"Dear me! This is a very complicated case, and I should like to anatomize it extremely, but the people are so prejudiced--I may say ignorant--that I am almost afraid you have done wrong." "We can take it back when you're through with it, sir." "I have a good mind to risk it." Dr. Slasher eyed the corpse with an affectionate air. Suddenly there was a noise in the street. "What is all that?" he said, going to the window and looking out. The uproar increased, and loud cries were raised, the doctor's name being easily distinguishable amid groans and hisses. "They have found it out. The neighborhood is roused. The street is alive with people. I'm ruined!" exclaimed the doctor. Bobsey and Tommy looked blankly at one another. No one spoke. If the doctor was caught with the evidence of his guilt on the table before him, the people would believe him to be a body snatcher, and perhaps handle him roughly. Tommy had made one of his charming blunders again. But an idea struck him. "I'd know what I'd do, sir," he said. "What?" eagerly demanded the doctor. "I'd put the body in Miss Minks' bed." "Happy thought; she's downstairs, and will suspect nothing. We'll do it," said the doctor. "Good hagain! Brayvo for hour side! Who says we can't do it?" cried Bobsey. "Hurry!" said the doctor. "They'll never think of looking in her bed for it, and at nighttime, when all is still, we'll get the body back to its own house." Miss Minks slept on the floor where the surgery was, and all the boys had to do was to carry the body across the hall, from one room to the other. They deposited it in the bed of the maiden lady, and covered it up carefully. "All right?" asked the doctor, as they returned. "Fixed it all up A 1," replied Tommy. A heavy ringing was now heard at the surgery bell, and Miss Minks, proceeding from the lower regions, answered it. Mr. Garretson, accompanied by the policeman and followed by an indignant crowd, appeared on the steps. "What is your pleasure, gentlemen?" she asked. "Where's Dr. Slasher?" asked the young man. "In his surgery, where he will be pleased to see you, if you will step in," she replied. "I will do so," returned Mr. Garretson. The policeman kept back the surging crowd, and the young man in search of a father entered the doctor's surgery, where he was apparently calmly reading, the boys being engaged in compounding various medicines, and working away as if their lives depended upon their exertions. CHAPTER XV. A HASTY TRIP. We must now bestow some attention upon Mr. Smithers and his family, whom we have left in the background since Tommy took his trip to Liverpool. When Charley Barker stepped down the gangway, in obedience to the summons of the bell which ordered all on shore, he did not doubt that Tommy was following him. But when the communication between the steamer and the dock was shut off he began to look curiously around him, for nothing whatever was to be seen of his friend.