The little group stood dumbfounded as the ejaculation burst from the officer's lips, and, for the first time, they realized the terrible significance of their discovery. Quickly arousing themselves to action, however, they gently laid the body upon the stretcher and lifted it into the wagon. Little time was lost in making the return trip to the police station. Here the body was conveyed to the basement, which served the purpose of a morgue, and placed upon a low table. A cursory examination developed the fact that the cotton batting, as well as the towel around the neck, were heavily saturated with blood. Upon removing the towel, which had been tied in a knot, there was disclosed to view an "AGNUS DEI," or scapular, a heart-shaped religious emblem very generally worn by adherents of the Roman Catholic faith as a safeguard against injury. Attached to a ribbon around the neck, it rested just below the collar bone. It was the only thing that the physician had worn in life that had been left to him in death, and, brutal and bloodthirsty as had been the assassins in the perpetration of their dastardly crime, they had evidently--even after stripping the corpse of their victim of every shred of clothing, in the hope that all means of identification would thus be destroyed--stood appalled at the idea of molesting the holy emblem of the church with their bloody hands. Even in that terrible moment, and in the presence of the naked and reeking corpse of the man they had lured to destruction, the "Agnus Dei," resting mute upon his breast, had possessed an influence that compelled them to pause. Thus far they had gone, but they could go no farther. It had spoken to their affrighted souls in trumpet tones: "Touch me not." [Illustration: THE CORPSE WITH "AGNUS DEI" ON BREAST.]