"The acquisition of Specimen Number One," it began, "gave me
considerable occupation, both bodily and mental. As I labored from day
to day rendering the osseous framework of the late James Archer fit for
exhibition in a museum case, I reflected on the future to which recent
events had committed me. I had been, as it were, swept away on the tide
of circumstance. The death of this person had occurred by an
inadvertence, and accident had thrown on me the onus of disposing of the
remains. I had solved that difficulty by converting the deceased into a
museum specimen. So far, well, but what of the future?

"My wife had been murdered by a criminal. The remainder of my
life--short, I hoped--was to be spent in seeking that criminal. But the
trap that I set to catch him would probably catch other criminals first;
and since the available method of identification could not be applied to
newly-acquired specimens while in the living state, it followed that
each would have to be reduced to the condition in which identification
would be possible. And if, on inspection, the specimen acquired proved
to be not the one sought, I should have to add it to the collection and
rebait the trap. That was evidently the only possible plan.

"But before embarking on it I had to consider its ethical bearings. Of
the legal position there was no question. It was quite illegal. But that
signified nothing. There are recent human skeletons in the Natural
History Museum; every art school in the country has one and so have many
board schools. What is the legal position of the owners of those human
remains? It will not bear investigation. As to the Hunterian Museum, it
is a mere resurrectionist's legacy. That the skeleton of O'Brian was
obtained by flagrant body-snatching is a well-known historical fact, but
one at which the law, very properly, winks. Obviously the legal
position was not worth considering.