

He had lighted the gas shortly after returning from Witherspoon's house and had gone to bed, and it must have been about one o'clock when the household was startled by the report of a pistol.