“Hang on to it, doctor,” Nick directed. “A careful chemical analysis may become necessary. Now, Mr. Fink, lead the way to your back room. I’ll see what I make of this extraordinary robbery.”
CHAPTER II.
A CURIOUS CLEW.
Nick Carter lost no time in seeking evidence that would prove conclusively that Margate’s body had really been stolen. He followed Fink through an interior room in which numerous coffins and caskets were displayed in casements of the walls, and adjoining which was the back room in which the body had lain.
It was about twelve feet square. Two windows overlooked a small back yard, from which a narrow alley led out to a side street. The yard was some six feet lower than the avenue on which the building fronted, and below the back room was a basement used for a workroom and storage purposes. A door led from the basement into the yard.
The bare bier stood nearly in the middle of the room.
The blinds of one of the windows was open, the others closed.
A sheet with which the body had been covered was missing.
The garments removed from the corpse the previous night hung on hooks in one of the walls.
Nick quickly took in these features of the scene, and he speedily learned from Fink that both blinds had been closed the night before, that one window was open a few inches, that a door leading to the basement stairs[{7}] was both locked and bolted, as was true of the lower one leading into the yard. Neither of them appeared to have been opened by the crooks.
“Are these all of the garments removed from the body?” Nick inquired, glancing at them.