sir," replied the porter,
glancing at his watch.

"Old King Brady, we must go out on that train," said the boy, quickly.
"It's our only chance to find out what's in that box."

"Run for the ticket office, then," said the veteran, promptly. "Mr.
Gloom is evidently going out on the train with it. If there's any
crooked work going on here we may be able to arrest him."

They rushed to the office, procured tickets, and just had time to jump
aboard the boat as it pulled out of the slip.

Reaching the Jersey side, they boarded the train.

Seeing nothing of Mr. Gloom in that car, they sat down to map out a
course of action, as everything had hitherto been done on the spur of
the moment.

Just then the train started.

"This is a most singular case, Harry," the old detective exclaimed. "We
may be on a wild-goose chase, or we may be on the eve of exposing a
revolting crime. Everything up to the present moment leads me to
believe in the latter idea. We can only verify our suspicion by opening
that big box and looking at the contents. This I intend to do."

"Our safest course will be to capture Solomon Gloom first, and then
confront him with the contents of the box," replied Harry. "If we find
a corpse there, we may learn whose it is and why the man was killed."

"Very true," assented Old King Brady, with a nod, as he pushed his
white hair back from his massive brow. "And if we don't find a corpse
in the box we'll have the satisfaction of arresting Gloom for shooting
you."

"The man lied outrageously to you, in order to fool you," said Harry.
"So there isn't much reliance to be placed on anything he said, till we
prove it."

"Let's see his business card," said the old detective, "now that I've
got a light."

He drew the pasteboard from his pocket and glanced at it.

To his surprise he found that it really was the business card of one
Solomon Gloom, undertaker, of Seventh avenue.

"This seems to be all right," he remarked.

"How about the permit from the Health Department?"

Old King Brady drew the paper from his pocket and glanced at it keenly.

Once more he was surprised to discover that it was a genuine printed
form stating that Mr. Gloom was permitted to remove the corpse of
Albert Reid from the Thirty-sixth street house to the Fresh Pond
Crematory. The permit added that the broker had died of small-pox.

"We can't say he lied about this, either," commented the old detective.

"But how about the gory dag