Murder of the Circus Queen

IT was Friday, the thirteenth.Against the windows in the private office of the Police Commissioner anApril rain pattered rest-lessly. The spring down-pour filled with premature dusk the dark-panelled room in Suite 200, at the north end of the second floor of the old Headquarters Building in Centre Street. On Thatcher Colt's desk a greenshaded lamp spilled a circle of white light. Bent forward in a hunched posture of concentration was the Commissioner, shuffling proof sheets of his annual report to the Mayor.It was about 3.30 o'clock when a knock sounded at the door and Captain— now Inspector— Israel Henry, the officer in charge of the Commissioner's suite, handed me a card, heavily embossed in gilded script, which read:"Colonel Tod Robinson, Owner and Manager, Robinson Brothers' and Dawson and Woodruff's Combined Greatest Shows on Earth."When I laid the flamboyant card before Thatcher Colt his sombre dark eyes sparkled with pleasure."Tod Robinson!" he exclaimed. "His show opens at the Garden tonight! Send him right in!"