At last, Wallace had done some spying on his own account, and he had finally come to Nick Carter with a startling theory.
He believed that Doctor Grantley was not only using animals in his experiments in vivisection, but human beings as well, and he offered the detective a tempting fee to look into the matter.
The fee did not hold out as much interest to Nick as Wallace’s story did, for it bore out many more or less vague rumors which he had heard.
According to Wallace and others, Doctor Grantley had recently made a surprising move. Although he was about the last man in the world who would naturally be thought of as a philanthropist, he had begun to offer his services to the poor of the East Side, and without charge.
More than that, Wallace claimed to have spent hours in the house he owned, which was vacant at the time, and had seen several patients enter the private hospital, all of whom seemed to be foreigners and far from prosperous enough to pay Grantley’s regular fees, which had always been large.
Wallace also reported that he had reason to believe that bodies were carried away from time to time, under cover of darkness.
Finally, he declared that several young men, who looked like doctors, frequented the place, especially at night. From this circumstance he argued that Grantley had a following among young and unscrupulous surgeons, who came there to witness or take part in the older man’s gruesome experiments.
In answer to Nick’s inquiries, Wallace informed the detective that Doctor Grantley’s regular establishment included Grantley himself, Doctor Siebold, his young assistant; a nurse of perhaps thirty-five, Miss Rawlinson, and a German manservant, named Hoff.
The latter was the doctor’s only servant, and, apparently, did Grantley’s cooking. Wallace was inclined to think that Hoff had seen army service.
It will readily be seen that the case was no ordinary one. There is no law which covers the employment of living human beings in such experiments, for the simple reason that until lately there has been no demand for it and no suspicion that the practice existed anywhere.