trange," remarked Kennedy. "Why that anxiety from him? I
remember that it was he who wanted the body left alone. Is it for fear
that we might discover something which might be covered up?"

Kennedy disappeared into the anteroom and I heard him making a great
fuss as he regulated the various pieces of machinery that surrounded the
little chamber.

Some minutes later, he emerged.

"Meet us here in an hour," he directed Collette, "with your guardian."

Quickly Craig telephoned for a tank of oxygen to be sent over to the
laboratory, then got Burke on the wire and asked him to meet us down at
the dock.

We arrived first and Craig hurried into the lumber-room, where
fortunately he found everything undisturbed. He tore off the strip of
paper from the drum and held it up. On it was a series of marks, which
looked like dots and dashes, of a peculiar kind, along a sort of base
line. Carefully he ran his eye over the strip. Then he shoved it into
his pocket in great excitement.

"Hello," greeted Burke, as he came up puffing from the hurried trip over
from the Customs House, where his office was. "What's doing now?"

"A great deal, I think," returned Kennedy. "Can you locate Castine and
that woman and come up to the laboratory--right away?"

"I can put my finger on them in five minutes and be there in half an
hour," he returned, not pausing to inquire further, for, like me, Burke
had learned that Kennedy could not be hurried in any of his revelations.

Together, Craig and I returned to the laboratory to find that Collette
Aux Cayes was already there with her guardian, as solicitous as ever for
her comfort and breathing fire and slaughter against the miscreants who
had tried to detain her, without his knowledge.

Some minutes later Castine and "Madame" Castine arrived. At sight of
Collette she seemed both defiant and restless, as though sensing
trouble, I thought. Few words were spoken now by anyone, as Burke and I
completed the party.

"Will you be so kind as to step into the little anteroom with me?"
invited Craig, holding open the door for us.

We entered and he followed; then, as he led the way, stopped before a
little glass window in the compartment which I have described. Collette
was next to me. I could feel the tenseness of her senses as she gazed
through the window at the body on the shelf-like pallet inside.

"What is this thing?" asked Aux Cayes, as Collette drew back, and he
caught her by the arm.

For t