“Holy smoke! it don’t seem possible.”
“Margate was a crafty dog,” Nick added. “He knew more than a wooden Indian. No, I don’t think, of course, that he can have fooled us.”
“Gee! that would be the last straw. I can’t believe it.”
“The theft of his body, nevertheless, unless it can be traced and proved to have been disposed of in some way is a serious matter.”
“Why so, Nick?”
“Because Margate was a dangerous crook. The disappearance of his remains is a thousand times more serious, in view of all of the possibilities involved, than would be that of an ordinary person. If Margate is still alive, incredible though it seems, he again becomes a dangerous menace to society.”
“Very true,” Chick admitted. “But, great guns, it seems utterly incredible. The undertaker, or surely the physician, would have detected it. Besides, we saw him keel over, toes up, when he swallowed poison, and——”
“Stop a moment,” Nick interrupted. “We don’t positively know that it was poison. I’m not dead sure of it, now, in view of what has occurred.”
“You suspect that it was only a drug?”
“That is possible.”