Part 32 (2/2)

He opened a drawer, and taking from it my note-book, seated himself, and began to read through my notes with grave attention, while I stood and looked shyly over his shoulder. On the page that contained my sketches of the Sidcup arm, showing the distribution of the snails' eggs on the bones, he lingered with a faint smile that made me turn hot and red.

”Those sketches look rather footy,” I said; ”but I had to put something in my note-book.”

”You didn't attach any importance, then, to the facts that they ill.u.s.trated?”

”No. The egg-patches were there, so I noted the fact. That's all.”

”I congratulate you, Berkeley. There is not one man in twenty who would have the sense to make a careful note of what he considers an unimportant or irrelevant fact; and the investigator who notes only those things that appear significant is perfectly useless. He gives himself no material for reconsideration. But you don't mean that these egg-patches and worm-tubes appeared to you to have no significance at all?”

”Oh, of course, they show the position in which the bones were lying.”

”Exactly. The arm was lying, fully extended, with the dorsal side uppermost. There is nothing remarkable in that. But we also learn from these egg-patches that the hand had been separated from the arm before it was thrown into the pond; and there is something very remarkable in that.”

I leaned over his shoulder and gazed at my sketches, amazed at the rapidity with which he had reconstructed the limb from my rough drawings of the individual bones.

”I don't quite see how you arrived at it, though,” I said.

”Well, look at your drawings. The egg-patches are on the dorsal surface of the scapula, the humerus, and the bones of the fore-arm. But here you have shown six of the bones of the hand: two metacarpals, the os magnum, and three phalanges; and they all have egg-patches on the _palmar_ surface. Therefore the hand was lying palm upwards.”

”But the hand may have been p.r.o.nated.”

”If you mean p.r.o.nated in relation to the arm, that is impossible, for the position of the egg-patches shows clearly that the bones of the arm were lying in the position of supination. Thus the dorsal surface of the arm and the palmar surface of the hand respectively were uppermost, which is an anatomical impossibility so long as the hand is attached to the arm.”

”But might not the hand have become detached after lying in the pond some time?”

”No. It could not have been detached until the ligaments had decayed, and if it had been separated after the decay of the soft parts, the bones would have been thrown into disorder. But the egg-patches are all on the palmar surface, showing that the bones were still in their normal relative positions. No, Berkeley, that hand was thrown into the pond separately from the arm.”

”But why should it have been?” I asked.

”Ah, there is a very pretty little problem for you to consider. And, meantime, let me tell you that your expedition has been a brilliant success. You are an excellent observer. Your only fault is that when you have noted certain facts you don't seem fully to appreciate their significance--which is merely a matter of inexperience. As to the facts that you have collected, several of them are of prime importance.”

”I am glad you are satisfied,” said I, ”though I don't see that I have discovered much excepting those snails' eggs; and they don't seem to have advanced matters very much.”

”A definite fact, Berkeley, is a definite a.s.set. Perhaps we may presently find a little s.p.a.ce in our Chinese puzzle which this fact of the detached hand will just drop into. But, tell me, did you find nothing unexpected or suggestive about those bones--as to their number and condition, for instance?”

”Well, I thought it a little queer that the scapula and clavicle should be there. I should have expected him to cut the arm off at the shoulder-joint.”

”Yes,” said Thornd.y.k.e; ”so should I; and so it has been done in every case of dismemberment that I am acquainted with. To an ordinary person, the arm seems to join on to the trunk at the shoulder-joint, and that is where he would naturally sever it. What explanation do you suggest of this unusual mode of severing the arm?”

”Do you think the fellow could have been a butcher?” I asked, remembering Dr. Summers' remark. ”This is the way a shoulder of mutton is taken off.”

”No,” replied Thornd.y.k.e. ”A butcher includes the scapula in a shoulder of mutton for a specific purpose, namely, to take off a given quant.i.ty of meat. And also, as a sheep has no clavicle, it is the easiest way to detach the limb. But I imagine a butcher would find himself in difficulties if he attempted to take off a man's arm in that way. The clavicle would be a new and perplexing feature. Then, too, a butcher does not deal very delicately with his subject; if he has to divide a joint, he just cuts through it and does not trouble himself to avoid marking the bones. But you note here that there is not a single scratch or score on any one of the bones, not even where the finger was removed.

Now, if you have ever prepared bones for a museum, as I have, you will remember the extreme care that is necessary in disarticulating joints to avoid disfiguring the articular ends of the bones with cuts and scratches.”

”Then you think that the person who dismembered this body must have had some anatomical knowledge and skill?”

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