Chapter 15: Circumstantial Evidence

The morning after the hearing saw me setting forth on my round in more than usually good spirits. The round itself was but a short one, for my list contained only a couple of “chronics,” and this, perhaps, contributed to my cheerful outlook on life. But there were other reasons. The decision of the Court had come as an unexpected reprieve and the ruin of my friends’ prospects was at least postponed. Then, I had learned that Thorndyke was back from Bristol and wished me to look in on him; and, finally, Miss Bellingham had agreed to spend this very afternoon with me, browsing round the galleries at the British Museum.

I had disposed of my two patients by a quarter to eleven, and three minutes later was striding down Mitre Court, all agog to hear what Thorndyke had to say with reference to my notes on the inquest. The “oak” was open when I arrived at his chambers, and a modest flourish on the little brass knocker of the inner door was answered by my quondam teacher himself.

“How good of you, Berkeley,” he said, shaking hands genially, “to look me up so early. I am all alone, just looking through the report of the evidence in yesterday’s proceedings.”

He placed an easy chair for me, and, gathering up a bundle of type-written papers, laid them aside on the table.

“Were you surprised at the decision?” I asked.

“No,” he answered. “Two years is a short period of absence; but still, it might easily have gone the other way. I am greatly relieved. The respite gives us time to carry out our investigations without undue hurry.”

“Did you find my notes of any use?” I asked.

“Heath did. Polton handed them to him, and they were invaluable to him for his cross-examination. I haven’t seen them yet; in fact, I have only just got them back from him. Let us go through them together now.”

He opened a drawer, and taking from it my note-book, seated himself, and began to read through my notes with grave attention, while I stood and looked shyly over his shoulder. On the page that contained my sketches of the Sidcup arm, showing the distribution of the snails’ eggs on the bones, he lingered with a faint smile that made me turn hot and red.

“Those sketches look rather footy,” I said; “but I had to put something in my note-book.”

“You didn’t attach any importance, then, to the facts that they illustrated?”

“No. The egg-patches were there, so I noted the fact. That’s all.”

“I congratulate you, Berkeley. There is not one man in twenty who would have the sense to make a careful note of what he considers an unimportant or irrelevant fact; and the investigator who notes only those things that appear significant is perfectly useless. He gives himself no material for reconsideration. But you don’t mean that these egg-patches and worm-tubes appeared to you to have no significance at all?”

“Oh, of course, they show the position in which the bones were lying.”

“Exactly. The arm was lying, fully extended, with the dorsal side uppermost. There is nothing remarkable in that. But we also learn from these egg-patches that the hand had been separated from the arm before it was thrown into the pond; and there is something very remarkable in that.”

I leaned over his shoulder and gazed at my sketches, amazed at the rapidity with which he had reconstructed the limb from my rough drawings of the individual bones.

“I don’t quite see how you arrived at it, though,” I said.

“Well, look at your drawings. The egg-patches are on the dorsal surface of the scapula, the humerus, and the bones of the fore-arm. But here you have shown six of the bones of the hand: two metacarpals, the os magnum, and three phalanges; and they all have egg-patches on the palmar surface. Therefore the hand was lying palm upwards.”

“But the hand may have been pronated.”

“If you mean pronated in relation to the arm, that is impossible, for the position of the egg-patches shows clearly that the bones of the arm were lying in the position of supination. Thus the dorsal surface of the arm and the palmar surface of the hand respectively were uppermost, which is an anatomical impossibility so long as the hand is attached to the arm.”

“But might not the hand have become detached after lying in the pond some time?”

“No. It could not have been detached until the ligaments had decayed, and if it had been separated after the decay of the soft parts, the bones would have been thrown into disorder. But the egg-patches are all on the palmar surface, showing that the bones were still in their normal relative positions. No, Berkeley, that hand was thrown into the pond separately from the arm.”

“But why should it have been?” I asked.

“Ah, there is a very pretty little problem for you to consider. And, meantime, let me tell you that your expedition has been a brilliant success. 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. What explanation do you suggest of this unusual mode of severing the arm?”

“Do you think the fellow could have been a butcher?” I asked, remembering Dr. Summers’ remark. “This is the way a shoulder of mutton is taken off.”

“No,” replied Thorndyke. “A butcher includes the scapula in a shoulder of mutton for a specific purpose, namely, to take off a given quantity of meat. And also, as a sheep has no clavicle, it is the easiest way to detach the limb. But I imagine a butcher would find himself in difficulties if he attempted to take off a man’s arm in that way. The clavicle would be a new and perplexing feature. Then, too, a butcher does not deal very delicately with his subject; if he has to divide a joint, he just cuts through it and does not trouble himself to avoid marking the bones. But you note here that there is not a single scratch or score on any one of the bones, not even where the finger was removed. Now, if you have ever prepared bones for a museum, as I have, you will remember the extreme care that is necessary in disarticulating joints to avoid disfiguring the articular ends of the bones with cuts and scratches.”