reak I went down to the dining-room. The policeman was dozing in
his chair; there was a good deal of cigar-ash about, and the
whiskey-decanter was less full than it had been, though not unreasonably
so. I roused up the officer and dismissed him with a final cigar and
what he called an 'eye-opener'--about two fluid-ounces. When he had gone
I let myself into the museum lobby. The burglar was quite dead and
beginning to stiffen. That was satisfactory; but was he the right man? I
snipped off a little tuft of hair and carried it to the laboratory where
the microscope stood on the bench under its bell-glass. I laid one or
two hairs on a slide with a drop of glycerine and placed the slide on
the stage of the microscope. Now was the critical moment. I applied my
eye to the instrument and brought the objective into focus.

"Alas! The hairs were uniformly colored with brown pigment! He was the
wrong man.

"It was very disappointing. I really need not have killed him, though
under the circumstances there was nothing to regret on that score. He
would not have died in vain. Alive he was merely a nuisance and a danger
to the community, whereas in the form of museum preparations he might be
of considerable public utility.

"Under the main bench in the laboratory was a long cupboard containing a
large zinc-lined box or tank in which I had been accustomed to keep the
specimens which were in process of preparation. I brought the burglar
into the laboratory and deposited him in the tank, shutting the
air-tight lid and securing it with a padlock. For further security I
locked the cupboard, and, when I had washed the floor of the lobby and
dried it with methylated spirit, all traces of the previous night's
activities were obliterated. If the police wanted to look over the
museum and laboratory, they were now quite at liberty to do so.

"I have mentioned that, during the actual capture of this burglar, I
seemed to develop an entirely alien personality. But the change was only
temporary, and I had now fully recovered my normal temperament, which is
that of a careful, methodical and eminently cautious man. Hence, as I
took my breakfast and planned out my procedure, an important fact made
itself evident. I should presently have in my museum a human skeleton
which I should have acquired in a manner not recognized by social
conventions or even by law. Now, if I could place myself in a position
to account for that skeleton in a simple and ordin