The Mystery of St. Agnes Hospital | Page 4

some clever trick had been accomplished? Had the body which
Nick had seen been removed, and that of Patrick Deever substituted?
From where he stood Nick could not see the face of the body clearly
enough to form a decision. If, however, this was only an ordinary
subject for the dissecting-table, why did Dr. Jarvis mutilate it with such
caution and at such an hour?
To cut off the head was the work of a very few minutes to the skillful
physician.
He soon held it in his hands; and it seemed to Nick that the old

physician gazed at it with peculiar attention in the moonlight.
Suddenly Dr. Jarvis turned, and, carrying the head in one hand, holding
it by the hair, he advanced toward Nick. In his other hand the doctor
held a knife which he had used in his ghastly work.
Nick had little hopes of escaping discovery. Evidently it was the
doctor's intention to carry the head into the cellar, and the detective was
concealed close by the stairs.
But Nick was not discovered. Dr. Jarvis stalked by, within six feet of
him, and looked neither to the right nor to the left.
Still bearing the head, he descended the stairs, and Nick crept after him.
The cellar was perfectly dark except where a faint glow around the
little furnace could be perceived. Nick was therefore able to follow the
doctor closely.
But suddenly the place was made light. Dr. Jarvis had touched a button
in the wall, and a row of electric lights, suspended before the furnace,
flashed up.
Nick had barely time to drop flat on the floor behind a row of great
glass jars full of clear fluid, the nature of which he could not determine.
These jars were set upon a sort of bench made of stone, rising about
two feet from the floor. Between them and the furnace stood the doctor.
Nick was on the other side.
It seemed tolerably certain to the detective that Dr. Jarvis would throw
the head into the furnace. Nick determined to get a sight of the head at
once. He was yet uncertain whether it was Patrick Deever's.
Rising on his hands and knees he peered between two of the jars. The
head was not more than a yard from Nick's eyes, but the face was
turned away.
By the hair, and the general outline, it might be Deever's. At all hazards

Nick must get a sight of it before it was consigned to the furnace in
which a fire, supported by peculiar chemical agencies and much hotter
than burning coal, raged furiously.
Suddenly, when it seemed as if the doctor was about to raise an arch of
fire-brick in order to throw the head into the fire, he turned and dropped
the grim object into the jar almost directly above Nick's head.
It was carefully done, though quickly. The head sank without a splash.
Only a single drop of the fluid--a drop no bigger than a pin's point--fell
upon the back of Nick's hand.
It burned like white, hot iron. It seemed to sink through the hand upon
which it fell.
Nick sprang to his feet, not because of the pain of the burning acid, but
because he knew that he must instantly obtain a sight of the head or it
would be dissolved.
It lay face upward in the jar, but the acid, even in that instant, had done
its work.
All semblance to humanity had vanished. As Nick gazed, the head
seemed to waver in the midst of the strange fluid, and then, suddenly,
Nick saw, in a direct line where it had been, the bottom of the jar.
The head had been dissolved.
Nick raised his eyes to Dr. Jarvis' face.
There stood the doctor, entirely unmoved. He looked directly at Nick
but seemed not to see him.
His eyes were fixed, and their expression was peculiar. One less
experienced than Nick would have supposed Dr. Jarvis to be insane.
Certainly his conduct as well as his appearance seemed to justify such a
But Nick knew better. He recognized at once the peculiar condition in

which Dr. Jarvis then was. He had seen the phenomenon before.
"Walking in his sleep," Nick said to himself. "Shall I wake him here? I
think not. Let me see what he will do."

Chapter III
The Doctor Offers a Bribe
Nick was not greatly surprised by his discovery. He knew that Dr.
Jarvis was a sleep-walker.
The reader may remember the case of a young woman who, in her
sleep, walked nearly a mile on Broadway, and was awakened by a
policeman to whom she could give no account of her wanderings.
At that time, the newspapers had a good deal to say about
sleep-walking, and several