"This is a most singular case, Harry," the old detective exclaimed. "We may be on a wild-goose chase, or we may be on the eve of exposing a revolting crime. Everything up to the present moment leads me to believe in the latter idea. We can only verify our suspicion by opening that big box and looking at the contents. This I intend to do." "Our safest course will be to capture Solomon Gloom first, and then confront him with the contents of the box," replied Harry. "If we find a corpse there, we may learn whose it is and why the man was killed." "Very true," assented Old King Brady, with a nod, as he pushed his white hair back from his massive brow. "And if we don't find a corpse in the box we'll have the satisfaction of arresting Gloom for shooting you." "The man lied outrageously to you, in order to fool you," said Harry. "So there isn't much reliance to be placed on anything he said, till we prove it." "Let's see his business card," said the old detective, "now that I've got a light." He drew the pasteboard from his pocket and glanced at it. To his surprise he found that it really was the business card of one Solomon Gloom, undertaker, of Seventh avenue. "This seems to be all right," he remarked. "How about the permit from the Health Department?" Old King Brady drew the paper from his pocket and glanced at it keenly. Once more he was surprised to discover that it was a genuine printed form stating that Mr. Gloom was permitted to remove the corpse of Albert Reid from the Thirty-sixth street house to the Fresh Pond Crematory. The permit added that the broker had died of small-pox. "We can't say he lied about this, either," commented the old detective. "But how about the gory dagger you said you found in the empty house?" "Here it is. And it's a very unique weapon." Old King Brady held up the knife. It had a double-edged blade, eight inches long, as thin as paper, and was embossed with the initials P. V., in frosted letters. "What an ugly-looking weapon!" Harry commented, with a shudder. "It's an oddity," replied the old detective. "But it isn't a certainty that these are the initials of the person who last used it." "You'd better keep those three things," advised Harry, thoughtfully. "They may come in handy if this case amounts to anything." "If they serve us no better purpose, we can show them to our chief when we get back to New York, so he will have evidence of what we are doing," said Old King Brady, with a faint smile. "He expected a report from us to-night, on the case he put us on, but he won't get it," said Harry, grimly. The boy referred to some work they had been doing before they stumbled upon the Thirty-sixth street affair. Information had reached the Central Office that Oliver Dalton, a Broad street broker, suspected his nephew, Ronald Mason, of robbing his mail.