“If there is a dead man there,” said Spargo.

He himself was mainly curious about the details of this exhumation; he had no scruples, sentimental or otherwise, about the breaking in upon the dead.  He watched all that was done.  The men employed by the local authorities, instructed over-night, had fenced in the grave with canvas; the proceedings were accordingly conducted in strict privacy; a man was posted to keep away any very early passersby, who might be attracted by the unusual proceedings.  At first there was nothing to do but wait, and Spargo occupied himself by reflecting that every spadeful of earth thrown out of that grave was bringing him nearer to the truth; he had an unconquerable intuition that the truth of at any rate one phase of the Marbury case was going to be revealed to them.  If the coffin to which they were digging down contained a body, and that the body of the stockbroker, Chamberlayne, then a good deal of his, Spargo’s, latest theory, would be dissolved to nothingness.  But if that coffin contained no body at all, then—­”

“They’re down to it!” whispered Breton.

Presently they all went and looked down into the grave.  The workmen had uncovered the coffin preparatory to lifting it to the surface; one of them was brushing the earth away from the name-plate.  And in the now strong light they could all read the lettering on it.

  JAMES CARTWRIGHT CHAMBERLAYNE
  Born 1852
  Died 1891

Spargo turned away as the men began to lift the coffin out of the grave.

“We shall know now!” he whispered to Breton.  “And yet—­what is it we shall know if——­”

“If what?” said Breton.  “If—­what?”

But Spargo shook his head.  This was one of the great moments he had lately been working for, and the issues were tremendous.

“Now for it!” said the Watchman’s solicitor in an undertone.  “Come, Mr. Spargo, now we shall see.”

They all gathered round the coffin, set on low trestles at the graveside, as the workmen silently went to work on the screws.  The screws were rusted in their sockets; they grated as the men slowly worked them out.  It seemed to Spargo that each man grew slower and slower in his movements; he felt that he himself was getting fidgety.  Then he heard a voice of authority.

“Lift the lid off!”

A man at the head of the coffin, a man at the foot suddenly and swiftly raised the lid:  the men gathered round craned their necks with a quick movement.

Sawdust!

The coffin was packed to the brim with sawdust, tightly pressed down.  The surface lay smooth, undisturbed, levelled as some hand had levelled it long years before.  They were not in the presence of death, but of deceit.

Somebody laughed faintly.  The sound of the laughter broke the spell.  The chief official present looked round him with a smile.

“It is evident that there were good grounds for suspicion,” he remarked.  “Here is no dead body, gentlemen.  See if anything lies beneath the sawdust,” he added, turning to the workmen.  “Turn it out!”