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THE EMPTY BOX.
Gifted with more than ordinary intuition, as well as a remarkably keen perception resulting from years of trained experience, Nick Carter already felt sure that the case engaging him had features that did not yet appear on the surface, and that it might prove to be one of the strangest cases on record.
It still was comparatively early, only nine o’clock, when Nick arrived with Chick and Patsy in the neighborhood of the Dabney Private Medical College.
From a policeman whom he met and whose beat was in that locality, Nick learned that the institution was a small one, having usually only about twenty students, and that it was conducted solely by one Doctor David Dabney, a physician of good reputation, recognized ability, and a man of considerable means.
The last was manifest in the locality and appearance of the place presently viewed from a near distance by the detectives. It occupied a corner estate of considerable size, containing an attractive stone residence and a near building of brick, to which an annex evidently had been added, and beyond which were a stable and garage, the driveway to which was entered from a side street. All were of a superior type, while the well-kept grounds were adorned with numerous shade trees, the branches of some of which mingled with those in the rear of a fine estate forming on a fashionable avenue.
The latter struck Nick as being somewhat familiar, but seeing only the rear of the handsome wooden residence, which was almost hidden by the intervening trees, and not having approached by the way of the avenue, he did not then recall when he had previously seen it, or who dwelt there.
In view of what the policeman had told him, and which the appearance of the Dabney place seemed to confirm, Nick quickly decided how he would proceed.
“If the physician is all that the officer stated, he would not countenance the theft of a corpse, even that of a crook, and the job must have been secretly done by some of his students, assuming that we are in right,” said Nick, after sizing up the place.
“That now seems reasonable,” Chick agreed.
“Gee, we ought to be able to cinch it!” said Patsy. “The wagon and box must be here, as well as the body, even though that may have been concealed. We ought to be able to find them.”
“We’ll find them, Patsy, if they are there,” Nick re
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plied. “I’ll enter and have a talk with Dabney. You two saunter around to the side street from which the driveway leads to the stable and garage. Keep your eyes open and hold up any one who attempts to leave while I am getting in my work. I think I can drive the game from cover.”
“Go ahead,” Chick nodded. “We’ll follow in a few moments.”
Nick moved on, and presently entered a walk leading to the physician’s residence. A man came out of a side door at the same moment and started to cross the grounds toward the brick building mentioned. Upon seeing Nick, however, he turned and approached him.
He was a tall, spare man of about sixty, with smooth-shaved and rather angular features, a prominent nose, deep-set eyes, and a high brow. He was clad in a black suit with a long frock coat, which accentuated the height of his somewhat attenuated figure. He bowed when the detective drew nearer, saying, with an agreeable voice:
“Good morning, sir.”
Nick returned the greeting, then added:
“I am looking for Doctor Dabney.”
“You need look no farther,” smiled the physician. “I am Doctor Dabney. What can I do for you? Will you walk into the house?”
“I think not,” Nick replied, knowing that what he sought would not be found in the house. “My name is Ryder. I have a nephew who wishes to become a physician, and I am thinking of sending him here for tuition, if agreeable to you.”
Doctor Dabney brightened perceptibly.
“It will be decidedly agreeable, Mr. Ryder,” he said, extending his hand to shake that of the detective. “I am always glad to add to the list of my students. How old is your nephew?”
“He has just turned twenty.”
“A very good age at which to begin a course of medical study. Do you reside in Washington?”
Nick replied that he did not, and he then proceeded to make a few consistent inquiries as to terms and accommodations for students, and he wound up with remarking:
“If you can spare the time, Doctor Dabney, or will have some one conduct me, I would like to inspect your college building and its various departments. I infer that you have no objection.”
“Quite the contrary,” Doctor Dabney said quickly. “I will be more than pleased to show you around. I am to give a lecture in the dissecting room in half an hour, but I shall have ample time to accompany you.”
“The dissecting room—that is one place I would specially like to visit,” said Nick, with manifest interest.
“We can conveniently begin with that, for it is in the annex,” said Doctor Dabney, pointing toward the rear of the brick building. “Come with me. Some of my students are beginning to arrive, you see. They are the ones whose homes are in or near the city. I at present have only twenty students who are quartered in the college, though we have accommodations for twice that number.”
Nick had already observed that several young men were entering from the side street, while others were gathered near a door leading into the annex. He was quick to detect, moreover, that a group of three in front of the garage and stable were betraying a much more serious interest in him while he approached with the physician. They were talking earnestly and viewing him with a
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furtive, apprehensive scrutiny which, with their noticeable paleness, at once convinced him that they were the culprits he was seeking.
Nick evinced no special interest in them, however, but remarked to the physician, following up the topic under discussion:
“I suppose you find it difficult at times to obtain subjects for dissection?”
Doctor Dabney heard him without a change of countenance.
“Well, yes, at times,” he admitted. “They can be obtained only through the proper authorities and by paying a fixed price. That is to say, of course, unless one resorts to felonious methods to get them,” he added, smiling significantly. “But I would not sanction anything of that kind.”
“I suppose not.”
“No, not for a moment,” Doctor Dabney declared.
Nick believed him. He saw plainly enough that the physician was not only a man of character, but also that he had too much at stake to have connived at such a crime as had been committed the previous night.
They had been following a driveway passing the garage and stable. In the latter a hostler was washing a covered wagon, and Nick glanced in and noted that the wheels had rubber tires.
A few more steps brought them to the annex of the brick building. A door leading into a broad corridor with a cement floor was wide open.
Instead of immediately entering, however, Doctor Dabney turned to another door some twelve feet to the right, remarking, while he opened it:
“Speaking of subjects for dissection, Mr. Ryder, I will begin with showing you where they are kept until wanted. The door in the rear leads directly into the dissecting room, where I give many of my lectures.”
Nick peered into the cold basement room which the physician disclosed. It was lighted with only a single narrow window, high in one of the walls. The door in the rear wall was closed.
On a low stone shelf at one side a covered figure was lying, gruesome in its suggestiveness, but the size of which at once convinced Nick that it could not be the body of Andy Margate.
Near the opposite wall, nevertheless, and equally convincing to the detective, stood a long, narrow box, somewhat faded and defaced, which Nick saw at a glance was about the size of the imprint found in the alley back of Fink’s undertaking rooms.
“It’s not a very agreeable sight, Mr. Ryder, but I thought you might wish to omit nothing in connection with my establishment,” said Doctor Dabney, in apologetic tones.
“Quite right,” Nick replied. “Do you mind if I step in?”
“Certainly not,” said the physician, with a look of surprise.
“Such things do not affect me seriously,” Nick added. “The room appears well adapted to what is required of it. May I ask, Doctor Dabney, what this box contains?”
Nick touched it with his foot.
“Nothing whatever. It is empty.”
“Are you sure of it?”
“Sure of it—certainly,” exclaimed the physician. “It was put here only temporarily. It contained the casement in which a skeleton was recently shipped to me from
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New York. The skeleton has been removed and is now in the dissecting room.”
Nick turned and regarded him more sharply.
“Would you be surprised, Doctor Dabney, if I were to tell you that the box now contains a corpse?” he inquired.
“Surprised would hardly express it,” Doctor Dabney replied, with a shrug. “I would not call you a liar, of course, but I would say that you never were more mistaken in your life.”
“Nevertheless, doctor, you’re the one who would be mistaken,” said Nick pointedly.
“Nonsense! You don’t mean——”
“I mean just what I say, Doctor Dabney. This box now contains a corpse.”
“Absurd! How could——”
“Wait a moment,” Nick again interrupted. “Let’s see whether I am right. It is a matter that can be easily and quickly settled. See for yourself, Doctor Dabney.”
Nick had previously noticed that the screws had been removed from the cover of the box, though it still remained in position. He bent over while speaking and seized one side of it, then tipped it over on the floor.
No cry of amazement came from the physician.
The detective was the one who drew back with surprise.
Quite naturally, of course, Doctor Dabney now began to suspect some ulterior motive for the detective’s conduct. He straightened up with a frown, saying a bit brusquely:
“This is no place for a jest, Mr. Ryder, as you should know without being told. If you are not what you pretend, and have any reason for thinking that this box contained a body, I beg to inform you——”
“One moment, doctor, if you please,” Nick interposed. “I will presently explain to your entire satisfaction.”
Nick turned over the box while he was speaking. He found on the lower side a blurred black address printed with a shipper’s marking brush. The wood still was damp and soiled with grayish clay, moreover, which alone would have convinced him that he had made no mistake.
Nick did not immediately explain to the physician, however, who stood watching him with a darker frown on his thin face. He saw that about a dozen of the students had gathered in the driveway near by, all of them men in the twenties, and among them the three whom he had seen talking so earnestly near the stable.
Nick stepped out and approached the group, apparently with no aggressive intentions, until, turning abruptly to one of the three, he said sternly:
“Well, what have you done with it?”
The man addressed was about twenty-five, and quite a powerful fellow, set up like an athlete, with dark features and somewhat sinister eyes.
“Done with what?” he demanded. “You appear to be addressing me.”
“That’s right,” Nick nodded. “I am addressing you and your two companions, and your faces alone warrant what I am saying. What have you done with it?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” snapped the other. “If you think——”
“Stop one moment,” Nick sternly interrupted. “I know, young man, which is much more than to merely think. You three men, with a fourth to aid you, stole a corpse last night from the back room of Herman Fink, the under
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taker. You used the rubber-tired wagon in yonder stable. You stopped in the side street, entered through an alley, and, with a short ladder, you took the body through the undertaker’s back window. You put it in that box, which you already had placed in the alley, and afterward brought it here.”
“I guess not,” cried the same man defiantly. “You’re talking through your hat, Mr.——”
“Carter is my name—Nick Carter,” the detective again cut in. “You may have heard of me. Whether you have, or not, is immaterial. I can prove all that I have said, and only the truth, if you chose to make a clean breast of the whole business, will save you fellows from—ah, here is additional evidence, if that were needed. It appears that your confederate, the fourth man, was about to bolt.”
Nick had caught sight of Chick and Patsy approaching from the side street, each grasping the arm of a tall, pale young man, who appeared to be on the verge of fainting.
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