ner to inspect the remains. He is acting for
the family of the deceased--I mean, for the family of Mr. Bellingham,"
he added in answer to an inquiring glance from the surgeon.

"I see," said the latter. "Well, they have found the rest of the
trunk, including, I understand, the ribs that were missing from the
other part. Isn't that so, Davis?"

"Yes, sir," replied the constable. "Inspector Badger says all the ribs
is here, and all the bones of the neck as well."

"The inspector seems to be an anatomist," I remarked.

The sergeant grinned. "He is a very knowing gentleman, is Mr. Badger.
He came down here this morning quite early and spent a long time
looking over the bones and checking them by some notes in his
pocket-book. I fancy he's got something on, but he was precious close
about it."

Here the sergeant shut up rather suddenly--perhaps contrasting his own
conduct with that of his superior.

"Let us have these new bones out on the table," said the police
surgeon. "Take the sheet off, and don't shoot them out as if they were
coals. Hand them out carefully."

The laborer fished out the wet and muddy bones one by one from the
sack, and as he laid them on the table the surgeon arranged them in
their proper relative positions.

"This has been a neatly executed job," he remarked; "none of your
clumsy hacking with a chopper or a saw. The bones have been cleanly
separated at the joints. The fellow who did this must have had some
anatomical knowledge, unless he was a butcher, which by the way, is not
impossible. He has used his knife uncommonly skilfully, and you notice
that each arm was taken off with the scapula attached, just as a
butcher takes off a shoulder of mutton. Are there any more bones in
that bag?"

"No, sir," replied the laborer, wiping his hands with an air of
finality on the posterior aspect of his trousers; "that's the lot."

The surgeon looked thoughtfully at the bones as he gave a final touch
to their arrangement, and remarked:

"The inspector is right. All the bones of the neck are there. Very
odd. Don't you think so?"

"You mean----"

"I mean that this very eccentric murderer seems to have given himself
such an extraordinary amount of trouble for no reason that one can see.
There are these neck vertebrae, for instance. He must have carefully
separated the skull from the atlas instead of just cutting through the
neck. Then there is the way he divided the trunk; the twelfth