covery. Quickly arousing themselves to action,
however, they gently laid the body upon the stretcher and lifted it into
the wagon. Little time was lost in making the return trip to the police
station. Here the body was conveyed to the basement, which served the
purpose of a morgue, and placed upon a low table. A cursory examination
developed the fact that the cotton batting, as well as the towel around
the neck, were heavily saturated with blood. Upon removing the towel,
which had been tied in a knot, there was disclosed to view an

"AGNUS DEI,"

or scapular, a heart-shaped religious emblem very generally worn by
adherents of the Roman Catholic faith as a safeguard against injury.
Attached to a ribbon around the neck, it rested just below the collar
bone. It was the only thing that the physician had worn in life that had
been left to him in death, and, brutal and bloodthirsty as had been the
assassins in the perpetration of their dastardly crime, they had
evidently--even after stripping the corpse of their victim of every
shred of clothing, in the hope that all means of identification would
thus be destroyed--stood appalled at the idea of molesting the holy
emblem of the church with their bloody hands. Even in that terrible
moment, and in the presence of the naked and reeking corpse of the man
they had lured to destruction, the "Agnus Dei," resting mute upon his
breast, had possessed an influence that compelled them to pause. Thus
far they had gone, but they could go no farther. It had spoken to their
affrighted souls in trumpet tones: "Touch me not."

[Illustration: THE CORPSE WITH "AGNUS DEI" ON BREAST.]

Considering the fact that the body had in all probability, been in the
place where it was found for nearly three weeks, it was not by any means
in the condition that would have been expected under the circumstances.
It had swollen, however, to about one-third of the natural size. As it
appeared under the gas light it was that of a stout, well-nourished man
of about forty-five years of age. The skin was white, although the body
and chest was considerably bloated. The feet, which had been the most
exposed, were hardly cracked. The hair had peeled from the skin both of
face and body. One side of the mustache, with the skin attached, was
turned over onto the lip. Only a few straggling hairs were left on the
other side, but, just under the lower lip, a small but well-defined
goatee of dark bristling hairs was