ustible,
it is chemically unstable, and its decomposition yields great volumes
of highly odorous gases, and it nevertheless contains identifiable
structures of the highest degree of permanence. It is extremely
difficult to preserve unchanged, and it is still more difficult
completely to destroy. The essential permanence of the human body is
well shown in the classical case of Eugene Aram; but a still more
striking instance is that of Sekenen-Ra the Third, one of the last
kings of the seventeenth Egyptian dynasty. Here, after a lapse of four
thousand years, it has been possible to determine not only the cause of
death and the manner of its occurrence, but the way in which the king
fell, the nature of the weapon with which the fatal wound was
inflicted, and even the position of the assailant. And the permanence
of the body under other conditions is admirably shown in the case of
Doctor Parkman, of Boston, U. S. A., in which identification was
actually effected by means of remains collected from the ashes of a
furnace."

"Then we may take it," said Jervis, "that the world has not yet seen
the last of John Bellingham."

"I think we may regard that as almost a certainty," replied Thorndyke.
"The only question--and a very important one--is as to when the
reappearance may take place. It may be to-morrow or it may be
centuries hence, when all the issues involved have been forgotten."

"Assuming," said I, "for the sake of argument, that Hurst did murder
him and that the body was concealed in the study at the time the search
was made. How could it have been disposed of? If you had been in
Hurst's place, how would you have gone to work?"

Thorndyke smiled at the bluntness of my question.

"You are asking me for an incriminating statement," said he, "delivered
in the presence of a witness too. But, as a matter of fact, there is
no use in speculating _a priori_; we should have to reconstruct a
purely imaginary situation, the circumstances of which are unknown to
us, and we should almost certainly reconstruct it wrong. What we may
fairly assume is that no reasonable person, no matter how immoral,
would find himself in the position that you suggest. Murder is usually
a crime of impulse, and the murderer a person of feeble self-control.
Such persons are most unlikely to make elaborate and ingenious
arrangements for the disposal of the bodies of their victims. Even the
cold-blooded perpetrators of the most carefully pla