“Exactly, sir,” agreed the official, who was evidently bursting with curiosity himself. “Exactly. Here is the screen. If you will step inside, the excavation can be proceeded with.”
We passed inside the screen, where we found four men reposefully contemplating a coil of stout rope, a basket, attached to another rope, and a couple of spades. The grave yawned in the middle of the enclosure, flanked on one side by the mound of newly dug earth and on the other by a tub of lime and a Winchester quart bottle fitted with a spray nozzle and a large rubber bellows.
“You can get on with the digging now,” said the official; whereupon one of the men was let down into the grave, together with a spade and the basket, and fell to work briskly. Then Dr. Garroll directed one of the other men to sprinkle in a little lime; which he did, with a pleased smile and so little discretion that the man below was seen to stop digging, and after looking up indignantly, take off his cap, shake it violently and ostentatiously dust his shoulders with it.
When about a dozen basketfuls of earth had been hoisted up, a hollow, woody sound accompanying the thrusts of the spade announced that the coffin had been reached. Thereupon more lime was sprinkled in, and Dr. Garroll, picking up the formalin bottle, sprayed vigorously into the cavity until a plaintive voice from below—accompanied by an unnaturally loud sneeze—was heard to declare that “he’d ’ave brought his umbrella if he’d knowed he was goin’ to be squirted at.” A few minutes’ more work exposed the coffin and enabled us to read the confirmatory inscription on the plate. Then the rope slings were let down and with some difficulty worked into position by the excavator below; who, when he had completed his task, climbed to the surface and grasped one end of a sling in readiness to haul on it.
“It’s a good deal easier letting ’em down than hoisting ‘em up,” Usher remarked, as the final shower of lime descended and the men began to haul; “but poor old Crile oughtn’t to take much lifting. There was nothing of him but skin and bone.”
However this might be, it took the united efforts of the four men to draw the coffin up to the surface and slew it round clear of the yawning grave. But at last this was accomplished, and it was lifted, for convenience of inspection, on to one of the mounds of newly dug earth.
“Now,” said the presiding official, “you men had better go outside and wait down at the end of the path until you are wanted again:” an order that was received with evident disfavour and complied with rather sulkily. As soon as they were gone, our friend produced a couple of screw-drivers, with which he and Miller proceeded in a very workmanlike manner to extract the screws, while Dr. Garroll enveloped them in a cloud of spray, and Thorndyke, Usher, and I stood apart to keep out of range. It was not a long process; indeed, it came to an end sooner than I had expected, for the first intimation that I received of its completion was a loud exclamation (consisting of the single word “Snakes!”) in the voice of Superintendent Miller. I turned quickly and saw that officer standing with the raised coffin-lid in his hand, staring into the interior with a look of perfectly indescribable amazement. Instantly I rushed forward and looked into the coffin; and then I was no less amazed. For in place of the mortal remains of the late Jonathan Crile, was a portly sack oozing sawdust from a hole in its side, through which coyly peeped a length of thick lead pipe.
For a sensible time we all stood in breathless silence gazing down at that incredible sack. Suddenly Miller looked up eagerly at Thorndyke, whose sphinx-like countenance showed the faintest shadow of a smile.
“You knew this coffin was empty, Doctor?” said he.
Thorndyke shook his head. “If I had known,” he replied, “I should have told you.”