Andrews lost no time in getting us out to Woodbine, and on the fringe of the little town, one of the wealthiest around the city, he deposited us at the least likely place of all, the cemetery.  A visit to a cemetery is none too enjoyable even on a bright day.  In the early night it is positively uncanny.  What was gruesome in the daylight became doubly so under the shroud of darkness.

We made our way into the grounds through a gate, and I, at least, even with all the enlightenment of modern science, could not restrain a weird and creepy sensation.

“Here is the Phelps tomb,” directed Andrews, pausing beside a marble structure of Grecian lines and pulling out a duplicate key of a new lock which had been placed on the heavy door of grated iron.  As we entered, it was with a shudder at the damp odour of decay.  Kennedy had brought his little electric bull’s-eye, and, as he flashed it about, we could see at a glance that the reports had not been exaggerated.  Everything showed marks of a struggle.  Some of the ornaments had been broken, and the coffin itself had been forced open.

“I have had things kept just as we found them,” explained Andrews.

Kennedy peered into the broken coffin long and attentively.  With a little effort I, too, followed the course of the circle of light.  The body was, as Andrews had said, in an excellent, indeed a perfect, state of preservation.  There were, strange to say, no marks of decay.

“Strange, very strange,” muttered Kennedy to himself.

“Could it have been some medical students, body-snatchers?” I asked musingly.  “Or was it simply a piece of vandalism?  I wonder if there could have been any jewels buried with him, as Shaughnessy said?  That would make the motive plain robbery.”

“There were no jewels,” said Andrews, his mind not on the first part of my question, but watching Kennedy intently.

Craig had dropped on his knees on the damp, mildewed floor, and bringing his bull’s-eye close to the stones, was examining some spots here and there.

“There could not have been any substitution?” I whispered, with, my mind still on the broken coffin.  “That would cover up the evidence of a poisoning, you know.”

“No,” replied Andrews positively, “although bodies can be obtained cheaply enough from a morgue, ostensibly for medical purposes.  No, that is Phelps, all right.”

“Well, then,” I persisted, “body-snatchers, medical students?”

“Not likely, for the same reason,” he rejected.

We bent over closer to watch Kennedy.  Apparently he had found a number of round, flat spots with little spatters beside them.  He was carefully trying to scrape them up with as little of the surrounding mould as possible.

Suddenly, without warning, there was a noise outside, as if a person were moving through the underbrush.  It was fearsome in its suddenness.  Was it human or wraith?  Kennedy darted to the door in time to see a shadow glide silently away, lost in the darkness of the fine old willows.  Some one had approached the mausoleum for a second time, not knowing we were there, and had escaped.  Down the road we could hear the purr of an almost silent motor.