ory would hold some trace of
the secret.

The best way to hide a human body is to utterly destroy it. This is no
easy task for an ordinary man, but to a scientist, like Dr. Jarvis, it
would be comparatively easy.

However, it would take time. Patrick Deever had disappeared on Monday
night. Forty-eight hours had elapsed, but yet Nick hoped to find a
trace, if the work of destruction had been attempted in the laboratory.

Nick had entered Cleary's room with the purpose of guarding against any
interruption from the negro. He found Cleary sleeping heavily; but when
Nick left the room and glided into the laboratory, Cleary's sleep was
even deeper than it had been before.

An adept in chemistry, Nick knew how to produce a slumber from which no
ordinary means could arouse the sleeper. His drug was sure and it left
no bad effects.

The laboratory was unlighted, except by the moon, which shone in over
the shutters, which covered the lower parts of the windows, preventing
observation from without.

The first object which attracted Nick's attention was a corpse which lay
upon a stone table in the middle of the room.

Nick had made a hasty search of the laboratory some hours before, while
the doctor had been at dinner. He had then seen this corpse, and had
assured himself that it was not Patrick Deever's; but he had been unable
to do much more before the doctor returned. Therefore, he had made this
late visit.

He first examined some instruments which lay near the dissecting-table.
They revealed nothing. Then for perhaps half an hour, he searched
various parts of the room without result.

Beneath the laboratory was a cellar in which, as Nick knew, were
electric apparatus and a furnace which the doctor used for his
experiments.

Nick was about to descend into this cellar when a noise in the direction
of the doctor's room attracted his attention.

He turned and beheld Dr. Jarvis entering the laboratory.

Realizing the possibility of such an event, Nick had disguised himself
as Cleary, yet he wished to avoid being seen if possible.

He got into the darkest corner available and watched.

Dr. Jarvis had on only his night-shirt, a skull-cap and a peculiar red
dressing-gown, which he wore whenever he worked in the laboratory or in
the garden. This dressing-gown and the queer red skull-cap were so old
that nobody about the hospital could remember when they had been new.
Cleary once said that he believed they were born and