"I 'pass over," he continued, "the preliminary steps I took to effect my object. The police assisted me, and an order from a magistrate armed me with the necessary authority. Accompanied by two of the force and by a surgeon who knew what he was about, the grave was dug up at eleven o'clock last night, and the coffin taken to the surgeon's house. There an examination of the body was made. The upper portion of the skull was perfect. Neither during the man's lifetime, nor after his death, had the slightest injury been inflicted on a single bone in it." "Impossible!" I cried. "Here is the surgeon's report. It leads to but one conclusion. If such an injury as you described to me was inflicted upon Louis Fordham, the body that was buried is not his, but another man's." I gazed at Wheeler, open-mouthed. Here was another mystery, indeed, if what he stated was true. "You must have dug up the wrong grave," I said, when I recovered from my astonishment. "It occurred to me that it might be so," he said, "and I had it looked into. No mistake has been made. The body the surgeon examined was that of the man who had been murdered in Rye Street. Make up your mind to that, or you will be thrown straight off the scent. The man we dug up was murdered; his face had been smashed in, but as I have said, the upper part of the skull was uninjured. What do you make of it?" What could I make of it except that both John Fordham and Jack were laboring under some monstrous delusion? But to establish that hypothesis the conclusion must be drawn that these two men were in collusion, and that an impossible story had been invented for some hidden purpose. Now, except during the struggle on the night of the murder, when Jack had dashed out of the house into the arms of John Fordham, who was under the impression that a murderous attack was made upon him, the men had never met, and each declared that he had not seen the face of the other. How, then, could they have invented such a story? I dismissed the idea as impossible. While I pondered over this fresh mystery, Wheeler sat quietly looking at me and fingering the surgeon's report, which I had not taken from him. Presently I found my voice. "Were there any other marks on the body by which it might be identified?" "Oh, yes," Wheeler replied, "two. On the left side, just above the hip, is a small growth of bone, which in lifetime might have been mistaken for a mole; and the bones of the toe next to the big toe on the right foot are completely bent under."