In the Mayor's Parlour by J.S. Fletcher

Bunning knew the Mayor was dead before that cry of surprise had passed his lips. In his time he had seen many dead men -- sometimes it was a bullet, sometimes a bayonet; he knew the signs of what follows on the swift passage of one and the sharp thrust of the other. In his first glance into the room he had been quick to notice the limp hand hanging across the edge of the desk, the way in which Wallingford's head lay athwart the mass of papers over which he had collapsed in falling forward from his chair -- that meant death. And the old soldier's observant eye had seen more than that -- over the litter of documents which lay around the still figure were great crimson stains. The caretaker's cry changed to articulated speech.

"Murder! The Mayor's been murdered!"