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 snails' 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 in every
case of dismemberment that I am acquainted with. To an ordinary person,
the arm seems to join on to the trunk at the shoulder-joint, and that is
where he would naturally sever it.
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