but you are an hour too late." And, throwing open the
door of communication between the two rooms, he pointed to the table.

_The box was gone_!

V. DOCTOR MERRIAM.

This second disappointment was more than I could endure. Turning upon
the doctor with undisguised passion, I hotly asked:

"Who has taken it? Describe the person at once. Tell what you know about
the box, I did not finish the threat; but my looks must have been very
fierce, for he edged off a bit, and cast a curious glance at the officer
before he answered:

"You have, then, no ailing friend? Well, well; I expended some very good
advice upon you. But you paid me, and so we are even."

"The box!" I urged; "the box! Don't waste words, for a man's life is at
stake."

His surprise was marvelously assumed or very real.

"You are talking somewhat wildly, are you not?" he ventured, with a
bland air. "A man's life? I cannot believe that."

"But you don't answer me," I urged.

He smiled; he evidently thought me out of my mind.

"That's true; but there is so little I can tell you. I do not know what
was in the box about which you express so much concern, and I do not
know the names of its owners. It was brought here some six months ago
and placed in the spot where you saw it this morning, upon conditions
that were satisfactory to me, and not at all troublesome to my patients,
whose convenience I was bound to consult. It has remained there till
to-day, when----"

Here the officer interrupted him.

"What were these conditions? The matter calls for frankness."

"The conditions," repeated the doctor, in no wise abashed, "were these:
That it should occupy the large table in the window as long as they
saw fit. That, though placed in my room, it should be regarded as the
property of the society which owned it, and, consequently, free to the
inspection of its members but to no one else. That I should know these
members by their ability to open the box, and that so long as these
persons confined their visits to my usual hours for patients, they were
to be subject to no one's curiosity, nor allowed to suffer from any
one's interference. In return for these slight concessions, I was to
receive five dollars for every day I allowed it to stay here, payment to
be made by mail."

"Good business! And you cannot tell the names of the persons with whom
you entered into this contract?"

"No; the one who came to me first and saw to the placing of the box
and