Summoning an
undertaker and having the cremation letter at hand, he gave orders for
speedy cremation. But he now discovered the principal mistake in his
calculations. He had omitted to investigate the length of time required
to heat the crematory. This he now discovered to his horror to be
twenty-four hours. But the body must be destroyed. The undertaker
suggested that the body might be embalmed while the crematory was being
heated, and Patrick at once seized upon the suggestion and gave orders
to that effect, although the cremation letter sets forth specifically
that one of the reasons why Rice desired cremation was his horror of
being embalmed. The body was embalmed at the apartments that night, Dr.
Curry innocently supplying the certificate of death from "old age and
weak heart," and "as immediate cause, indigestion followed by
collocratal diarrhoea with mental worry."
Having arranged for the cremation at the earliest possible moment, Jones
and Patrick rifled the trunk in which Rice kept his papers, and stuffed
them in a satchel which Patrick bore away with him.
The funeral was to be held early Tuesday morning and the ashes conveyed
by Jones to Milwaukee, to be interred near the body of Rice's wife,
while the relatives should not be notified until it should be too late
for them to reach New York.
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