Presently the inspector raised the sieve from the water and stooped over
it more closely to examine its contents. Apparently the examination
yielded no very conclusive results, for it was accompanied by a series
of rather dubious grunts.
At length the officer stood up, and turning to me with a genial but foxy
smile, held out the sieve for my inspection.
"Like to see what we have found, Doctor?" said he.
I thanked him and stooped over the sieve. It contained the sort of
litter of twigs, skeleton leaves, weed, pond-snails, dead shells, and
fresh-water mussels that one would expect to strain out from the mud of
an ancient pond; but in addition to these there were three small bones
which at the first glance gave me quite a start until I saw what they
were.
The inspector looked at me inquiringly. "H'm?" said he.
"Yes," I replied. "Very interesting."
"Those will be human bones, I fancy; h'm?"
"I should say so, undoubtedly," I answered.
"Now," said the inspector, "could you say, off-hand, which finger those
bones belong to?"
I smothered a grin (for I had been expecting this question), and
answered:
"I can say off-hand that they don't belong to any finger.
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