"Hm-m-m," responded the physician. "This is perplexing, Murdock. Yet it seems to have a strange significance. It is not likely that the sender of such a box would let it go to the wrong place. Frankly, I don't think that those men will return. I think the box was intended to be left here."
"But why?"
"So that you would open it — and make the discovery, exactly as you have done."
"I had the same idea," admitted Murdock, "but I can't understand the purpose."
"It might be the work of some enemy," said Doctor Savette, slowly. "Some one may wish to hamper your experiments. You were about to call the police. If they should come here, it would mean a great deal of trouble and annoyance to you — enough, perhaps, to delay your work for some time."
"That is true," responded Murdock, "but I can not understand why the body should be specially dressed in working clothes like mine."
"I have another theory," resumed the physician, thoughtfully. "This may be a threat — a plan to frighten you. The person who sent this box could not have expected you to open it tonight. You were expecting men to take it away."
"That's right," agreed the chemist. "I can't explain exactly why I did open it. I suppose that I would ordinarily have allowed it to remain for several days, before investigating its contents."
"Correct," declared Savette. "Now let us suppose that a message is on its way, that you are to receive a threat — in which the box is mentioned. Opening the box, you find a dead body that resembles yourself. That would certainly make the threat emphatic, would it not? Particularly if the threat were directed against your life."
Clark Murdock nodded in accord. Then he showed a sudden response to Doctor Savette's statement: