Greg had come to a stop beside a gas lamp in a long block of little houses. Not a soul was in sight, and no window showed a light. Slipping out of his seat he opened the door to have a better look at his gruesome freight. Perhaps after all he had been mistaken. When the door was opened the feet impatiently pushed out again. There was something piteously human in the aspect of these turned-up toes in common-sense shoes with soft kid uppers comfortable for old feet. There was no doubt that the man was dead; the slack, huddled attitude, the awful serenity of his expression proclaimed it. Greg ventured to touch his hand; it was death cold. It was the body of a man of middle age, plump rather than corpulent. He was well-dressed in a somewhat old-fashioned style, the open overcoat revealing a cutaway beneath, while a silk hat not new, lay on the seat of the cab where it had fallen. A gold watch chain still stretched across his waistcoat, and the little finger of the hand Greg touched displayed a handsome ring. So he had not been robbed. This ring bore a curious red stone cut in octagonal form. The clean-shaven face had a notably benignant look--this had been a kind old gentleman in life; he was very dark and had a slightly foreign look, a Spanish-American, Greg guessed. There was nothing to show how he had come by his death. The bag under his body was an old-fashioned suit-case with a collapsible side. Meanwhile the question was hammering on Greg's brain: "What am I to do? What am I to do?" His obvious duty of course was to take the body to the nearest police station, but he shivered at the prospect of what would assuredly follow, the searching questions, the pitiless publicity. He could not hope to conceal his identity, for as yet the cabman Elmer Fishback had no background. And then to have his family and friends read next morning how Gregory Parr had become the driver on an owl taxi and was implicated in a murder--well, anything rather than that! Why not dump the body out where he was, and let things take their course? The crime was none of his. But suppose, just as he started to drag it out of the cab, some one turned into the street, or came out of one of the houses? Or suppose, as was not unlikely, that the crime was already known, and the police even now were in search of a cab bearing his number? In that case to cast the body adrift would be to incriminate himself. For a moment or two Greg was inclined to abandon the whole outfit where it stood, but it now represented all he possessed in the world, and his native obstinacy would not permit of a surrender so abject. After all, he had done nothing wrong; he determined to see the thing through.