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Freeman, R. Austin (Richard Austin), 1862-1943

"The Vanishing Man"

There will be no doubt on the subject when all the bones are
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.


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