He came to a halt before a dilapidated bungalow which squatted darkly in the night.  Stiff with cold, he reached his hand back to the door on the right of the car, and with difficulty opened it.  Then he spoke: 

“Here y’are, miss—­No. 981!”

There was no answer.  Spike repeated: 

“Here y’are, miss.”

Still no answer.  Spike clambered stiffly from the car, circled to the curb, and stuck his head in the door.

“Here, miss—­”

Spike stepped back.  Then he again put his head inside the cab.

“Well, I’ll be—­”

The thing was impossible, and yet it was true.  Spike gazed at the seat.  The woman had disappeared!

The thing was absurd; impossible.  He had seen her get into the cab at the Union Station.  There, in the front of the car, was her suit-case; but she had gone—­disappeared completely, vanished without leaving a sign.

Momentarily forgetful of the cold, Spike found a match and lighted it.  Holding it cupped in his hands, he peered within the cab.  Then he recoiled with a cry of horror.

For, huddled on the floor, he discerned the body of a man!

CHAPTER II

THE SUIT-CASE IS OPENED

The barren trees which lined the broad deserted thoroughfare jutted starkly into the night, waving their menacing, ice-crusted arms.  The December gale, sweeping westward, shrieked through the glistening branches.  It shrieked warning and horror, howled and sighed, sighed and howled.

Spike Walters felt suddenly ill.  He forgot the cold, and was conscious of a fear which acted like a temporary anesthesia.  For a few seconds he stood staring, until the match which he held burned out and scorched the flesh of his fingers.  His jaw dropped, his eyes widened.  He opened his lips and tried to speak, but closed them again without having uttered a sound save a choking gasp.  He tried again, feeling an urge for speech—­something, anything, to make him believe that he was here, alive—­that the horror within the cab was real.  This time he uttered an “Oh, my God!”

The words seemed to vitalize him.  He fumbled for another match, found it, and lighted it within the cab.  It seemed to have the radiance of an incandescent.

Spike had hoped that his first impression would prove to be a mere figment of his imagination; but now there was no doubting.  There, sprawled in an ugly, inhuman heap on the floor, head resting against the cushioned seat of the cab, was the figure of a man.  There was no doubt that he was dead.  Even Spike, young, optimistic, and unversed in the ways of death as he was, knew that he was alone with a corpse.

And as he gazed, a strange courage came to him.  He found himself emboldened to investigate.  He was shivering while he did so, shivering with fear and with the terrific cold of the night.  He could not quite bring himself to touch the body, but he did not need to move it to see that murder had been done.