convinced that none but a detective could
have had knowledge of the contents of the box. But Dr. McAllyn did
attach a significance to what Mr. Middleton had said, a significance
natural to one so well acquainted with the devious ways of the great
city as he was.

"Well," he said, with a sardonic smile, "you needn't call in help. We
stand pat. How much is it going to cost us?"

Then did Mr. Middleton perceive he was delivered from a dilemma, a
dilemma unforeseen, but which even if foreseen, he could not have
forearmed against. After he had arrested the doctors, how would he
have disposed of them and the box containing Mr. Brockelsby? How could
he have released the doctors and carried off the box in a manner that
would not excite their suspicions? If he had, in pretended leniency
and soft-heartedness told them they were free, the absence of any
apparent motive for this action would have instantly caused them to
suspect that for some unknown and probably unrighteous reason, he
desired possession of the body of Mr. Brockelsby and thus would ensue
a series of complications that would make the ruse of the arrest but a
leap from the frying pan into the fire. But now Dr. McAllyn had
supplied the motive.

"Sirs," said Mr. Middleton, with an air of virtue that was well suited
to the character of the sentiments he now began to enunciate, "you
deserve punishment. You have been taken in the act of committing a
crime that is particularly revolting,--stealing a corpse. Dr. McAllyn,
you have been apprehended in foul treason against friendship. You have
stolen the body of a comrade. You have meditated cruel and shocking
mutilation of this body, giving to the horror-stricken eyes of the
frantic widow the mangled and defaced flesh that was once the goodly
person of her husband, leaving her to waste her life in vain and
terrible speculations as to where and how he encountered this awful
death with its so dreadful wounds."

"It was for the sake of science," interpolated Dr. McAllyn, in no
little indignation. "If from the insensible clay of the dead we may
learn that which will save suffering and prolong existence for the
living, well may we disregard the ancient and ridiculous sentiment
regarding corpses, a relic of the ancient heathen days when it was
believed that this selfsame body of this life was worn again in
another world."

"I will not engage in an antiquarian discussion with you, sir, as to
the origin of this sentiment. Suf