assembled--if ever they are. And the settlement of that question
will probably throw light on the further question: Who deposited them
in the places in which they were found? But to return to your
observations: did you gather nothing from the other bones? From the
complete state of the neck vertebrae for instance?"

"Well, it did strike me as rather odd that the fellow should have gone
to the trouble of separating the atlas from the skull. He must have
been pretty handy with the scalpel to have done it as cleanly as he
seems to have done; but I don't see why he should have gone about the
business in the most inconvenient way."

"You notice the uniformity of method. He has separated the head from
the spine, instead of cutting through the spine lower down, as most
persons would have done: he removed the arms with the entire
shoulder-girdle, instead of simply cutting them off at the
shoulder-joints. Even in the thighs the same peculiarity appears; for
in neither case was the knee-cap found with the thigh-bone, although it
seems to have been searched for. Now the obvious way to divide the leg
is to cut through the patellar ligament, leaving the knee-cap attached
to the thigh. But in this case, the knee-cap appears to have been left
attached to the shank. Can you explain why this person should have
adopted this unusual and rather inconvenient method? Can you suggest a
motive for this procedure, or can you think of any circumstances which
might lead a person to adopt this method by preference?"

"It seems as if he wished, for some reason, to divide the body into
definite anatomical regions."

Thorndyke chuckled. "You are not offering that suggestion as an
explanation, are you? Because it would require more explaining than
the original problem. And it is not even true. Anatomically speaking,
the knee-cap appertains to the thigh rather than to the shank. It is a
sesamoid bone belonging to the thigh muscles; yet in this case it has
been left attached, apparently to the shank. No, Berkeley, that cat
won't jump. Our unknown operator was not preparing a skeleton as a
museum specimen; he was dividing a body up into convenient sized
portions for the purpose of conveying them to various ponds. Now what
circumstances might have led him to divide it in this peculiar manner?"

"I am afraid I have no suggestion to offer. Have you?"

Thorndyke suddenly lapsed into ambiguity. "I think," he said, "it is
possible to