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 replied. “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 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 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
undertaker. 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.