Gazette Reporter
Witnesses Unprecedented Drama!
At 7:05 this evening the Marquis of Clivers, special
envoy of Great Britain to this country, was found by
a city detective, within the cluttered enclosure of a
building under construction on 5501 Street, Manhattan,
standing beside the body of a dead man who had just
been shot through the back of the head. The dead man
was Michael Walsh, night watchman. The detective was
Purley Stebbins of the Homicide Squad.
At 7:00 a Gazette reporter, walking down Madison Avenue,
seeing a crowd collected at 5501 Street, stopped to in-
vestigate. Finding that it was only two cars with shat-
tered windshields and other minor damages from a collision,
he strolled on, turning into 55th. Not far from the corner
he saw a man stepping off the curb to cross the street. He
recognized the man as Purley Stebbins, a city detective,
and was struck by something purposeful in his gait. He
stopped, and saw Stebbins push open the door of a board
fence where a building is being constructed.
The reporter crossed the street likewise, through curiosity,
and entered the enclosure after the detective. He ventured
further, and saw Stebbins grasping by the arm a man elegantly
attired in evening dress, while the man tried to pull away.
Then the reporter saw something else: the body of a man on
the ground.
Advancing close enough to see the face of the man in evening
dress and recognizing him at once, the reporter was quick-
witted enough to call sharply, 'Lord Clivers!'
The man replied, 'Who the devil are you?'
The detective, who was feeling the man for a weapon,
instructed the reporter to telephone headquarters and
get Inspector Cramer. The body was lying in such a
position that the reporter had to step over it to get
at the telephone on the wall of a wooden shed. Meanwhile
Stebbins bad blown his whistle and a few moments later
a patrolman in uniform entered. Stebbins spoke to him,
and the patrolman leaned over the body and exclaimed,
'It's the night watchman, old Walsh!'
Having phoned police headquarters, the reporter approached
Lord Clivers and asked him for a statement. He was brushed
aside by Stebbins, who commanded him to leave. The reporter
persisting, Stebbins instructed the patrolman to put him out,
and the reporter was forcibly ejected.
The superintendent of the construction, reached on the tele-
phone, said that the name of the night watchman was Michael
Walsh. He knew of no possible connection between Walsh and a
member of the British nobility.
No information could be obtained from the suite of Lord
