_ CHAPTER II. THE BODY IN THE BOX
A cabman was standing beside his horse at Union Square, and the old detective approached him and asked, hastily:
"Did you see an undertaker's wagon just go by here?"
"Oi did, sor, tin minutes ago," promptly replied the driver.
"In which direction did it go?"
"Turned inter Broadway, an' wint downtown."
"Drive us after it as fast as you can."
"Yis, sor. Get in."
They entered the cab and were driven to Courtlandt street, as different people they spoke to said they had seen the undertaker's wagon as far as that point.
A policeman was seen on the corner, and Harry accosted him with:
"Hello, Bob!"
"Why--Harry--how are you? What are you chasing?"
"After an undertaker's wagon."
"One just left a box in the baggage room at the Pennsylvania depot."
"Look like a coffin?"
"Yes," replied the policeman. "I just came from there. Two men had it. I'll describe them."
And he gave a good description of Sim and Solomon Gloom.
"Thanks. That's the gang we're after," said Harry, when he finished.
And away went the Bradys to the Pennsylvania depot at the foot of Courtlandt street.
It was a suspicion of the Bradys that the mysterious box would be shipped out of the city by rail, that led them to see if the wagon had gone to the depot.
They did not find the box in the baggage room.
But they learned that a man answering Solomon Gloom's description had checked it through to Savannah, Georgia, and it had been sent over the river and was put in the baggage car.
"How soon does that train leave?" asked Harry, quickly.
"The connecting boat goes in three minutes, 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 dagger you said you found in the empty house?"
"Here it is. And it's a very unique weapon."
Old King Brady held up the knife.
It had a double-edged blade, eight inches long, as thin as paper, and was embossed with the initials P. V., in frosted letters.
"What an ugly-looking weapon!" Harry commented, with a shudder.
"It's an oddity," replied the old detective. "But it isn't a certainty that these are the initials of the person who last used it."
"You'd better keep those three things," advised Harry, thoughtfully. "They may come in handy if this case amounts to anything."
"If they serve us no better purpose, we can show them to our chief when we get back to New York, so he will have evidence of what we are doing," said Old King Brady, with a faint smile.
"He expected a report from us to-night, on the case he put us on, but he won't get it," said Harry, grimly.
The boy referred to some work they had been doing before they stumbled upon the Thirty-sixth street affair.
Information had reached the Central Office that Oliver Dalton, a Broad street broker, suspected his nephew, Ronald Mason, of robbing his mail.
The detectives had gone to the broker's house in West Thirty-eighth street to get the particulars privately. But the man's daughter, Lizzie, told them her father had not yet come home. They waited for him till nearly eight o'clock, and as Mr. Dalton did not appear, they were going back to headquarters when they stumbled upon the suspicious case already recorded here.
Old King Brady smiled at Harry's remark.
"There's no great hurry about that case," he remarked.
"Well," said the boy, "are you ready to go through the cars on a hunt for Solomon Gloom? We must make sure of our man before he has a chance to alight at a way station and elude us."
Old King Brady bent nearer to Harry, to reply, when suddenly a cloth was thrown over their heads by a man who sat behind them.
The cloth was saturated with chloroform.
While the detectives were struggling to extricate their heads, they inhaled the deadly fumes and were overcome by the drug.
Not until they were fast asleep did the man remove the cloth.
No one had seen the deed, as they occupied the last seats in the aisle and not an undue noise had arisen to attract attention.
Seeing the detectives stupid from the drug, a low chuckle escaped the man, and he rose to his feet and muttered:
"Sleep, you dogs! Tracked me, eh? Well, it won't do you any good. You'll be snoring long after we reach Georgia. And when you do arouse yourselves, you'll find the box gone from this train. This must be a mighty good disguise, if you failed to recognize Solomon Gloom in it--really, a very clever disguise."
And he chuckled again, glanced at the gray suit and bicycle cap he wore, felt of the false beard covering his face and walked into one of the forward cars where he had a chance to remain until the opportunity came for him to alight at his destination.
The lightning express train went thundering along over the rails and the Bradys slept on until mid-day.
When they aroused themselves, the cars had left Charleston.
Their fury knew no bounds, and Old King Brady said, bitterly:
"It must have been Gloom who did that."
"If it were, he was cleverly disguised and must have been the fellow who sat behind us apparently reading a newspaper," replied Harry.
"Perhaps he's on the train yet."
"If he is, we'll find him."
"All I want is to get my hands on the rascal!"
"Are you ready to search for him?"
"Come ahead," replied Old King Brady, rising to his feet.
They passed slowly through the car, carefully studying each passenger.
There were two more passenger coaches, a smoking car and a baggage car ahead, and the detectives searched them thoroughly for the undertaker.
But to their disgust he was not found.
They paused on the platform of the baggage car and Harry exclaimed:
"He must have checked the box through on a ticket he bought for Savannah, and then hid somewhere on this train."
"Which shows what a foxy gentleman we have to contend with," muttered Old King Brady, grimly. "He feared pursuit."
"No doubt of it."
"Here comes the conductor. We can explain matters to him and open the box."
They had no trouble to persuade the conductor of the importance of seeing what the box contained, and they all had a talk with the baggage master.
He held them off until nightfall.
As the Bradys promised to have him absolved from blame, he finally gave his permission to them to open the box.
Harry cut the rope that bound it and Old King Brady pried off the lid with an axe taken from one of the racks.
The conductor held a lantern over the box.
As the lid fell off, they were startled to see the body of a man lying in the box.
His face was partly averted, as he lay upon his side.
But the detectives saw that he was a man of about fifty, his portly form clad in a dark suit of clothes. His head was partly bald on top and his hair was gray. There was a closely-trimmed mustache of the same color on his upper lip, and his flesh, although pallid, had not yet changed to the waxen hue of death.
It was evident that he was a victim of foul play, for his hands were bound behind his back, and his ankles tied together, while a gag was secured over his mouth as if to stifle his outcries.
The detectives had no chance to observe any more, just then, for there suddenly sounded a quick danger signal of the locomotive's whistle.
The engineer shut off steam, put on the brakes, and the startled conductor rushed from the car with the lantern, leaving the place in gloom.
"What can be the matter?" muttered Old King Brady.
"There's a fire on the track ahead!" said Harry, peering out the side door.
"Where are we?" queried the baggage master, hastily.
"Next to a big swamp," replied Harry. "And, by Jove--see--see! There's an obstruction--a heap of sleepers piled across the rails beyond the bonfire."
"What the deuce can that mean?" muttered Old King Brady. "Bandits trying to rob this train? It don't seem possible, in this neighborhood."
The train paused and they all alighted.
Some of the brakemen ran ahead, and under the conductor's direction they removed the obstructions from the rails.
The fire seemed to have been built where it was to show the engineer the pile of sleepers, and the brakemen scattered it, when the barrier was removed.
As the bell rang, every one got aboard and the cars slowly went ahead.
The Bradys and the baggage master returned to the latter's car.
"We'll finish our examination of that body," said Old King Brady.
"Yes," said Harry, "and----Good gracious! Where's the box gone?"
Box and body had vanished.
Every one was astounded.
Then, like a flash, the truth suddenly dawned upon Harry's mind, and he cried:
"Now I see through it. Those obstructions were put on the rails to stop the train at this point so that the body could be removed from this car."
"By whom?" demanded the startled baggage master.
"Accessories of the villain who killed that man!" cried the boy. "They've carried the body off in the swamp to hide the evidence of their crime. Come, Old King Brady, alight here and see if we can trace it."
The detectives made a rush for the door and leaped from the train.
They landed beside the roadbed, and the cars went on without them. _