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 upward."

"But the hand may have been pronated."

"If you mean pronated 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
for 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 snail's eggs; and they don't seem to
have advanced matters very much."

"A definite fact, Berkeley, is a definite asset. Perhaps we may
presently find a little space 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 Thorndyke; "so should I; and so it has been done