"Miss Oman," I said, "I very much want to take your advice on a matter of some importance—to me, at least." (That ought to fetch her, I thought.) The "advice fly"—strangely neglected by Izaak Walton—is guaranteed to kill in any weather. And it did fetch her. She rose in a flash and gorged it, cock's feathers, worsted body and all.

"What is it about?" she asked eagerly. "But don't stand out there where everybody can hear but me. Come in and sit down."

Now, I didn't want to discuss the matter here, and, besides, there was not time. I therefore assumed an air of mystery.

"I can't, Miss Oman. I'm due at the surgery now. But if you should be passing and should have a few minutes to spare, I should be greatly obliged if you would look in. I really don't quite know how to act."

"No, I expect not. Men very seldom do. But you're better than most, for you know when you are in difficulties and have the sense to consult a woman. But what is it about? Perhaps I might be thinking it over."

"Well, you know," I began evasively, "it's a simple matter, but I can't very well—no, by Jove!" I added, looking at my watch, "I must run, or I shall keep the multitude waiting." And with this I bustled away, leaving her literally dancing with curiosity.



CHAPTER IX

THE SPHINX OF LINCOLN'S INN

At the age of twenty-six one cannot claim to have attained to the position of a person of experience. Nevertheless, the knowledge of human nature accumulated in that brief period sufficed to make me feel pretty confident that, at some time during the evening, I should receive a visit from Miss Oman. And circumstances justified my confidence; for the clock yet stood at two minutes to seven when a premonitory tap at the surgery door heralded her arrival.

"I happened to be passing," she explained, and I forbore to smile at the coincidence, "so I thought I might as well drop in and hear what you wanted to ask me about."

She seated herself in the patients' chair and, laying a bundle of newspapers on the table, glared at me expectantly.

"Thank you, Miss Oman," I said. "It is very good of you to look in on me. I am ashamed to give you all this trouble about such a trifling matter."

She rapped her knuckles impatiently on the table.

"Never mind about the trouble," she exclaimed tartly. "What—is—it—that—you—want—to—ask—me about?"

I stated my difficulties in respect of the supper-party, and, as I proceeded, an expression of disgust and disappointment spread over her countenance. "I don't see why you need have been so mysterious about it," she said glumly.

"I didn't mean to be mysterious; I was only anxious not to make a mess of the affair. It's all very fine to assume a lofty scorn of the pleasures of the table, but there is great virtue in a really good feed, especially when low-living and high-thinking have been the order of the day."

"Coarsely put," said Miss Oman, "but perfectly true."

"Very well. Now, if I leave the management to Mrs. Gummer, she will probably provide a tepid Irish stew with flakes of congealed fat on it, and a plastic suet-pudding or something of that kind, and turn the house upside-down in getting it ready. So I thought of having a cold spread and getting the things in from outside. But I don't want it to look as if I had been making enormous preparations."

"They won't think the things came down from heaven," said Miss Oman.

"No, I suppose they won't. But you know what I mean. Now, where do you advise me to go for the raw materials of conviviality?"

Miss Oman reflected. "You'd better let me do your shopping and manage the whole business," was her final verdict.

This was precisely what I had wanted, and I accepted thankfully, regardless of the feelings of Mrs. Gummer. I handed her two pounds, and, after some protests at my extravagance, she bestowed them in her purse; a process that occupied time, since that receptacle, besides and time-stained bills, already bulged with a lading of draper's samples, ends of tape, a card of linen buttons, another of hooks and eyes, a lump of beeswax, a rat-eaten stump of lead-pencil, and other trifles that I have forgotten. As she closed the purse at the imminent risk of wrenching off its fastenings she looked at me severely and pursed up her lips.

"You're a very plausible young man," she remarked.

"What makes you say that?" I asked.

"Philandering about museums," she continued, "with handsome young ladies on the pretence of work. Work, indeed! Oh, I heard her telling her father about it. She thinks you were perfectly enthralled by the mummies and dried cats and chunks of stone and all the other trash. She doesn't know what humbugs men are."

"Really, Miss Oman—" I began.

"Oh, don't talk to me!" she snapped. "I can see it all. You can't impose on me. I can see you staring into those glass cases, egging her on to talk and listening open-mouthed and bulging-eyed and sitting at her feet—now, didn't you?"

"I don't know about sitting at her feet," I said, "though it might easily have come to that with those infernal slippery floors; but I had a very jolly time, and I mean to go again if I can. Miss Bellingham is the cleverest and most accomplished woman I have ever spoken to."

This was a poser for Miss Oman, whose admiration and loyalty, I knew, were only equalled by my own. She would have liked to contradict me, but the thing was impossible. To cover her defeat she snatched up the bundle of newspapers and began to open them out.

"What sort of stuff is 'hibernation'?" she demanded suddenly.

"Hibernation!" I exclaimed.

"Yes. They found a patch of it on a bone that was discovered in a pond at St. Mary Cray, and a similar patch on one that was found at some place in Essex. Now, I want to know what 'hibernation' is."

"You must mean 'eburnation,'" I said, after a moment's reflection.

"The newspapers say 'hibernation,' and I suppose they know what they are talking about. If you don't know what it is, don't be ashamed to say so."

"Well, then, I don't."

"In that case you'd better read the papers and find out," she said, a little illogically. And then: "Are you fond of murders? I am, awfully."

"What a shocking little ghoul you must be!" I exclaimed.

She stuck out her chin at me. "I'll trouble you," she said, "to be a little more respectful in your language. Do you realise that I am old enough to be your mother?"

"Impossible!" I ejaculated.

"Fact," said Miss Oman.

"Well, anyhow," said I, "age is not the only qualification. And, besides, you are too late for the billet. The vacancy's filled."

Miss Oman slapped the papers down on the table and rose abruptly.

"You had better read the papers and see if you can learn a little sense," she said severely as she turned to go. "Oh, and don't forget the finger!" she added eagerly. "That is really thrilling."

"The finger?" I repeated.

"Yes. They found a hand with one finger missing. The police think it is a highly important clue. I don't know quite what they mean; but you read the account and tell me what you think."

With this parting injunction she bustled out through the surgery, and I followed to bid her a ceremonious adieu on the doorstep. I watched her little figure tripping with quick, bird-like steps down Fetter Lane, and was about to turn back into the surgery when my attention was attracted by the evolutions of an elderly gentleman on the opposite side of the street. He was a somewhat peculiar-looking man, tall, gaunt, and bony, and the way in which he carried his head suggested to the medical mind a pronounced degree of near sight and a pair of "deep" spectacle glasses. Suddenly he espied me and crossed the road with his chin thrust forward and a pair of keen blue eyes directed at me through the centres of his spectacles.

"I wonder if you can and will help me," said he, with a courteous salute. "I wish to call on an acquaintance, and I have forgotten his address. It is in some court, but the name of that court has escaped me for the moment. My friend's name is Bellingham. I suppose you don't chance to know it? Doctors know a great many people, as a rule."

"Do you mean Mr. Godfrey Bellingham?"

"Ah! Then you do know him. I have not consulted the oracle in vain. He is a patient of yours, no doubt?"

"A patient and a personal friend. His address is Forty-nine Nevill's Court."

"Thank you, thank you. Oh, and as you are a friend, perhaps you can inform me as to the customs of the household. I am not expected, and I do not wish to make an untimely visit. What are Mr. Bellingham's habits as to his evening meal? Would this be a convenient time to call?"

"I generally make my evening visits a little later than this—say about half-past eight; they have finished their meal by then."

"Ah! half-past eight, then? Then I suppose I had better take a walk until that time. I don't want to disturb them."

"Would you care to come in and smoke a cigar until it is time to make your call? If you would, I could walk over with you and show you the house."

"That is very kind of you," said my new acquaintance, with an inquisitive glance at me through his spectacles. "I think I should like to sit down. It's a dull affair, mooning about the streets, and there isn't time to go back to my chambers—in Lincoln's Inn."

"I wonder," said I, as I ushered him into the room lately vacated by Miss Oman, "if you happen to be Mr. Jellicoe?"

He turned his spectacles full on me with a keen, suspicious glance. "What makes you think I am Mr. Jellicoe?" he asked.

"Oh, only that you live in Lincoln's Inn."

"Ha! I see. I live in Lincoln's Inn; Mr. Jellicoe lives in Lincoln's Inn; therefore I am Mr. Jellicoe. Ha! ha! Bad logic, but a correct conclusion. Yes, I am Mr. Jellicoe. What do you know about me?"

"Mighty little, excepting that you were the late John Bellingham's man of business."

"The 'late John Bellingham,' hey! How do you know he is the late John Bellingham?"

"As a matter of fact, I don't; only I rather understood that that was your own belief."

"You understood! Now, from whom did you 'understand' that? From Godfrey Bellingham? H'm! And how did he know what I believe? I never told him. It is a very unsafe thing, my dear sir, to expound another man's beliefs."

"Then you think that John Bellingham is alive?"

"Do I? Who said so? I did not, you know."

"But he must be either dead or alive."

"There," said Mr. Jellicoe, "I am entirely with you. You have stated an undeniable truth."

"It is not a very illuminating one, however," I replied, laughing.

"Undeniable truths often are not," he retorted. "They are apt to be extremely general. In fact, I would affirm that the certainty of the truth of a given proposition is directly proportional to its generality."

"I suppose that is so," said I.

"Undoubtedly. Take an instance from your own profession. Given a million normal human beings under twenty, and you can say with certainty that a majority of them will die before reaching a certain age, that they will die in certain circumstances and of certain diseases. Then take a single unit from that million, and what can you predict concerning him? Nothing. He may die to-morrow; he may live to a couple of hundred. He may die of a cold in the head or a cut finger, or from falling off the cross of St. Paul's. In a particular case you can predict nothing."

"That is perfectly true," said I. And then, realising that I had been led away from the topic of John Bellingham, I ventured to return to it.

"That was a very mysterious affair—the disappearance of John Bellingham, I mean."

"Why mysterious?" asked Mr. Jellicoe. "Men disappear from time to time, and when they reappear, the explanations that they give (when they give any) seem to be more or less adequate."

"But the circumstances were surely rather mysterious."

"What circumstances?" asked Mr. Jellicoe.

"I mean the way in which he vanished from Mr. Hurst's house."

"In what way did he vanish from it?"

"Well, of course, I don't know."

"Precisely. Neither do I. Therefore I can't say whether that way was a mysterious one or not."

"It is not even certain that he did leave it," I remarked, rather recklessly.

"Exactly," said Mr. Jellicoe. "And if he did not, he is there still. And if he is there still, he has not disappeared—in the sense understood. And if he has not disappeared, there is no mystery."

I laughed heartily, but Mr. Jellicoe preserved a wooden solemnity and continued to examine me through his spectacles (which I, in my turn, inspected and estimated at about minus five dioptres). There was something highly diverting about this grim lawyer, with his dry contentiousness and almost farcical caution. His ostentatious reserve encouraged me to ply him with fresh questions, the more indiscreet the better.

"I suppose," said I, "that, under these circumstances, you would hardly favour Mr. Hurst's proposal to apply for permission to presume death?"

"Under what circumstances?" he inquired.

"I was referring to the doubt you have expressed as to whether John Bellingham is, after all, really dead."

"My dear sir," said he, "I fail to see your point. If it were certain that the man was alive, it would be impossible to presume that he was dead; and if it were certain that he was dead, presumption of death would still be impossible. You do not presume a certainty. The uncertainty is of the essence of the transaction."

"But," I persisted, "if you really believe that he may be alive, I should hardly have thought that you would take the responsibility of presuming his death and dispersing his property."

"I don't," said Mr. Jellicoe. "I take no responsibility. I act in accordance with the decision of the Court and have no choice in the matter."

"But the Court may decide that he is dead and he may nevertheless be alive."

"Not at all. If the Court decides that he is presumably dead, then he is presumably dead. As a mere irrelevant, physical circumstance he may, it is true, be alive. But legally speaking, and for testamentary purposes, he is dead. You fail to perceive the distinction, no doubt?"

"I am afraid I do," I admitted.

"Yes; members of your profession usually do. That is what makes them such bad witnesses in a court of law. The scientific outlook is radically different from the legal. The man of science relies on his own knowledge and observation and judgment, and disregards testimony. A man comes to you and tells you he is blind in one eye. Do you accept his statement? Not in the least. You proceed to test his eyesight with some infernal apparatus of coloured glasses, and you find that he can see perfectly well with both eyes. Then you decide that he is not blind in one eye; that is to say, you reject his testimony in favour of facts of your own ascertaining."

"But surely that is the rational method of coming to a conclusion?"

"In science, no doubt. Not in law. A court of law must decide according to the evidence which is before it; and that evidence is of the nature of sworn testimony. If a witness is prepared to swear that black is white, and no evidence to the contrary is offered, the evidence before the Court is that black is white, and the Court must decide accordingly. The judge and the jury may think otherwise—they may even have private knowledge to the contrary—but they have to decide according to the evidence."

"Do you mean to say that a judge would be justified in giving a decision which he knew privately to be contrary to the facts? Or that he might sentence a man whom he knew to be innocent?"

"Certainly. It has been done. There is a case of a judge who sentenced a man to death and allowed the execution to take place, notwithstanding that he—the judge—had actually seen the murder committed by another man. But that was carrying correctness of procedure to the verge of pedantry."

"It was, with a vengeance," I agreed. "But to return to the case of John Bellingham. Supposing that after the Court has decided that he is dead he should turn up alive? What then?"

"Ah! It would then be his turn to make an application, and the Court, having fresh evidence laid before it, would probably decide that he was alive."

"And meantime his property would have been dispersed?"

"Probably. But you will observe that the presumption of death would have arisen out of his own proceedings. If a man acts in such a way as to create a belief that he is dead, he must put up with the consequences."

"Yes, that is reasonable enough," said I. And then, after a pause, I asked: "Is there any immediate likelihood of proceedings of the kind being commenced?"

"I understood from what you said just now that Mr. Hurst was contemplating some action of the kind. No doubt you had your information from a reliable quarter." This answer Mr. Jellicoe delivered without moving a muscle, regarding me with the fixity of a spectacled figure-head.

I smiled feebly. The operation of pumping Mr. Jellicoe was rather like the sport of boxing with a porcupine, being chiefly remarkable as a demonstration of the power of passive resistance. I determined, however, to make one more effort, rather, I think, for the pleasure of witnessing his defensive manoeuvres than with the expectation of getting anything out of him. I accordingly "opened out" on the subject of the "remains."

"Have you been following these remarkable discoveries of human bones that have been appearing in the papers?" I asked.

He looked at me stonily for some moments, and then replied:

"Human bones are rather more within your province than mine, but, now that you mention it, I think I recall having read of some such discoveries. They were disconnected bones, I believe?"

"Yes; evidently parts of a dismembered body."

"So I should suppose. No, I have not followed the accounts. As we get on in life our interests tend to settle into grooves, and my groove is chiefly connected with conveyancing. These discoveries would be of more interest to a criminal lawyer."

"I thought that you might, perhaps, have connected them with the disappearance of your client."

"Why should I? What could be the nature of the connection?"

"Well," I said, "these are the bones of a man—"

"Yes; and my client was a man with bones. That is a connection, certainly, though not a very specific or distinctive one. But perhaps you had something more particular in your mind."

"I had," I replied. "The fact that some of the bones were actually found on land belonging to your client seemed to me rather significant."

"Did it, indeed?" said Mr. Jellicoe. He reflected for a few moments, gazing steadily at me the while, and then continued: "In that I am unable to follow you. It would have seemed to me that the finding of human remains upon a certain piece of land might conceivably throw a prima facie suspicion upon the owner or occupant of that land as being the person who deposited them. But the case that you suggest is the one case in which this would be impossible. A man cannot deposit his own dismembered remains."

"No, of course not. I was not suggesting that he deposited them himself, but merely that the fact of their being deposited on his land, in a way, connected these remains with him."

"Again," said Mr. Jellicoe, "I fail to follow you, unless you are suggesting that it is customary for murderers who mutilate bodies to be punctilious in depositing the dismembered remains upon land belonging to their victims. In which case I am sceptical as to your facts. I am not aware of the existence of any such custom. Moreover, it appears that only a portion of the body was deposited on Mr. Bellingham's land, the remaining portions having been scattered broadcast over a wide area. How does that agree with your suggestion?"

"It doesn't, of course," I admitted. "But there is another fact that I think you will admit to be more significant. The first remains that were discovered were found at Sidcup. Now, Sidcup is close to Eltham; and Eltham is the place where Mr. Bellingham was last seen alive."

"And what is the significance of this? Why do you connect the remains with one locality rather than the various other localities in which other portions of the body have been found?"

"Well," I replied, rather gravelled by this very pertinent question, "the appearances seem to suggest that the person who deposited these remains started from the neighbourhood of Eltham, where the missing man was last seen."

Mr. Jellicoe shook his head. "You appear," said he, "to be confusing the order of deposition with the order of discovery. What evidence is there that the remains found at Sidcup were deposited before those found elsewhere?"

"I don't know that there is any," I admitted.

"Then," said he, "I don't see how you support your suggestion that the person started from the neighbourhood of Eltham."

On consideration, I had to admit that I had nothing to offer in support of my theory; and having thus shot my last arrow in this very unequal contest, I thought it time to change the subject.

"I called in at the British Museum the other day," said I, "and had a look at Mr. Bellingham's last gift to the nation. The things are very well shown in that central case."

"Yes. I was very pleased with the position they have given to the exhibit, and so would my poor old friend have been. I wished, as I looked at the case, that he could have seen it. But perhaps he may, after all."

"I am sure I hope he will," said I, with more sincerity, perhaps, than the lawyer gave me credit for. For the return of John Bellingham would most effectually have cut the Gordian knot of my friend Godfrey's difficulties. "You are a good deal interested in Egyptology yourself, aren't you?" I added.

"Greatly interested," replied Mr. Jellicoe, with more animation than I had thought possible in his wooden face. "It is a fascinating subject, the study of this venerable civilisation, extending back to the childhood of the human race, preserved for ever for our instruction in its own unchanging monuments like a fly in a block of amber. Everything connected with Egypt is full of an impressive solemnity. A feeling of permanence, of stability, defying time and change, pervades it. The place, the people, and the monuments alike breathe of eternity."

I was mightily surprised at this rhetorical outburst on the part of this dry and taciturn lawyer. But I liked him the better for the touch of enthusiasm that made him human, and determined to keep him astride of his hobby.

"Yet," said I, "the people must have changed in the course of centuries."

"Yes, that is so. The people who fought against Cambyses were not the race that marched into Egypt five thousand years before—the dynastic people whose portraits we see on the early monuments. In those fifty centuries the blood of Hyksos and Syrians and Ethiopians and Hittites, and who can say how many more races, must have mingled with that of the old Egyptians. But still the national life went on without a break; the old culture leavened the new peoples, and the immigrant strangers ended by becoming Egyptians. It is a wonderful phenomenon. Looking back on it from our own time, it seems more like a geological period than the life-history of a single nation. Are you at all interested in the subject?"

"Yes, decidedly, though I am completely ignorant of it. The fact is that my interest is of quite recent growth. It is only of late that I have been sensible of the glamour of things Egyptian."

"Since you made Miss Bellingham's acquaintance, perhaps?" suggested Mr. Jellicoe, himself as unchanging in aspect as an Egyptian effigy.

I suppose I must have reddened—I certainly resented the remark—for he continued in the same even tone: "I made the suggestion because I know that she takes an intelligent interest in the subject and is, in fact, quite well informed on it."

"Yes; she seems to know a great deal about the antiquities of Egypt, and I may as well admit that your surmise was correct. It was she who showed me her uncle's collection."

"So I had supposed," said Mr. Jellicoe. "And a very instructive collection it is, in a popular sense; very suitable for exhibition in a public museum, though there is nothing in it of unusual interest to the expert. The tomb furniture is excellent of its kind and the cartonnage case of the mummy is well made and rather finely decorated."

"Yes, I thought it quite handsome. But can you explain to me why, after taking all that trouble to decorate it, they should have disfigured it with those great smears of bitumen?"

"Ah!" said Mr. Jellicoe, "that is quite an interesting question. It is not unusual to find mummy-cases smeared with bitumen; there is a mummy of a priestess in the next gallery which is completely coated with bitumen excepting the gilded face. Now, this bitumen was put on for a purpose—for the purpose of obliterating the inscriptions and thus concealing the identity of the deceased from the robbers and desecrators of tombs. And there is the oddity of this mummy of Sebek-hotep. Evidently there was an intention of obliterating the inscriptions. The whole of the back is covered thickly with bitumen, and so are the feet. Then the workers seem to have changed their minds and left the inscriptions and decoration untouched. Why they intended to cover it, and why, having commenced, they left it partially covered only, is a mystery. The mummy was found in its original tomb and quite undisturbed, so far as tomb-robbers are concerned. Poor Bellingham was greatly puzzled as to what the explanation could be."

"Speaking of bitumen," said I, "reminds me of a question that has occurred to me. You know that this substance has been used a good deal by modern painters and that it has a very dangerous peculiarity; I mean its tendency to liquefy, without any very obvious reason, long after it has dried."

"Yes, I know. Isn't there some story about a picture of Reynolds' in which bitumen had been used? A portrait of a lady, I think. The bitumen softened, and one of the lady's eyes slipped down on to her cheek; and they had to hang the portrait upside down and keep it warm until the eye slipped back into its place. But what was your question?"

"I was wondering whether the bitumen used by the Egyptian artists has ever been known to soften after this great lapse of time."

"Yes, I think it has. I have heard of instances in which the bitumen coatings of mummy cases have softened under certain circumstances and become quite 'tacky.' But, bless my soul! here am I gossiping with you and wasting your time, and it is nearly a quarter to nine!"

My guest rose hastily, and I, with many apologies for having detained him, proceeded to fulfil my promise to guide him to his destination. As we sallied forth together the glamour of Egypt faded by degrees, and when he shook my hand stiffly at the gate of the Bellinghams' house, all his vivacity and enthusiasm had vanished, leaving the taciturn lawyer, dry, uncommunicative, and not a little suspicious.



CHAPTER X

THE NEW ALLIANCE

The "Great Lexicographer"—tutelary deity of my adopted habitat—has handed down to shuddering posterity a definition of the act of eating which might have been framed by a dyspeptic ghoul. "Eat: to devour with the mouth." It is a shocking view to take of so genial a function: cynical, indelicate, and finally unforgivable by reason of its very accuracy. For, after all, that is what eating amounts to, if one must needs express it with such crude brutality. But if "the ingestion of alimentary substances"—to ring a modern change upon the older formula—is in itself a process material even unto carnality, it is undeniable that it forms a highly agreeable accompaniment to more psychic manifestations.

And so, as the lamplight, re-enforced by accessory candles, falls on the little table in the first-floor room looking on Fetter Lane—only now the curtains are drawn—the conversation is not the less friendly and bright for a running accompaniment executed with knives and forks, for clink of goblet and jovial gurgle of wine-flask. On the contrary, to one of us, at least—to wit, Godfrey Bellingham—the occasion is one of uncommon festivity, and his boyish enjoyment of the simple feast makes pathetic suggestions of hard times, faced uncomplainingly, but keenly felt nevertheless.

The talk flitted from topic to topic, mainly concerning itself with matters artistic, and never for one moment approaching the critical subject of John Bellingham's will. From the stepped pyramid of Sakkara with its encaustic tiles to mediaeval church floors; from Elizabethan woodwork to Mycaenaean pottery, and thence to the industrial arts of the Stone Age and the civilisation of the Aztecs. I began to suspect that my two legal friends were so carried away by the interest of the conversation that they had forgotten the secret purpose of the meeting, for the dessert had been placed on the table (by Mrs. Gummer with the manner of a bereaved dependant dispensing funeral bakemeats), and still no reference had been made to the "case." But it seemed that Thorndyke was but playing a waiting game; was only allowing the intimacy to ripen while he watched for the opportunity. And that opportunity came, even as Mrs. Gummer vanished spectrally with a tray of plates and glasses.

"So you had a visitor last night, Doctor," said Mr. Bellingham. "I mean my friend Jellicoe. He told us he had seen you, and mighty curious he was about you. I have never known Jellicoe to be so inquisitive before. What did you think of him?"

"A quaint old cock. I found him highly amusing. We entertained one another for quite a long time with cross questions and crooked answers; I affecting eager curiosity, he replying with a defensive attitude of universal ignorance. It was a most diverting encounter."

"He needn't have been so close," Miss Bellingham remarked, "seeing that all the world will be regaled with our affairs before long."

"They are proposing to take the case into Court, then?" said Thorndyke.

"Yes," said Mr. Bellingham. "Jellicoe came to tell me that my cousin, Hurst, has instructed his solicitors to make the application and to invite me to join him. Actually he came to deliver an ultimatum from Hurst—But, I mustn't disturb the harmony of this festive gathering with litigious discords."

"Now, why mustn't you?" asked Thorndyke. "Why is a subject in which we are all keenly interested to be tabu? You don't mind telling us about it, do you?"

"No, of course not. But what do you think of a man who buttonholes a doctor at a dinner-party to retail a list of his ailments?"

"It depends on what his ailments are," replied Thorndyke. "If he is a chronic dyspeptic and wishes to expound the virtues of Doctor Snaffler's Purple Pills for Pimply People, he is merely a bore. But if he chances to suffer from some rare and choice disease, such as Trypanosomiasis or Acromegaly, the doctor will be delighted to listen."

"Then are we to understand," Miss Bellingham asked, "that we are rare and choice products, in a legal sense?"

"Undoubtedly," replied Thorndyke. "The case of John Bellingham is, in many respects, unique. It will be followed with the deepest interest by the profession at large, and especially by medical jurists."

"How gratifying that should be to us!" said Miss Bellingham. "We may even attain undying fame in textbooks and treatises; and yet we are not so very much puffed up with our importance."

"No," said her father; "we could do without the fame quite well, and so, I think, could Hurst. Did Berkeley tell you of the proposal that he made?"

"Yes," said Thorndyke; "and I gather from what you say that he has repeated it."

"Yes. He sent Jellicoe to give me another chance, and I was tempted to take it; but my daughter was strongly against any compromise, and probably she is right. At any rate, she is more concerned than I am."

"What view did Mr. Jellicoe take?" Thorndyke asked.

"Oh, he was very cautious and reserved, but he didn't disguise his feeling that I should be wise to take a certainty in lieu of a very problematical fortune. He would certainly like me to agree, for he naturally wishes to get the affair settled and pocket his legacy."

"And have you definitely refused?"

"Yes; quite definitely. So Hurst will apply for permission to presume death and prove the will, and Jellicoe will support him; he says he has no choice."

"And you?"

"I suppose I shall oppose the application, though I don't quite know on what grounds."

"Before you take any definite steps," said Thorndyke, "you ought to give the matter very careful consideration. I take it that you have very little doubt that your brother is dead. And if he is dead, any benefit that you may receive under the will must be conditional on the previous assumption or proof of death. But perhaps you have taken advice?"

"No, I have not. As our friend the Doctor has probably told you, my means—or rather, the lack of them—do not admit of my getting professional advice. Hence my delicacy about discussing the case with you."

"Then do you propose to conduct your case in person?"

"Yes; if it is necessary for me to appear in Court, as I suppose it will be, if I oppose the application."

Thorndyke reflected for a few moments, and then said gravely:

"You had much better not appear in person to conduct your case, Mr. Bellingham, for several reasons. To begin with, Mr. Hurst is sure to be represented by a capable counsel, and you will find yourself quite unable to meet the sudden exigencies of a contest in Court. You will be out-manoeuvred. Then there is the judge to be considered."

"But surely one can rely on the judge dealing fairly with a man who is unable to afford a solicitor and counsel?"

"Undoubtedly, as a rule, a judge will give an unrepresented litigant every assistance and consideration. English judges in general are high-minded men with a deep sense of their great responsibilities. But you cannot afford to take any chances. You must consider the exceptions. A judge has been a counsel, and he may carry to the bench some of the professional prejudices of the bar. Indeed, if you consider the absurd licence permitted to counsel in their treatment of witnesses, and the hostile attitude adopted by some judges towards medical and other scientific men who have to give their evidence, you will see that the judicial mind is not always quite as judicial as one would wish, especially when the privileges and immunities of the profession are concerned. Now, your appearance in person to conduct your case must, unavoidably, cause some inconvenience to the Court. Your ignorance of procedure and legal details must occasion some delay; and if the judge should happen to be an irritable man he might resent the inconvenience and delay. I don't say that that would affect his decision—I don't think it would—but I am sure that it would be wise to avoid giving offence to the judge. And, above all, it is most desirable to be able to detect and reply to any manoeuvres on the part of the opposing counsel, which you certainly would not be able to do."

"This is excellent advice, Doctor Thorndyke," said Bellingham, with a grim smile; "but I am afraid I shall have to take my chance."

"Not necessarily," said Thorndyke. "I am going to make a little proposal, which I will ask you to consider without prejudice as a mutual accommodation. You see, your case is one of exceptional interest—it will become a textbook case, as Miss Bellingham has prophesied; and, since it lies within my specialty, it will be necessary for me, in any case, to follow it in the closest detail. Now, it would be much more satisfactory to me to study it from within than from without, to say nothing of the credit which would accrue to me if I should be able to conduct it to a successful issue. I am therefore going to ask you to put your case in my hands and let me see what can be done with it. I know this is an unusual course for a professional man to take, but I think it is not improper under the circumstances."

Mr. Bellingham pondered in silence for a few moments, and then, after a glance at his daughter, began rather hesitatingly: "It is exceedingly generous of you, Doctor Thorndyke—"

"Pardon me," interrupted Thorndyke, "it is not. My motives, as I have explained, are purely egoistic."

Mr. Bellingham laughed uneasily and again glanced at his daughter, who, however, pursued her occupation of peeling a pear with calm deliberation and without lifting her eyes. Getting no help from her, he asked: "Do you think that there is any possibility whatever of a successful issue?"

"Yes, a remote possibility—very remote, I fear, as things look at present; but if I thought the case absolutely hopeless I should advise you to stand aside and let events take their course."

"Supposing the case to come to a favourable termination, would you allow me to settle your fees in the ordinary way?"

"If the choice lay with me," replied Thorndyke, "I should say 'yes' with pleasure. But it does not. The attitude of the profession is very definitely unfavourable to 'speculative' practice. You may remember the well-known firm of Dodson and Fogg, who gained thereby much profit, but little credit. But why discuss contingencies of this kind? If I bring your case to a successful issue I shall have done very well for myself. We shall have benefited one another mutually. Come now, Miss Bellingham, I appeal to you. We have eaten salt together, to say nothing of pigeon pie and other cates. Won't you back me up, and at the same time do a kindness to Doctor Berkeley?"

"Why, is Doctor Berkeley interested in our decision?"

"Certainly he is, as you will appreciate when I tell you that he actually tried to bribe me secretly out of his own pocket."

"Did you?" she asked, looking at me with an expression that rather alarmed me.

"Well, not exactly," I replied, mighty hot and uncomfortable, and wishing Thorndyke at the devil with his confidences. "I merely mentioned that the—the—solicitor's costs, you know, and that sort of thing—but you needn't jump on me, Miss Bellingham; Doctor Thorndyke did all that was necessary in that way."

She continued to look at me thoughtfully as I stammered out my excuses, and then said: "I wasn't going to. I was only thinking that poverty has its compensations. You are all so very good to us; and, for my part, I should accept Doctor Thorndyke's generous offer most gratefully, and thank him for making it so easy for us."

"Very well, my dear," said Mr. Bellingham; "we will enjoy the sweets of poverty, as you say—we have sampled the other kind of thing pretty freely—and do ourselves the pleasure of accepting a great kindness, most delicately offered."

"Thank you," said Thorndyke. "You have justified my faith in you, Miss Bellingham, and in the power of Doctor Berkeley's salt. I understand that you place your affairs in my hands?"

"Entirely and thankfully," replied Mr. Bellingham. "Whatever you think best to be done we agree to beforehand."

"Then," said I, "let us drink success to the Cause. Port, if you please, Miss Bellingham; the vintage is not recorded, but it is quite wholesome, and a suitable medium for the sodium chloride of friendship." I filled her glass, and, when the bottle had made its circuit, we stood up and solemnly pledged the new alliance.

"There is just one thing that I would say before we dismiss the subject for the present," said Thorndyke. "It is a good thing to keep one's own counsel. When you get formal notice from Mr. Hurst's solicitors that proceedings are being commenced, you may refer them to Mr. Marchmont of Gray's Inn, who will nominally act for you. He will actually have nothing to do, but we must preserve the fiction that I am instructed by a solicitor. Meanwhile, and until the case goes into Court, I think it very necessary that neither Mr. Jellicoe nor anyone else should know that I am to be connected with it. We must keep the other side in the dark, if we can."

"We will be as secret as the grave," said Mr. Bellingham; "and, as a matter of fact, it will be quite easy, since it happens, by a curious coincidence, that I am already acquainted with Mr. Marchmont. He acted for Stephen Blackmore, you remember, in that case that you unravelled so wonderfully. I knew the Blackmores."

"Did you?" said Thorndyke. "What a small world it is! And what a remarkable affair that was! The intricacies and cross-issues made it quite absorbingly interesting; and it is noteworthy for me in another respect, for it was one of the first cases in which I was associated with Doctor Jervis."

"Yes, and a mighty useful associate I was," remarked Jervis, "though I did pick up one or two facts by accident. And, by the way, the Blackmore case had certain points in common with your case, Mr. Bellingham. There was a disappearance and a disputed will, and the man who vanished was a scholar and an antiquarian."

"Cases in our specialty are apt to have certain general resemblances," said Thorndyke; and as he spoke he directed a keen glance at his junior, the significance of which I partly understood when he abruptly changed the subject.

"The newspaper reports of your brother's disappearance, Mr. Bellingham, were remarkably full of detail. There were even plans of your house and that of Mr. Hurst. Do you know who supplied the information?"

"No, I don't," replied Mr. Bellingham. "I know that I didn't. Some newspaper men came to me for information, but I sent them packing. So, I understand, did Hurst; and as for Jellicoe, you might as well cross-examine an oyster."

"Well," said Thorndyke, "the Press-men have queer methods of getting 'copy'; but still, someone must have given them that description of your brother and those plans. It would be interesting to know who it was. However, we don't know; and now let us dismiss these legal topics, with suitable apologies for having introduced them."

"And perhaps," said I, "we may as well adjourn to what we will call the drawing-room—it is really Barnard's den—and leave the housekeeper to wrestle with the debris."

We migrated to the cheerfully shabby little apartment, and, when Mrs. Gummer had served coffee, with gloomy resignation (as who should say: "If you will drink this sort of stuff I suppose you must, but don't blame me for the consequences"), I settled Mr. Bellingham in Barnard's favourite lop-sided easy chair—the depressed seat of which suggested its customary use by an elephant of sedentary habits—and opened the diminutive piano.

"I wonder if Miss Bellingham would give us a little music?" I said.

"I wonder if she could?" was the smiling response. "Do you know," she continued, "I have not touched a piano for nearly two years? It will be quite an interesting experiment—to me; but if it fails, you will be the sufferers. So you must choose."

"My verdict," said Mr. Bellingham, "is fiat experimentum, though I won't complete the quotation, as that would seem to disparage Doctor Barnard's piano. But before you begin, Ruth, there is one rather disagreeable matter that I want to dispose of, so that I may not disturb the harmony with it later."

He paused, and we all looked at him expectantly.

"I suppose, Doctor Thorndyke," he said, "you read the newspapers?"

"I don't," replied Thorndyke. "But I ascertain, for purely business purposes, what they contain."

"Then," said Mr. Bellingham, "you have probably met with some accounts of the finding of certain human remains, apparently portions of a mutilated body?"

"Yes, I have seen those reports and filed them for future reference."

"Exactly. Well, now, it can hardly be necessary for me to tell you that those remains—the mutilated remains of some poor murdered creature, as there can be no doubt they are—have seemed to have a very dreadful significance for me. You will understand what I mean; and I want to ask you if—if they have made a similar suggestion to you."

Thorndyke paused before replying, with his eyes bent thoughtfully on the floor, and we all looked at him anxiously.

"It is very natural," he said at length, "that you should associate these remains with the mystery of your brother's disappearance. I should like to say that you are wrong in doing so, but if I did I should be uncandid. There are certain facts that do, undoubtedly, seem to suggest a connection, and, up to the present, there are no definite facts of a contrary significance."

Mr. Bellingham sighed deeply and shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

"It is a horrible affair!" he said huskily; "horrible! Would you mind, Doctor Thorndyke, telling us just how the matter stands in your opinion—what the probabilities are, for and against?"

Again Thorndyke reflected awhile, and it seemed to me that he was not very willing to discuss the subject. However, the question had been asked pointedly, and eventually he answered:

"At the present stage of the investigation it is not very easy to state the balance of probabilities. The matter is still quite speculative. The bones which have been found hitherto (for we are dealing with a skeleton, not with a body) have been exclusively those which are useless for personal identification; which is, in itself, a rather curious and striking fact. The general character and dimensions of the bones seem to suggest a middle-aged man of about your brother's height, and the date of deposition appears to be in agreement with the date of his disappearance."

"Is it known, then, when they were deposited?" Mr. Bellingham asked.

"In the case of those found at Sidcup it seems possible to deduce an approximate date. The watercress-bed was cleaned out about two years ago, so they could not have been lying there longer than that; and their condition suggests that they could not have been there much less than two years, as there is apparently not a vestige of the soft structures left. Of course, I am speaking from the newspaper reports only; I have no direct knowledge of the matter."

"Have they found any considerable part of the body yet? I haven't been reading the papers myself. My little friend, Miss Oman, brought a great bundle of 'em for me to read, but I couldn't stand it; I pitched the whole boiling of 'em out of the window."

I thought I detected a slight twinkle in Thorndyke's eye, but he answered quite gravely:

"I think I can give you the particulars from memory, though I won't guarantee the dates. The original discovery was made, apparently quite accidentally, at Sidcup on the fifteenth of July. It consisted of a complete left arm, minus the third finger and including the bones of the shoulder—the shoulder-blade and collar-bone. This discovery seems to have set the local population, especially the juvenile part of it, searching all the ponds and streams of the neighbourhood—"

"Cannibals!" interjected Mr. Bellingham.

"With the result that there was dredged up out of a pond near St. Mary Cray, in Kent, a right thigh-bone. There is a slight clue to identity in respect of this bone, since the head of it has a small patch of what is called 'eburnation'—that is a sort of porcelain-like polish that occurs on the parts of bones that form a joint when the natural covering of cartilage is destroyed by disease. It is produced by the unprotected surface of one bone grinding against the similarly unprotected surface of another."

"And how," Mr. Bellingham asked, "would that help the identification?"

"It would indicate," replied Thorndyke, "that the deceased had probably suffered from rheumatoid arthritis—what is commonly known as rheumatic gout—and he would probably have limped slightly and complained of some pain in the right hip."

"I am afraid that doesn't help us much," said Mr. Bellingham; "for, you see, John had a pretty pronounced limp from another cause, an old injury to his left ankle; and as to complaining of pain—well, he was a hardy old fellow and not much given to making complaints of any kind. But don't let me interrupt you."

"The next discovery," continued Thorndyke, "was made near Lee, by the police this time. They seem to have developed sudden activity in the matter, and in searching the neighbourhood of West Kent they dragged out of a pond near Lee the bones of a right foot. Now, if it had been the left instead of the right we might have had a clue, as I understand that your brother had fractured his left ankle, and there might have been some traces of the injury on the foot itself."

"Yes," said Mr. Bellingham, "I suppose there might. The injury was described as a Pott's fracture."

"Exactly. Well, now, after this discovery at Lee it seems that the police set on foot a systematic search of all the ponds and small pieces of water around London, and on the twenty-third, they found in the Cuckoo Pits in Epping Forest, not far from Woodford, the bones of a right arm (including those of the shoulder, as before), which seem to be part of the same body."

"Yes," said Mr. Bellingham, "I heard of that. Quite close to my old house. Horrible! horrible! It gave me the shudders to think of it—to think that poor old John may have been waylaid and murdered when he was actually coming to see me. He may even have got into the grounds by the back gate, if it was left unfastened, and been followed in there and murdered. You remember that a scarab from his watch-chain was found there? But is it clear that this arm was the fellow of the arm that was found at Sidcup?"

"It seems to agree in character and dimensions," said Thorndyke, "and the agreement is strongly supported by a discovery that was made two days later."

"What is that?" Mr. Bellingham demanded.

"It is the lower half of a trunk which the police dredged out of a rather deep pond on the skirts of the forest at Loughton—Staple's Pond, it is called. The bones found were the pelvis—that is, the two hipbones—and six vertebrae, or joints of the backbone. Having discovered these, the police dammed the stream and pumped the pond dry, but no other bones were found; which is rather odd, as there should have been a pair of ribs belonging to the upper vertebra—the twelfth dorsal vertebra. It suggests some curious questions as to the method of dismemberment; but I mustn't go into unpleasant details. The point is that the cavity of the right hip-joint showed a patch of eburnation corresponding to that on the head of the right thigh-bone that was found at St. Mary Cray. So there can be very little doubt that these bones are all part of the same body."

"I see," grunted Mr. Bellingham; and he added, after a moment's thought: "Now, the question is, Are these bones the remains of my brother John? What do you say, Doctor Thorndyke?"

"I say that the question cannot be answered on the facts at present known to us. It can only be said that they may be, and that some of the circumstances suggest that they are. But we can only wait for further discoveries. At any moment the police may light upon some portion of the skeleton which will settle the question definitely one way or the other."

"I suppose," said Mr. Bellingham, "I can't be of any service to you in the matter of identification?"

"Indeed you can," said Thorndyke, "and I was going to ask you to assist me. What I want you to do is this: Write down a full description of your brother, including every detail known to you, together with an account of every illness or injury from which you know him to have suffered; and also the names and, if possible, the addresses of any doctors, surgeons, or dentists who may have attended him at any time. The dentists are particularly important, as their information would be invaluable if the skull belonging to these bones should be discovered."

Mr. Bellingham shuddered.

"It's a shocking idea," he said; "but, of course, you are quite right. You must have the facts if you are to form an opinion. I will write out what you want and send it to you without delay. And now, for God's sake, let us throw off this nightmare, for a little while, at least! What is there, Ruth, among Doctor Barnard's music that you can manage?"

Barnard's collection in general inclined to the severely classical, but we disinterred from the heap a few lighter works of an old-fashioned kind, including a volume of Mendelssohn's Lieder ohne Worte, and with one of these Miss Bellingham made trial of her skill, playing it with excellent taste and quite adequate execution. That, at least, was her father's verdict; for, as to me, I found it the perfection of happiness merely to sit and look at her—a state of mind that would have been in no wise disturbed even by Silvery Waves or The Maiden's Prayer.

Thus with simple, homely music, and conversation always cheerful and sometimes brilliant, slipped away one of the pleasantest evenings of my life, and slipped away all too soon. St. Dunstan's clock was the fly in the ointment, for it boomed out intrusively the hour of eleven just as my guests were beginning thoroughly to appreciate one another; and thereby carried the sun (with a minor paternal satellite) out of the firmament of my heaven. For I had, in my professional capacity, given strict injunctions that Mr. Bellingham should on no account sit up late; and now, in my social capacity, I had smilingly to hear "the doctor's orders" quoted. It was a scurvy return for all my care.

When Mr. and Miss Bellingham departed, Thorndyke and Jervis would have gone too; but noting my bereaved condition, and being withal compassionate and tender of heart, they were persuaded to stay awhile and bear me company in a consolatory pipe.



CHAPTER XI

THE EVIDENCE REVIEWED

"So the game has opened," observed Thorndyke, as he struck a match. "The play has begun with a cautious lead off by the other side. Very cautious, and not very confident."

"Why do you say 'not very confident'?" I asked.

"Well, it is evident that Hurst—and, I fancy, Jellicoe too—is anxious to buy off Bellingham's opposition, and at a pretty long price, under the circumstances. And when we consider how very little Bellingham has to offer against the presumption of his brother's death, it looks as if Hurst hadn't much to say on his side."

"No," said Jervis, "he can't hold many trumps or he wouldn't be willing to pay four hundred a year for his opponent's chance; and that is just as well, for it seems to me that our own hand is a pretty poor one."

"We must look through our hand and see what we do hold," said Thorndyke. "Our trump card at present—a rather small one, I am afraid—is the obvious intention of the testator that the bulk of the property should go to his brother."

"I suppose you will begin your inquiries now," said I.

"We began them some time ago—the day after you brought us the will, in fact. Jervis has been through the registers and has ascertained that no interment under the name of John Bellingham has taken place since the disappearance; which was just what we expected. He has also discovered that some other person has been making similar inquiries; which, again, is what we expected."

"And your own investigations?"

"Have given negative results for the most part. I found Doctor Norbury, at the British Museum, very friendly and helpful; so friendly, in fact, that I am thinking whether I may not be able to enlist his help in certain private researches of my own, with reference to the changes effected by time in the physical properties of certain substances."

"Oh; you haven't told me about that," said Jervis.

"No: I haven't really commenced to plan my experiments yet, and they will probably lead to nothing when I do. It occurred to me that, possibly, in the course of time, certain molecular changes might take place in substances such as wood, bone, pottery, stucco, and other common materials, and that these changes might alter their power of conducting or transmitting molecular vibrations. Now, if this should turn out to be the case, it would be a fact of considerable importance, medico-legal and otherwise; for it would be possible to determine approximately the age of any object of known composition by testing its reactions to electricity, heat, light and other molecular vibrations. I thought of seeking Doctor Norbury's assistance because he can furnish me with materials for experiment of such great age that the reactions, if any, should be extremely easy to demonstrate. But to return to our case. I learned from him that John Bellingham had certain friends in Paris—collectors and museum officials—whom he was in the habit of visiting for the purpose of study and exchange of specimens. I have made inquiries of all of these, and none of them had seen him during his last visit. In fact, I have not yet discovered anyone who had seen Bellingham in Paris on this occasion. So his visit there remains a mystery for the present."

"It doesn't seem to be of much importance, since he undoubtedly came back," I remarked; but to this Thorndyke demurred.

"It is impossible to estimate the importance of the unknown," said he.

"Well, how does the matter stand," asked Jervis, "on the evidence that we have? John Bellingham disappeared on a certain date. Is there anything to show what was the manner of his disappearance?"

"The facts in our possession," said Thorndyke, "which are mainly those set forth in the newspaper report, suggest several alternative possibilities; and in view of the coming inquiry—for they will, no doubt, have to be gone into in Court, to some extent—it may be worth while to consider them. There are five conceivable hypotheses"—here Thorndyke checked them on his fingers as he proceeded—"First, he may still be alive. Second, he may have died and been buried without identification. Third, he may have been murdered by some unknown person. Fourth, he may have been murdered by Hurst and his body concealed. Fifth, he may have been murdered by his brother. Let us examine these possibilities seriatim.

"First, he may still be alive. If he is, he must either have disappeared voluntarily, have lost his memory suddenly and not been identified, or have been imprisoned—on a false charge or otherwise. Let us take the first case—that of voluntary disappearance. Obviously, its improbability is extreme."

"Jellicoe doesn't think so," said I. "He thinks it quite on the cards that John Bellingham is alive. He says that it is not a very unusual thing for a man to disappear for a time."

"Then why is he applying for a presumption of death?"

"Just what I asked him. He says that it is the correct thing to do; that the entire responsibility rests on the Court."

"That is all nonsense," said Thorndyke. "Jellicoe is the trustee for his absent client, and, if he thinks that client is alive, it is his duty to keep the estate intact; and he knows that perfectly well. We may take it that Jellicoe is of the same opinion as I am: that John Bellingham is dead."

"Still," I urged, "men do disappear from time to time, and turn up again after years of absence."

"Yes, but for a definite reason. Either they are irresponsible vagabonds who take this way of shuffling off their responsibilities, or they are men who have been caught in a net of distasteful circumstances. For instance, a civil servant or a solicitor or a tradesman finds himself bound for life to a locality and an occupation of intolerable monotony. Perhaps he has an ill-tempered wife, who, after the amiable fashion of a certain type of woman, thinking that her husband is pinned down without a chance of escape, gives a free rein to her temper. The man puts up with it for years, but at last it becomes unbearable. Then he suddenly disappears; and small blame to him. But this was not Bellingham's case. He was a wealthy bachelor with an engrossing interest in life, free to go whither he would and to do whatsoever he wished. Why should he disappear? The thing is incredible.

"As to his having lost his memory and remained unidentified, that, also, is incredible in the case of a man who had visiting-cards and letters in his pocket, whose linen was marked, and who was being inquired for everywhere by the police. As to his being in prison, we may dismiss that possibility, inasmuch as a prisoner, both before and after conviction, would have full opportunity of communicating with his friends.

"The second possibility, that he may have died suddenly and been buried without identification, is highly improbable; but, as it is conceivable that the body might have been robbed and the means of identification thus lost, it remains as a possibility that has to be considered, remote as it is.

"The third hypothesis, that he may have been murdered by some unknown person, is, under the circumstances, not wildly improbable; but, as the police were on the look out and a detailed description of the missing man's person was published in the papers, it would involve the complete concealment of the body. But this would exclude the most probable form of the crime—the casual robbery with violence. It is therefore possible, but highly improbable.

"The fourth hypothesis is that Bellingham was murdered by Hurst. Now the one fact which militates against this view is that Hurst apparently had no motive for committing the murder. We are assured by Jellicoe that no one but himself knew the contents of the will, and if this is so—but, mind, we have no evidence that it is so—Hurst would have no reason to suppose that he had anything material to gain by his cousin's death. Otherwise the hypothesis presents no inherent improbabilities. The man was last seen alive at Hurst's house. He was seen to enter it and he was never seen to leave it—we are still taking the facts as stated in the newspapers, remember—and it now appears that he stands to benefit enormously by that man's death."

"But," I objected, "you are forgetting that, directly the man was missed, Hurst and the servants together searched the entire house."

"Yes. What did they search for?"

"Why, for Mr. Bellingham, of course."

"Exactly; for Mr. Bellingham. That is, for a living man. Now how do you search a house for a living man? You look in all the rooms. When you look in a room, if he is there, you see him; if you do not see him, you assume that he is not there. You don't look under the sofa or behind the piano, you don't pull out large drawers or open cupboards. You just look into the rooms. That is what these people seem to have done. And they did not see Mr. Bellingham. But Mr. Bellingham's corpse might have been stowed away out of sight in any one of the rooms that they looked into."

"That is a grim thought," said Jervis; "But it is perfectly true. There is no evidence that the man was not lying dead in the house at the very time of the search."

"But even so," said I, "there was the body to be disposed of somehow. Now how could he possibly have got rid of the body without being observed?"

"Ah!" said Thorndyke, "now we are touching on a point of crucial importance. If anyone should ever write a treatise on the art of murder—not an exhibition of literary fireworks like De Quincey's, but a genuine working treatise—he might leave all other technical details to take care of themselves if he could describe some really practicable plan for disposing of the body. That is, and always has been, the great stumbling-block to the murderer: to get rid of the body. The human body," he continued, thoughtfully regarding his pipe, just as, in the days of my pupilage, he was wont to regard the black-board chalk, "is a very remarkable object. It presents a combination of properties that makes it singularly difficult to conceal permanently. It is bulky and of an awkward shape, it is heavy, it is completely incombustible, it is chemically unstable, and its decomposition yields great volumes of highly odorous gases, and it nevertheless contains identifiable structures of the highest degree of permanence. It is extremely difficult to preserve unchanged, and it is still more difficult completely to destroy. The essential permanence of the human body is well shown in the classical case of Eugene Aram; but a still more striking instance is that of Seqenen-Ra the Third, one of the last kings of the seventeenth Egyptian dynasty. Here, after a lapse of some four thousand years, it has been possible to determine, not only the cause of death and the manner of its occurrence, but the way in which the king fell, the nature of the weapon with which the fatal wound was inflicted, and even the position of the assailant. And the permanence of the body under other conditions is admirably shown in the case of Doctor Parkman, of Boston, U.S.A., in which identification was actually effected by means of remains collected from the ashes of a furnace."

"Then we may take it," said Jervis, "that the world has not yet seen the last of John Bellingham."

"I think we may regard that as almost a certainty," replied Thorndyke. "The only question—and a very important one—is as to when the reappearance may take place. It may be to-morrow or it may be centuries hence, when all the issues involved have been forgotten."

"Assuming," said I, "for the sake of argument, that Hurst did murder him and that the body was concealed in the study at the time the search was made. How could it have been disposed of? If you had been in Hurst's place, how would you have gone to work?"

Thorndyke smiled at the bluntness of my question.

"You are asking me for an incriminating statement," said he, "delivered in the presence of a witness too. But, as a matter of fact, there is no use in speculating a priori; we should have to reconstruct a purely imaginary situation, the circumstances of which are unknown to us, and we should almost certainly reconstruct it wrong. What we may fairly assume is that no reasonable person, no matter how immoral, would find himself in the position that you suggest. Murder is usually a crime of impulse, and the murderer a person of feeble self-control. Such persons are most unlikely to make elaborate and ingenious arrangements for the disposal of the bodies of their victims. Even the cold-blooded perpetrators of the most carefully planned murders appear, as I have said, to break down at this point. The almost insuperable difficulty of getting rid of a human body is not appreciated until the murderer suddenly finds himself face to face with it.

"In the case that you are suggesting, the choice would seem to lie between burial on the premises or dismemberment and dispersal of the fragments; and either method would be pretty certain to lead to discovery."

"As illustrated by the remains of which you were speaking to Mr. Bellingham," Jervis remarked.

"Exactly," Thorndyke answered, "though we could hardly imagine a reasonably intelligent criminal adopting a watercress-bed as a hiding-place."

"No. That was certainly an error of judgment. By the way, I thought it best to say nothing while you were talking to Bellingham, but I noticed that, in discussing the possibility of those being the bones of his brother, you made no comment on the absence of the third finger of the left hand. I am sure you didn't overlook it, but isn't it a point of some importance?"

"As to identification? Under the present circumstances, I think not. If there were a man missing who had lost that finger it would, of course, be an important fact. But I have not heard of any such man. Or, again, if there were any evidence that the finger had been removed before death, it would be highly important. But there is no such evidence. It may have been cut off after death, and there is where the real significance of its absence lies."

"I don't quite see what you mean," said Jervis.

"I mean that, if there is no report of any missing man who had lost that particular finger, the probability is that the finger was removed after death. And then arises the interesting question of motive. Why should it have been removed? It could hardly have become detached accidentally. What do you suggest?"

"Well," said Jervis, "it might have been a peculiar finger; a finger, for instance, with some characteristic deformity, such as an ankylosed joint, which would be easy to identify."

"Yes; but that explanation introduces the same difficulty. No person with a deformed or ankylosed finger has been reported as missing."

Jervis puckered up his brows and looked at me.

"I'm hanged if I see any other explanation," he said. "Do you, Berkeley?"

I shook my head.

"Don't forget which finger it is that is missing," said Thorndyke. "The third finger on the left hand."

"Oh, I see!" said Jervis. "The ring-finger. You mean it may have been removed for the sake of a ring that wouldn't come off."

"Yes. It would not be the first instance of the kind. Fingers have been severed from dead hands—and even from living ones—for the sake of rings that were too tight to be drawn off. And the fact that it is the left hand supports this suggestion; for a ring that was inconveniently tight would be worn by preference on the left hand, as that is usually slightly smaller than the right. What is the matter, Berkeley?"

A sudden light had burst upon me, and I suppose my countenance betrayed the fact.

"I am a confounded fool!" I exclaimed.

"Oh, don't say that," said Jervis. "Give your friends a chance."

"I ought to have seen this long ago and told you about it. John Bellingham did wear a ring, and it was so tight that, when once he had got it on, he could never get it off again."

"Do you happen to know on which hand he wore it?" Thorndyke asked.

"Yes. It was the left hand; because Miss Bellingham, who told me about it, said that he would never have been able to get the ring on at all but for the fact that his left hand was slightly smaller than his right."

"There it is, then," said Thorndyke. "With this new fact in our possession, the absence of this finger furnishes the starting-point of some very curious speculations."

"As, for instance?" said Jervis.

"Ah, under the circumstances, I must leave you to pursue those speculations independently. I am now acting for Mr. Bellingham."

Jervis grinned and was silent for a while, refilling his pipe thoughtfully; but when he had got it alight he resumed.

"To return to the question of the disappearance; you don't consider it highly improbable that Bellingham might have been murdered by Hurst?"

"Oh, don't imagine that I am making an accusation. I am considering the various probabilities merely in the abstract. The same reasoning applies to the Bellinghams. As to whether any of them did commit the murder, that is a question of personal character. I certainly do not suspect the Bellinghams after having seen them, and with regard to Hurst, I know nothing, or at least very little, to his disadvantage."

"Do you know anything?" asked Jervis.

"Well," Thorndyke said, with some hesitation, "it seems a thought unkind to rake up the little details of a man's past, and yet it has to be done. I have, of course, made the usual routine inquiries concerning the parties to this affair, and this is what they have brought to light:

"Hurst, as you know, is a stockbroker—a man of good position and reputation; but, about ten years ago, he seems to have committed an indiscretion, to put it mildly, which nearly got him into rather serious difficulties. He appears to have speculated rather heavily and considerably beyond his means, for when a sudden spasm of the market upset his calculations, it turned out that he had been employing his clients' capital and securities. For a time it looked as if there was going to be serious trouble; then, quite unexpectedly, he managed to raise the necessary amount in some way and settle all claims. Whence he got the money has never been discovered to this day, which is a curious circumstance, seeing that the deficiency was rather over five thousand pounds; but the important fact is that he did get it and that he paid up all that he owed. So that he was only a potential defaulter, so to speak; and, discreditable as the affair undoubtedly was, it does not seem to have any direct bearing on this present case."

"No," Jervis agreed, "though it makes one consider his position with more attention than one would otherwise."

"Undoubtedly," said Thorndyke. "A reckless gambler is a man whose conduct cannot be relied on. He is subject to sudden vicissitudes of fortune which may force him into other kinds of wrongdoing. Many an embezzlement has been preceded by an unlucky plunge on the turf."

"Assuming the responsibility for this disappearance to lie between Hurst and—and the Bellinghams," said I, with an uncomfortable gulp as I mentioned the name of my friends, "to which side does the balance of probability incline?"

"To the side of Hurst, I should say, without doubt," replied Thorndyke. "The case stands thus—on the facts presented to us: Hurst appears to have had no motive for killing the deceased (as we will call him); but the man was seen to enter his house, was never seen to leave it, and was never again seen alive. Bellingham, on the other hand, had a motive, as he believed himself to be the principal beneficiary under the will. But the deceased was not seen at his house, and there is no evidence that he went to the house or to the neighbourhood of the house, excepting the scarab that was found there. But the evidence of the scarab is vitiated by the fact that Hurst was present when it was picked up, and that it was found on a spot over which Hurst had passed only a few minutes previously. Until Hurst is cleared, it seems to me that the presence of the scarab proves nothing against the Bellinghams."

"Then your opinions on the case," said I, "are based entirely on the facts that have been made public."

"Yes, mainly. I do not necessarily accept those facts just as they are presented, and I may have certain views of my own on the case. But if I have, I do not feel in a position to discuss them. For the present, discussion has to be limited to the facts and inferences offered by the parties concerned."

"There!" exclaimed Jervis, rising to knock out his pipe, "that is where Thorndyke has you. He lets you think you're in the very thick of the 'know' until one fine morning you wake up and discover that you have only been a gaping outsider; and then you are mightily astonished—and so are the other side, too, for that matter. But we must really be off now, mustn't we, reverend senior?"

"I suppose we must," replied Thorndyke; and, as he drew on his gloves, he asked: "Have you heard from Barnard lately?"

"Oh, yes," I answered. "I wrote to him at Smyrna to say that the practice was flourishing and that I was quite happy and contented, and that he might stay away as long as he liked. He writes by return that he will prolong his holiday if an opportunity offers, but will let me know later."

"Gad," said Jervis, "it was a stroke of luck for Barnard that Bellingham happened to have such a magnificent daughter—there! don't mind me, old man. You go in and win—she's worth it, isn't she, Thorndyke?"

"Miss Bellingham is a very charming young lady," replied Thorndyke. "I am most favourably impressed by both the father and the daughter, and I only trust that we may be able to be of some service to them." With this sedate little speech Thorndyke shook my hand, and I watched my two friends go on their way until their fading shapes were swallowed up in the darkness of Fetter Lane.



CHAPTER XII

A VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY

It was some two or three mornings after my little supper-party that, as I stood in the consulting-room brushing my hat preparatory to starting on my morning round, Adolphus appeared at the door to announce two gentlemen waiting in the surgery. I told him to bring them in, and a moment later Thorndyke entered, accompanied by Jervis. I noted that they looked uncommonly large in the little apartment, especially Thorndyke, but I had no time to consider this phenomenon, for the latter, when he had shaken my hand, proceeded at once to explain the object of their visit.

"We have come to ask a favour, Berkeley," he said; "to ask you to do us a very great service in the interests of your friends, the Bellinghams."

"You know I shall be delighted," I said warmly. "What is it?"

"I will explain. You know—or perhaps you don't—that the police have collected all the bones that have been discovered and deposited them in the mortuary at Woodford, where they are to be viewed by the coroner's jury. Now, it has become imperative that I should have more definite and reliable information about them than I can get from the newspapers. The natural thing would be for me to go down and examine them myself, but there are circumstances that make it very desirable that my connection with the case should not leak out. Consequently, I can't go myself, and, for the same reason, I can't send Jervis. On the other hand, as it is now stated pretty openly that the police consider the bones to be almost certainly those of John Bellingham, it would seem perfectly natural that you, as Godfrey Bellingham's doctor, should go down to view them on his behalf."

"I should like to go," I said. "I would give anything to go; but how is it to be managed? It would mean a whole day off and leaving the practice to take care of itself."

"I think that could be arranged," said Thorndyke; "and the matter is really important for two reasons. One is that the inquest opens to-morrow, and someone certainly ought to be there to watch the proceedings on Godfrey's behalf; and the other is that our client has received notice from Hurst's solicitors that the application would be heard in the Probate Court in a few days."

"Isn't that rather sudden?" I asked.

"It certainly suggests that there has been a good deal more activity than we were given to understand. But you see the importance of the affair. The inquest will be a sort of dress rehearsal for the Probate Court, and it is quite essential that we should have a chance of estimating the management."

"Yes, I see that. But how are we to manage about the practice?"

"We shall find you a substitute."

"Through a medical agent?"

"Yes," said Jervis. "Turcival will find us a man; in fact, he has done it. I saw him this morning; he has a man who is waiting up in town to negotiate for the purchase of a practice and who would do the job for a couple of guineas. Quite a reliable man. Only say the word, and I will run off to Adam Street and engage him definitely."

"Very well. You engage the locum tenens, and I will be prepared to start for Woodford as soon as he turns up."

"Excellent!" said Thorndyke. "That is a great weight off my mind. And if you could manage to drop in this evening and smoke a pipe with us we could talk over the plan of campaign and let you know what items of information we are particularly in want of."

I promised to turn up at King's Bench Walk as soon after half-past eight as possible, and my two friends then took their departure, leaving me to set out in high spirits on my scanty round of visits.

It is surprising what different aspects things present from different points of view; how relative are our estimates of the conditions and circumstances of life. To the urban workman—the journeyman baker or tailor, for instance, labouring year in year out in a single building—a holiday ramble on Hampstead Heath is a veritable voyage of discovery; whereas to the sailor the shifting panorama of the whole wide world is but the commonplace of the day's work.

So I reflected as I took my place in the train at Liverpool Street on the following day. There had been a time when a trip by rail to the borders of Epping Forest would have been far from a thrilling experience; now, after vegetating in the little world of Fetter Lane, it was quite an adventure.

The enforced inactivity of a railway journey is favourable to thought, and I had much to think about. The last few weeks had witnessed momentous changes in my outlook. New interests had arisen, new friendships had grown up; and, above all, there had stolen into my life that supreme influence that, for good or for evil, according to my fortune, was to colour and pervade it even to its close. Those few days of companionable labour in the reading-room, with the homely hospitalities of the milk-shop and the pleasant walks homeward through the friendly London streets, had called into existence a new world—a world in which the gracious personality of Ruth Bellingham was the one dominating reality. And thus, as I leaned back in a corner of the railway carriage with an unlighted pipe in my hand, the events of the immediate past, together with those more problematical ones of the impending future, occupied me rather to the exclusion of the business of the moment, which was to review the remains collected in the Woodford mortuary, until, as the train approached Stratford, the odours of the soap and bone-manure factories poured in at the open window and (by a natural association of ideas) brought me back to the object of my quest.

As to the exact purpose of this expedition, I was not very clear; but I knew that I was acting as Thorndyke's proxy and thrilled with pride at the thought. But what particular light my investigations were to throw upon the intricate Bellingham case I had no very definite idea. With a view to fixing the course of procedure in my mind, I took Thorndyke's written instructions from my pocket and read them over carefully. They were very full and explicit, making ample allowance for my lack of experience in medico-legal matters:—

1. Do not appear to make minute investigations or in any way excite remark.

2. Ascertain if all the bones belonging to each region are present, and if not, which are missing.

3. Measure the extreme length of the principal bones and compare those of opposite sides.

4. Examine the bones with reference to the age, sex, and muscular development of the deceased.

5. Note the presence or absence of signs of constitutional disease, local disease of bone or adjacent structures, old or recent injuries, and any other departures from the normal or usual.

6. Observe the presence or absence of adipocere and its position, if present.

7. Note any remains of tendons, ligaments, or other soft structures.

8. Examine the Sidcup hand with reference to the question as to whether the finger was separated before or after death.

9. Estimate the probable period of submersion and note any changes (as, e.g., mineral or organic staining) due to the character of the water or mud.

10. Ascertain the circumstances (immediate and remote) that led to the discovery of the bones and the names of the persons concerned in those circumstances.

11. Commit all information to writing as soon as possible, and make plans and diagrams on the spot, if circumstances permit.

12. Preserve an impassive exterior; listen attentively but without eagerness; ask as few questions as possible; pursue any inquiry that your observations on the spot may suggest.

These were my instructions, and, considering that I was going merely to inspect a few dry bones, they appeared rather formidable; in fact, the more I read them over the greater became my misgivings as to my qualifications for the task.

As I approached the mortuary it became evident that some, at least, of Thorndyke's admonitions were by no means unnecessary. The place was in charge of a police-sergeant, who watched my approach suspiciously; and some half-dozen men, obviously newspaper reporters, hovered about the entrance like a pack of jackals. I presented the coroner's order which Mr. Marchmont had obtained, and which the sergeant read with his back against the wall, to prevent the newspaper men from looking over his shoulder.

My credentials being found satisfactory, the door was unlocked and I entered, accompanied by three enterprising reporters, whom, however, the sergeant summarily ejected and locked out, returning to usher me into the presence and to observe my proceedings with intelligent but highly embarrassing interest.

The bones were laid out on a large table and covered with a sheet, which the sergeant slowly turned back, watching my face intently as he did so to note the impression that the spectacle made upon me. I imagine that he must have been somewhat disappointed by my impassive demeanour, for the remains suggested to me nothing more than a rather shabby set of "student's osteology." The whole collection had been set out (by the police-surgeon, as the sergeant informed me) in their proper anatomical order; notwithstanding which I counted them over carefully to make sure that none were missing, checking them by the list with which Thorndyke had furnished me.

"I see you have found the left thigh-bone," I remarked, observing that this did not appear in the list.

"Yes," said the sergeant; "that turned up yesterday evening in a big pond called Baldwin's Pond in the Sand-pit plain, near Little Monk Wood."

"Is that near here?" I asked.

"In the forest up Loughton way," was the reply.

I made a note of the fact (on which the sergeant looked as if he was sorry he had mentioned it), and then turned my attention to a general consideration of the bones before examining them in detail. Their appearance would have been improved and examination facilitated by a thorough scrubbing, for they were just as they had been taken from their respective resting-places, and it was difficult to decide whether their reddish-yellow colour was an actual stain or due to a deposit on the surface. In any case, as it affected them all alike, I thought it an interesting feature and made a note of it. They bore numerous traces of their sojourn in the various ponds from which they had been recovered, but these gave me little help in determining the length of time during which they had been submerged. They were, of course, encrusted with mud, and little wisps of pond-weed stuck to them in places; but these facts furnished only the vaguest measure of time.

Some of the traces were, indeed, more informing. To several of the bones, for instance, there adhered the dried egg-clusters of the common pond-snail, and in one of the hollows of the right shoulder-blade (the "infra-spinous fossa") was a group of the mud-built tubes of the red river-worm. These remains gave proof of a considerable period of submersion, and since they could not have been deposited on the bones until all the flesh had disappeared, they furnished evidence that some time—a month or two, at any rate—had elapsed since this had happened. Incidentally, too, their distribution showed the position in which the bones had lain, and though this appeared to be of no importance in the existing circumstances, I made careful notes of the situation of each adherent body, illustrating their position by rough sketches.

The sergeant watched my proceedings with an indulgent smile.

"You're making a regular inventory, sir," he remarked, "as if you were going to put 'em up for auction. I shouldn't think those snails' eggs would be much help in identification. And all that has been done already," he added as I produced my measuring-tape.

"No doubt," I replied; "but my business is to make independent observations, to check the others, if necessary." And I proceeded to measure each of the principal bones separately and to compare those of the opposite sides. The agreement in dimensions and general characteristics of the pairs of bones left little doubt that all were parts of one skeleton, a conclusion that was confirmed by the eburnated patch on the head of the right thigh-bone and the corresponding patch in the socket of the right hip-bone. When I had finished my measurements I went over the entire series of bones in detail, examining each with the closest attention for any of those signs which Thorndyke had indicated, and eliciting nothing but a monotonously reiterated negative. They were distressingly and disappointingly normal.