“You know what zat ees for, my dear?”

“No.  I have no idea.  What?”

“To pack ze detectives in.”

“What for?”

“So I can ship zem away.”

“Won’t it kill them?”

“I don’t know,” he replied, indifferently, shrugging his shoulders.

“Well,” she remarked, after a moment’s reflection, “it will give us time to get away to Canada without them knowing our destination.”

“Ma foi! Zat ees my object.”

He was provided with a hammer and some nails, and taking the lid off the box, he saw that it was amply big to hold the detectives’ bodies.

Some of the joints were shrunk open, he noticed, which would admit air for the officers to breathe.  This would keep them alive some time if they were not killed some other way in transit.

He did not care much about that, however.

Calling his wife to aid him, he went into the next room where the two bound and gagged detectives laid upon the floor side by side.

Neither could move or speak.

They were wondering what their fate was to be.

It filled them with chagrin to reflect that this Frenchman had alone overpowered them without the slightest trouble.

La Croix seized Old King Brady first and dragged him into the next room.

“Now, Lena,” he remarked, “help me to leeft him in ze box.”

He took the detective by the head and she grasped his ankles and they quickly dropped their prisoner in the case.

Harry was served the same way.

There was just room enough to hold them.

When La Croix nailed on the lid, they realized what he intended to do with them and it made them feel very downhearted.

“Going to ship us away,” thought Old King Brady.

La Croix then borrowed Reynard’s brush and marking pot and they heard him chuckle and say to his wife: 

“I weel direct ze box to wong fictitious address in Sacramento, California.  By ze time ze secret police arrive zere, par Dieu, zey weel be zez dead mans!”

He then addressed the case and went after a truckman.

This done, between them they lowered the case through the hatchway into the street, and it was banged with a hook, turned over and over and pushed up a pair of rungs on the truck.

The Bradys were badly bumped and bruised.

But being gagged they had to suffer in silence.

Finally the truck was driven away with them, and reaching the Erie freight depot, the driver got a receipt for the box and dumped it off his truck.

The shock upon the imprisoned detectives was awful.

They heard the driver say: 

“Collect de charges.  Dat box goes via Buffalo, don’t it?”

“Yes,” replied the freight agent.

“Well, yer’d better handle it wid care, as I tink it’s got artificial flowers in it, an’ yer might smash de stuffins out o’ dem.”