“The skill is shown by the neat way in which the dismemberment has been carried out.  The parts have not been rudely hacked asunder, but have been separated at the joints so skilfully that I have not discovered a single scratch or mark of the knife on any of the bones.”

“Can you suggest any class of person who would be likely to possess the knowledge and skill to which you refer?”

“It would, of course, be possessed by a surgeon or medical student, and possibly by a butcher.”

“You think that the person who dismembered this body may have been a surgeon or a medical student?”

“Yes; or a butcher.  Someone accustomed to the dismemberment of bodies and skilful with the knife.”

Here the cobbler suddenly rose to his feet.

“I rise, Mr. Chairman,” said he, “to protest against the statement that has just been made.”

“What statement?” demanded the coroner.

“Against the aspersion,” continued the cobbler, with an oratorical flourish, “that has been cast upon a honourable calling.”

“I don’t understand you,” said the coroner.

“Doctor Summers has insinuated that this murder was committed by a butcher.  Now a member of that honourable calling is sitting on this jury—­”

“You let me alone,” growled the butcher.

“I will not let you alone,” persisted the cobbler.  “I desire—­”

“Oh, shut up, Pope!” This was from the foreman, who, at the same moment, reached out an enormous hairy hand with which he grabbed the cobbler’s coat-tails and brought him into a sitting posture with a thump that shook the room.

But Mr. Pope, though seated, was not silenced.  “I desire,” said he, “to have my protest put on record.”

“I can’t do that,” said the coroner, “and I can’t allow you to interrupt the witnesses.”

“I am acting,” said Mr. Pope, “in the interests of my friend here and the members of a honourable——­”

But here the butcher turned on him savagely, and, in a hoarse stage-whisper, exclaimed: 

“Look here, Pope; you’ve got too much of what the cat licks—­”

“Gentlemen! gentlemen!” the coroner protested, sternly; “I cannot permit this unseemly conduct.  You are forgetting the solemnity of the occasion and your own responsible positions.  I must insist on more decent and decorous behaviour.”

There was profound silence, in the midst of which the butcher concluded in the same hoarse whisper: 

“—­licks ’er paws with.”

The coroner cast a withering glance at him, and turning to the witness, resumed the examination.

“Can you tell us, Doctor, how long a time has elapsed since the death of the deceased?”

“I should say not less than eighteen months, but probably more.  How much more it is impossible from inspection alone to say.  The bones are perfectly clean—­that is, clean of all soft structures—­and will remain substantially in their present condition for many years.”