"Then you do not believe that he was cremated?" "Cremated? Not on your life. If he was made into ashes, would he turn up again a floater and drift onto the marble at the Morgue? I don't think." [Pg 47] "But how could the body have gotten out of the coffin?" [Pg 47] "He couldn't. I never saw a stiff do that, except once, at an Irish wake, and that fellow wasn't dead. No, the dead don't walk. Not these days. I tell you, he was took out of the box. That's as plain as your nose, not meanin' to be personal." "Come, come, you have said all that before. What I want to know is, how you think he could have been taken out of the coffin." "Lifted out, I reckon." Mr. Barnes saw that nothing would be gained by getting angry, though the fellow's persistent flippancy annoyed him extremely. He thought best to appear satisfied with his answers, and to endeavor to get his information by slow degrees, since he could not get it more directly. "Were you present when the coffin lid was fastened?" "Yes; the boss did that." "How was it fastened? With the usual style of screws?" "Oh, no! We used the boss's patent screw, warranted to keep the corpse securely in his grave. Once stowed away in the boss's patent screw-top casket, no ghost gets back to trouble the long-suffering family." "You know all about these patent coffin-screws?" "Why, sure. Ain't I been working with old Berial these three years?" [Pg 48] "Does Mr. Berial always screw on the coffin lids himself?" [Pg 48] "Yes; he's stuck on it." "He keeps the screw-driver in his own possession?" "So he thinks."
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