He soon held it in his hands; and it seemed to Nick that the old physician gazed at it with peculiar attention in the moonlight.
Suddenly Dr. Jarvis turned, and, carrying the head in one hand, holding it by the hair, he advanced toward Nick. In his other hand the doctor held a knife which he had used in his ghastly work.
Nick had little hopes of escaping discovery. Evidently it was the doctor's intention to carry the head into the cellar, and the detective was concealed close by the stairs.
But Nick was not discovered. Dr. Jarvis stalked by, within six feet of him, and looked neither to the right nor to the left.
Still bearing the head, he descended the stairs, and Nick crept after him.
The cellar was perfectly dark except where a faint glow around the little furnace could be perceived. Nick was therefore able to follow the doctor closely.
But suddenly the place was made light. Dr. Jarvis had touched a button in the wall, and a row of electric lights, suspended before the furnace, flashed up.
Nick had barely time to drop flat on the floor behind a row of great glass jars full of clear fluid, the nature of which he could not determine.
These jars were set upon a sort of bench made of stone, rising about two feet from the floor. Between them and the furnace stood the doctor. Nick was on the other side.
It seemed tolerably certain to the detective that Dr. Jarvis would throw the head into the furnace. Nick determined to get a sight of the head at once. He was yet uncertain whether it was Patrick Deever's.