Free The Psychological Solution by A. Hyatt Verrill Page A

on the wheel hub and peered over the vehicle's side. Lying among the rubbish was the battered can, and where the rotten sacking had been torn apart, a human head was exposed.
    "The smoke's right!" ejaculated the policeman. Then, turning to Celentano, "Here, you Wop, hustle around to the box and send in a call for a couple a men. Tell 'em there's a murder up here."
    By the time the other officers had arrived on the scene, the usually quiet street was in an uproar, and a dense crowd filled it from Central Park West to Amsterdam Avenue. A hasty examination of the gruesome find was made, and the sack, which contained the body of a well dressed man, was removed from the wagon and taken to the police station, much to Henry's relief. But he vowed vociferously that he would gather no more rubbish cans with possible cadavers within, and an extra driver had to be sent for to drive the cart on its rounds and complete the collection of containers.
    That a murder had been committed seemed evident. The dead man's clothes were stiff with dried blood, and an ugly gash just below the collar-bone showed how he had met his end. Naturally, therefore, the police immediately conducted an examination of the premises in front of which Henry had made his discovery, and, of the occupants thereof. But equally as naturally, without results. The houses, once the residences of well-to-do citizens, had been converted into furnished apartments and were occupied by tenants whose respectability and good standing could not be questioned. Not one, and for that matter not a resident of the entire street, could be found on whom the police could cast suspicion, though why the police should have imagined that a murderer or murderess would place the body of a victim under his or her own window was as great a problem as the crime itself.
    And the mystery of the crime very rapidly deepened and became more and more involved. Even the dead man's identity was unknown. No one who in the least resembled the body had been reported as missing. There was no mark or clue that would throw light on the matter. The sack which had contained the dead man was so old and had been patched and mended so often that it was hopeless to endeavor to trace it. Not a soul in the street could remember ever having seen the murdered man, and the police were forced to admit at last—as they might just as well have done in the beginning—that the body had been brought from a distance and dumped into the ash can.
    That such an easy and safe means of disposal of a corpse had never before been adopted by murderers was rather astonishing, and the very simplicity of the unique method of getting rid of the body made it the more baffling. At any time during the night, a motor car might have driven through the street and might have drawn in to the curb without arousing the least attention or suspicion. And, with equal ease, the body might have been carried from the car across the few feet of intervening sidewalk and dumped into an empty ash can. The street, during the night, was unfrequented and not too well lighted, and by waiting for a favorable opportunity, the criminal or criminals might easily have stepped from the car, dropped the sack with its contents into the container, and continued on their way as though nothing unusual had happened. Even had pedestrians been near, there would have been little chance that the murderer would have been noticed. The cans stood in heavy shadows between the high front steps of the houses, and no passer-by would have thought it unusual to see a car parked before a house or to see a man entering or emerging from the area-way under the front steps.
    Indeed, residents of the block agreed that a number of cars had been through the street during the night preceding Henry's discovery, and that several of them had been drawn up in front of the houses where the body had been found.
    In fact, by checking up, the police found that there had scarcely been an hour during