The sergeant grinned. "He's 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 that sheet off, and don't shoot them out as if they were coals.
Hand them out carefully."
The labourer 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.
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