the hospital. He remembered on the fatal
Friday to have seen a sledge-hammer in a
particular spot in Dr. Webster's room, to which it
had been moved from its accustomed place in
another apartment; that sledge-hammer had
never since been seen, although it had been
sought for.

He remembered that on Friday, the 23rd, after
the business of the classes was over, when it
was his duty to arrange the laboratory table
and extinguish the fires, he tried with his pass-
key the several doors, by any one of which he
had access daily to Dr. Webster's rooms, but
found the whole of them not only locked, but
barred and bolted on the inside, and he could
get no reply to his knock, although he heard
Dr. Webster moving inside, and listened to
the noise of the water-pipes, which were flowing
with unusual continuance. Again, it was
the custom when the professor left for the
day, to leave the doors unfastened, so as to
give ready access to the servants. Dr. Webster,
at this particular time, when he went to his
own house at Cambridge, made all the doors
fast—a precaution which had never before been
taken.

Dr. Webster had two laboratories; one on
the same floor as his lecture-room, and the
other on the floor below it. A staircase
connected the two. Littlefield remembered
that on the day following the visit of Dr.
Parkman, when he had lighted the stove in
the upper room, and was moving to retire
through the lower one, the professor stopped
him abruptly, and directed him to pass out by
a different door. All that Saturday, as well
as the succeeding days, Dr. Webster, while at
the college, remained locked in-doors; and
the janitor recollected how each morning on
arriving the doctor asked for the news, and
whether any tidings had been heard of Dr.
Parkman; and he could not fail to observe
that whereas at former times when he spoke
he "held his head up, and looked him in
the face, he held down his head now, seemed
agitated and confused, and he thought he
looked pale."

Thus the floors of the laboratory had not
been cleaned by any of the servants for a week;
yet when Littlefield saw them by chance, the
tiles were still wet, as if from a recent washing.
On Tuesday he was admitted to the private
room, and, after attending to the fire in it, he
asked whether he should light the one in the
laboratory below; but Dr. Webster said
no, as the things he was about to lecture
on did not require heat; yet some hours
later, on passing the room, the fire in that
furnace was burning so fiercely, that the
janitor was unable to lay his hand upon the
outside wall.

On a conference on all these matters between
the janitor and his wife, they came to the
conclusion that Dr. Webster must be in some
manner involved in the disappearance of Dr.
Parkman, and forthwith the janitor communicated
his suspicions, and the grounds for them,
to some of the authorities of the Medical College,
and addressed himself to watch with greater
stealth the further proceedings of the professor.
He listened at his doors, climbed up to look in
at his windows, and though he detected nothing
specific, he was able to mark the extraordinary
consumption of fuel, the exhausting of the
water in every receptacle, and the dripping
condition of the walls of the staircase descending
to the laboratory. Thus baffled in all
accessible quarters, Littlefield bethought him of
the only spot in the large building which had
hitherto remained unsearched. This was the
vault below the sink in Dr. Webster's room;
but as the doctor had of late carried the key in
his own pocket, there was no means of seeing
into it except by breaking a hole through
the outer wall, in a part of the basement
so difficult of access that it could only be
reached by crawling along the earth between
the spandril walls that supported the floor
of the main building. This repulsive task
Littlefield at last undertook. He crept under
the floors till he reached the wall, and
worked incessantly, on Monday and Tuesday,
with a crowbar and a cold chisel. His wife
meantime kept watch, and a signal was to
be given to warn him of the approach of
Dr. Webster to the room above. At length,
by dint of singular exertion, he cut through
the five courses of brick of which the strong
wall consisted; he opened a hole large enough
to admit his arm with a lantern, and afterwards
his head; and there, resting on the dark earth,
and spattered by the drip from the water-pipe
above, lay the mangled loins and pelvis of a
human body. One of the thighs had been flung
down along with it, the flesh had been partially
stripped from the bones, and the muscles and
white cartilages were glittering in the sudden
light.

IV.

It was about sunset on a November evening
when Littlefield made his appalling discovery.
Forthwith he made it known to some of the
professors, and to the relatives of Dr. Parkman.
Accompanied by the officers of police, they
repaired to the Medical College, to confirm the
fearful report of the janitor. They descended
through the trap-door and crawled along the
ground till they reached the vault, whence they
drew forth its fearful contents; whereupon the
City Marshal despatched officers to Cambridge
to arrest Professor Webster.

The professor had gone home to his family
somewhat earlier that afternoon; another dreadful
day was over; public suspense, unrelieved
by any discovery, was now likely to subside,
whilst every hour the chances of detection were
becoming less and less, by the decomposition and
gradual destruction of the proofs. A gentleman
had been calling on Dr. Webster, and was
taking leave of him at the gate, when the chief
of police presented himself, having stopped the
carriage with his company a short distance off.
Anxious to conceal from Dr. Webster as long