“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.----”