There is, of course, a considerable body of evidence, and it all seems to point one way. But I am unwilling to make a decisive move without something more definite. I am really waiting for confirmation or otherwise of my ideas on the subject; for some new item of evidence."

"I didn't know there was any evidence."

"Didn't you?" said Thornd.y.k.e. "But you know as much as I know. You have all the essential facts; but apparently you haven't collated them and extracted their meaning. If you had, you would have found them curiously significant."

"I suppose I mustn't ask what their significance is?"

"No, I think not. When I am conducting a case I mention my surmises to n.o.body--not even to Jervis. Then I can say confidently that there has been no leakage. Don't think I distrust you. Remember that my thoughts are my client's property, and that the essence of strategy is to keep the enemy in the dark."

"Yes, I see that. Of course, I ought not to have asked."

"You ought not to need to ask," Thornd.y.k.e replied, with a smile; "you should put the facts together and reason from them yourself."

While we had been talking I had noticed Thornd.y.k.e glance at me inquisitively from time to time. Now, after an interval of silence, he asked suddenly:

"Is anything amiss, Berkeley? Are you worrying about your friends'

affairs?"

"No, not particularly; though their prospects don't look very rosy."

"Perhaps they are not quite so bad as they look," said he. "But I am afraid something is troubling you. All your gay spirits seem to have evaporated." He paused for a few moments, and then added: "I don't want to intrude on your private affairs, but if I can help you by advice or otherwise, remember that we are old friends and that you are my academic offspring."

Instinctively, with a man's natural reticence, I began to mumble a half-articulate disclaimer; and then I stopped. After all, why should I not confide in him? He was a good man and a wise man, full of human sympathy, as I knew, though so cryptic and secretive in his professional capacity. And I wanted a friend badly just now.

"I am afraid," I began shyly, "it is not a matter that admits of much help, and it's hardly the sort of thing that I ought to worry you by talking about----"

"If it is enough to make you unhappy, my dear fellow, it is enough to merit serious consideration by your friend; so, if you don't mind telling me----"

"Of course I don't, sir!" I exclaimed.

"Then fire away; and don't call me 'sir.' We are brother pract.i.tioners now."

Thus encouraged, I poured out the story of my little romance; bashfully at first and with halting phrases, but, later, with more freedom and confidence. He listened with grave attention, and once or twice put a question when my narrative became a little disconnected. When I had finished he laid his hand softly on my arm.

"You have had rough luck, Berkeley. I don't wonder that you are miserable. I am more sorry than I can tell you."

"Thank you," I said. "It's exceedingly good of you to listen so patiently, but it's a shame for me to pester you with my sentimental troubles."

"Now, Berkeley, you don't think that, and I hope you don't think that I do. We should be bad biologists and worse physicians if we should under-estimate the importance of that which is Nature's chiefest care.

The one salient biological truth is the paramount importance of s.e.x; and we are deaf and blind if we do not hear and see it in everything that lives when we look abroad upon the world; when we listen to the spring song of the birds, or when we consider the lilies of the field. And as is man to the lower organisms, so is human love to their merely reflex manifestations of s.e.x. I will maintain, and you will agree with me, I know, that the love of a serious and honourable man for a woman who is worthy of him is the most momentous of all human affairs. It is the foundation of social life, and its failure is a serious calamity, not only to those whose lives may be thereby spoilt, but to society at large."

"It's a serious enough matter for the parties concerned," I agreed; "but that is no reason why they should bore their friends."

"But they don't. Friends should help one another and think it a privilege."

"Oh, I shouldn't mind coming to you for help, knowing you as I do. But no one can help a poor devil in a case like this--and certainly not a medical jurist."

"Oh, come, Berkeley!" he protested, "don't rate us too low. The humblest of creatures has its uses--'even the little pismire,' you know, as Isaak Walton tells us. Why, I have got substantial help from a stamp-collector. And then reflect upon the motor-scorcher and the earthworm and the blow-fly. All these lowly creatures play their parts in the scheme of Nature; and shall we cast out the medical jurist as nothing worth?"

I laughed dejectedly at my teacher's genial irony.

"What I meant," said I, "was that there is nothing to be done but wait--perhaps for ever. I don't know why she isn't able to marry me, and I mustn't ask her. She can't be married already."

"Certainly not. She told you explicitly that there was no man in the case."

"Exactly. And I can think of no other valid reason, excepting that she doesn't care enough for me. That would be a perfectly sound reason, but then it would only be a temporary one, not the insuperable obstacle that she a.s.sumes to exist, especially as we really got on excellently together. I hope it isn't some confounded perverse feminine scruple. I don't see how it could be; but women are most frightfully tortuous and wrong-headed at times."

"I don't see," said Thornd.y.k.e, "why we should cast about for perversely abnormal motives when there is a perfectly reasonable explanation staring us in the face."

"Is there?" I exclaimed. "I see none."

"You are, not unnaturally, overlooking some of the circ.u.mstances that affect Miss Bellingham; but I don't suppose she has failed to grasp their meaning. Do you realise what her position really is? I mean with regard to her uncle's disappearance?"

"I don't think I quite understand you."

"Well, there is no use in blinking the facts," said Thornd.y.k.e. "The position is this: If John Bellingham ever went to his brother's house at Woodford, it is nearly certain that he went there after his visit to Hurst. Mind, I say '_if_ he went'; I don't say that I believe he did.

But it is stated that he appears to have gone there; and if he did go, he was never seen alive afterwards. Now, he did not go in at the front door. No one saw him enter the house. But there was a back gate, which John Bellingham knew, and which had a bell which rang in the library.

And you will remember that, when Hurst and Jellicoe called, Mr.

Bellingham had only just come in. Previous to that time Miss Bellingham had been alone in the library; that is to say, she was alone in the library at the very time when John Bellingham is said to have made his visit. That is the position, Berkeley. Nothing pointed has been said up to the present. But, sooner or later, if John Bellingham is not found, dead or alive, the question will be opened. Then it is certain that Hurst, in self-defence, will make the most of any facts that may transfer suspicion from him to someone else. And that someone else will be Miss Bellingham."

I sat for some moments literally paralysed with horror. Then my dismay gave place to indignation. "But, d.a.m.n it!" I exclaimed, starting up--"I beg your pardon--but could anyone have the infernal audacity to insinuate that that gentle, refined lady murdered her uncle?"

"That is what will be hinted, if not plainly a.s.serted; and she knows it.

And that being so, is it difficult to understand why she should refuse to allow you to be publicly a.s.sociated with her? To run the risk of dragging your honourable name into the sordid transactions of the police-court or the Old Bailey? To invest it, perhaps, with a dreadful notoriety?"

"Oh, don't! for G.o.d's sake! It is too horrible! Not that I would care for myself. I would be proud to share her martyrdom of ignominy, if it had to be; but it is the sacrilege, the blasphemy of even thinking of her in such terms, that enrages me."

"Yes," said Thornd.y.k.e; "I understand and sympathise with you. Indeed, I share your righteous indignation at this dastardly affair. So you mustn't think me brutal for putting the case so plainly."

"I don't. You have only shown me the danger that I was fool enough not to see. But you seem to imply that this hideous position has been brought about deliberately."

"Certainly I do! This is no chance affair. Either the appearances indicate the real events--which I am sure they do not--or they have been created of a set purpose to lead to false conclusions. But the circ.u.mstances convince me that there has been a deliberate plot; and I am waiting--in no spirit of Christian patience, I can tell you--to lay my hand on the wretch who has done this."

"What are you waiting for?" I asked.

"I am waiting for the inevitable," he replied; "for the false move that the most artful criminal invariably makes. At present he is lying low; but presently he must make a move, and then I shall have him."

"But he may go on lying low. What will you do then?"

"Yes, that is the danger. We may have to deal with the perfect villain who knows when to leave well alone. I have never met him, but he may exist, nevertheless."

"And then we should have to stand by and see our friends go under."

"Perhaps," said Thornd.y.k.e; and we both subsided into gloomy and silent reflection.

The place was peaceful and quiet, as only a backwater of London can be.

Occasional hoots from far-away tugs and steamers told of the busy life down below in the crowded Pool. A faint hum of traffic was borne in from the streets outside the precincts, and the shrill voices of newspaper boys came in unceasing chorus from the direction of Carmelite Street.

They were too far away to be physically disturbing, but the excited yells, toned down as they were by distance, nevertheless stirred the very marrow in my bones, so dreadfully suggestive were they of those possibilities of the future at which Thornd.y.k.e had hinted. They seemed like the sinister shadows of coming misfortunes.