 Chapter 6 of the Eye of Osiris The association of coal with potatoes is one upon which I have frequently speculated, without arriving at any more satisfactory explanation than that both products are of the earth, earthy. Of the connection itself, Barnard's practice furnished several instances, besides Mrs. Joblette's establishment in Fleur-de-Lis Court, one of which was a dark and mysterious cavern, a foot below the level of the street, that burrowed under an ancient house on the west side of Fetter Lane, a crinkly timber house of the three-decker type that leaned back drunkenly from the road as if about to sit down in its own backyard. Passing this repository of the associated products about ten o'clock in the morning, I perceived in the shadows of the cavern no less a person than Miss Oman. She saw me at the same moment, and beckoned peremptorily with a hand that held a large Spanish onion. I approached with a deferential smile. What a magnificent onion, Miss Oman, and how generous of you to offer it to me. I wasn't offering it to you, but there. Isn't it just like a man? Isn't what just like a man? I interrupted. If you mean the onion? I don't, she snapped, and I wish you wouldn't talk such a parcel of nonsense. A grown man and a member of a serious profession, too. You ought to know better. I suppose I ought, I said reflectively, and she continued. I called in at the surgery just now, to see me. What else should I come for? Do you suppose that I called to consult the bottle-boy? Certainly not, Miss Oman. So you find the lady doctor no use, after all? Miss Oman gnashed her teeth at me, and very fine teeth they were, too. I called, she said majestically, on behalf of Miss Bellingham. My facetiousness evaporated instantly. I hope Miss Bellington is not ill, I said, with a sudden anxiety that elicited a sardonic smile from Miss Oman. No, was the reply. She's not ill, but she has cut her hand rather badly. It's her right hand, too, and she can't afford to lose the use of it, not being a great, bulky, lazy, lullaping man, so you had better go and put some stuff on it. With this advice, Miss Oman whisked to the right about, and vanished into the depths of the cavern, like the witch of Wokie, while I hurried on to the surgery to provide myself with the necessary instruments and materials, and thence proceeded to Neville's court. Miss Oman's juvenile maid-servant, who opened the door to me, stated the existing conditions, with epigrammatic conciseness. Mr. Bellingham is hot, sir, but Miss Bellingham is him. Having thus delivered herself, she retreated toward the kitchen, and I ascended the stairs, at the head of which I found Miss Bellingham, awaiting me with her right hand in case, in what looked like a white boxing glove. I'm glad you have come, she said. Phyllis, Miss Oman, you know, has kindly bound up my hand, but I should like you to see that it is all right. We went into the sitting-room, where I laid out my paraphernalia on the table, while I inquired into the particulars of the accident. It is most unfortunate that it should have happened just now, she said, as I wrestled with one of those remarkable feminine knots, that, while they seem to defy the utmost efforts of human ingenuity to untie, yet have a singular habit of untieing themselves at inopportune moments. Why, just now, in particular, I asked. Because I have some specially important work to do, a very learned lady, who is writing an historical book, has commissioned me to collect all the literature relating to the tale El Amarna letters, the cuneiform tablets, you know, of M and Hotep IV. Well, I said soothingly, I expect your hand will soon be well. Yes, but that won't do. The work has to be done immediately. I have to send in completed notes, not later than this day week, and it will be quite impossible. I am dreadfully disappointed. By this time I had unwound the voluminous wrappings, and exposed the injury, a deep gash in the palm that must have narrowly missed a good-sized artery. Obviously, the hand would be useless for fully a week. I suppose, she said, you couldn't patch it up so that I could write with it? I shook my head. No, Miss Bellingham. I shall have to put it on a splint. We can't run any risks with a deep wound like this. Then I shall have to give up the commission, and I don't know how my client will get the work done in time. You see, I am pretty well up in the literature of ancient Egypt. In fact, I was to receive special payment on that account, and it would have been such an interesting task, too. However, it can't be helped. I proceeded methodically with the application of the dressings, and meanwhile reflected. It was evident that she was deeply disappointed. Loss of work meant loss of money, and it needed but a glance at her rusty black dress to see that there was little margin for that. Possibly, too, there was some special need to be met. Her manner seemed almost to imply that there was, and at this point I had a brilliant idea. I'm not sure that it can't be helped, said I. She looked at me inquiringly, and I continued. I'm going to make a proposition, and I shall ask you to consider it with an open mind. That sounds rather portentious, said she, but I promise, what is it? It is this. When I was a student I acquired the useful art of writing shorthand. I am not a lightning reporter, you understand, but I can take matter down from dictation at quite respectable speed. Yes? Well, I have several hours free every day, usually the whole afternoon, up to six or half past, and it occurs to me that if you were to go to the museum in the mornings, you could get out your books, look up passages, you could do that without using your right hand, and put in bookmarks. Then I could come along in the afternoon, and you could read out the selected passages to me, and I could take them down in shorthand. We should get through as much in a couple of hours, as you could in a day, using longhand. Oh! But how kind of you, Dr. Berkeley! she exclaimed. How very kind! Of course I couldn't think of taking up all your leisure in that way, but I do appreciate your kindness very much. I was rather chapfallen at this very definite refusal, but persisted feebly. I wish you would. It may seem rather a cheek for a comparative stranger like me to make such a proposal to a lady, but if you'd been a man, in those special circumstances, I should have made it all the same, and you would have accepted as a matter of course. I doubt that. At any rate I am not a man. I sometimes wish I were. Oh! I am sure you are much better as you are, I exclaimed, with such earnestness that we both laughed, and at this moment Mr. Bellingham entered the room, carrying several large, brand new books in a strap. Well, I'm sure, he exclaimed genially, here are pretty things going on. Dr. Impatient giggling like a pair of school girls. What's the joke? He thumped his parcel of books down on the table, and listened smilingly while my unconscious witticism was expounded. The doctor's quite right, he said. You'll do as you are, Chick. But the Lord knows what sort of man you would make. You take his advice and let well alone. Finding him in this genial frame of mind, I venture to explain my proposition to him, and to enlist his support. He considered it with a tent of approval, and when I had finished, turned to his daughter. What is your objection, Chick? he asked. It would give Dr. Berkeley such a fearful lot of work, she answered. It would give him a fearful lot of pleasure, I said. It would, really. Then why not? said Mr. Bellingham. We don't mind being under an obligation to the doctor, do we? Oh, it isn't that, she exclaimed hastily. Then take him at his word. He means it. It is a kind action, and he'll like doing it, I'm sure. That's all right, doctor. She accepts. Don't you, Chick? Yes, if you say so, I do. And most thankfully. She accompanied the acceptance with a gracious smile, that was in itself a large repayment on account, and when we had made the necessary arrangements, I hurried away in a state of the most perfect satisfaction to finish my morning's work and order an early lunch. When I called for her a couple of hours later, I found her waiting in the garden with the shabby handbag, of which I relieved her, and we sat forth together, watched jealously by Miss Oman, who had accompanied her to the gate. As I walked up the court with this wonderful maid by my side, I could hardly believe in my good fortune. By her presence and my own resulting happiness, the mean surroundings became glorified, and the commonest objects transfigured into things of beauty. What a delightful thoroughfare, for instance, was Fetter Lane, with its quaint charm and medieval grace. I snuffed the cabbage-laden atmosphere and seemed to breathe the scent of the Asphodel. Holburn was even as the Elysian Fields, the omnibus that bore us westward, was a chariot of glory, and the people who swarmed verminously on the pavements bore the semblance of the children of light. Love is a foolish thing judged by workaday standards, and the thoughts and actions of lovers foolish beyond measure. But the workaday standard is the wrong one, after all, for the utilitarian mind does not busy itself with the trivial and transitory interests of life, behind which looms the great and everlasting reality of the love of man and woman. There is more significance in a nightingale song, in the hush of a summer night, than in all the wisdom of Solomon, who, by the way, was not without his little experiences of the tender passion. The janitor in the little glass box by the entrance to the library inspected us and passed us on with a silent benediction to the lobby, whence, when I had handed my stick to a bald-headed demigod and received a talismanic disc in exchange, we entered the enormous rotunda of the reading room. I have often thought that if some lethal vapor of highly preservative properties, such as formaldehyde, for instance, could be shed into the atmosphere of this apartment, the entire and complete collection of books and bookworms would be well worth preserving, for the enlightenment of posterity, as a sort of anthropological appendix to the main collection of the museum, for surely, nowhere else in the world are so many strange and abnormal human beings gathered together in one place. And a curious question that must have occurred to many observers is, whence do these singular creatures come, and whither do they go when the very distinct-faced clock, adjusted to literary eyesight, proclaims closing time? The tragic-faced gentleman, for instance, with the corkscrew ringlets that bob up and down like spiral springs as he walks, or the short elderly gentleman in the black cassock and bowler hat, who shatters your nerves by turning suddenly and revealing himself as a middle-aged woman, whither do they go, when never sees them elsewhere? Do they steal away at closing time into the depths of the museum and hide themselves until morning in sarcophagi or mummy cases? Or do they creep through spaces in the bookshelves and spend the night behind the volumes in a congenial atmosphere of leather and antique paper? Who can say? What I do know is that when Ruth Bellingham entered the reading room, she appeared in comparison with these like a creature of another order, even as the head of Antonus, which formerly stood, it has since been moved, amidst the portrait busts of the Roman emperors, seemed like the head of a god, set in a portrait gallery of illustrious baboons. What if we got to do, I asked, when we had found a vacant seat? Do you want to look up the catalogue? No, I have the tickets in my bag. The books are waiting in the kept books department. I placed my hat on the leather-covered shelf, dropped her gloves into it. How delightfully intimate and companionable it seemed, altered the numbers on the tickets, and then we proceeded together to the kept books desk to collect the volumes that contained the material for our day's work. It was a blissful afternoon, two and a half hours of happiness, unalloyed, did I spend at that shiny leatherclad desk, guiding my nimble pen across the pages of the notebook. It introduced me to a new world, a world in which love and learning, sweet intimacy and crusted archaeology, were mingled into the oddest, most whimsical, and most delicious confection that the mind of man can conceive. Hitherto, these recondite histories had been far beyond my ken. Of their wonderful heretic, Amon Hotep the Fourth, I had already heard, at the most he had been a mere name, the Hittites a mythical race of undetermined habitat, while cuneiform tablets had presented themselves to my mind merely as an uncouth kind of fossil biscuit suited to the digestion of a prehistoric ostrich. Now all this was changed. As we sat with our chairs creaking together, and she whispered the story of those stirring times into my receptive ear, talking is strictly forbidden in the reading-room, the disjointed fragments arranged themselves into a romance of supreme fascination. Egyptian, Babylonian, Arameanian, Hittite, Memphis, Babylon, Hamath, Megiddo, I swallowed them all, thankfully, wrote them down, and asked for more. Only once did I disgrace myself. An elderly clergyman, a vexetic and assiduous aspect, had passed us with a glance of evident disapproval, clearly setting us down as intruding philanderers, and when I contrasted the parson's probable conception of the whispered communications that were being poured into my ear so tenderly and confidentially with the dry reality I chuckled aloud. But my fair task-mistress only paused, with her finger on the page, smilingly to rebuke me, and then went on with the dictation. She was certainly a charter for work. It was a proud moment for me when, in response to my interrogative, yes, my companion said, that is all, and closed the book. We had extracted the pith and marrow of six considerable volumes in two and a half hours. You have been better than your word, she said. It would have taken me two full days of really hard work to make the notes that you have written down since we commenced. I don't know how to thank you. There's no need to. I've enjoyed myself and polished up my shorthand. What is the next thing? We shall want some books for tomorrow, shant we? Yes, I have made out a list. So if you will come with me to the catalogue desk, I will look up the numbers and ask you to write the tickets. The selection of a fresh batch of authorities occupied us for another quarter of an hour, and then, having handed in the volumes that we squeezed dry, we took our way out of the reading-room. Which way shall we go? she asked as we passed out of the gate, where stood a massive policeman, like the guardian angel at the Gate of Paradise, only thank heaven, he bore no flaming sword for bidding re-entry. We are going, I replied, to Museum Street, where is the milk shop in which one can get an excellent cup of tea? She looked as if she would have demurred, but eventually followed obediently, and we were soon settled side by side at the little marble-top table, retracing the ground we had covered in the afternoon's work, and discussing various points of interest over a joint teapot. Have you been doing this sort of work long? I asked, as she handed me my second cup of tea. Professionally, she answered, only about two years, since we broke up our home, in fact, but long before that I used to come to the Museum with my Uncle John, the one who disappeared, you know, in that dreadfully mysterious way, and help him to look up references. We were good friends, he and I. I suppose he was a very learned man, I suggested. Yes, in a certain way, in the way of the better-class collector, he was very learned indeed. He knew the contents of every museum in the world, insofar as they were connected with Egyptian antiquities, and had studied them specimen by specimen. Consequently, as Egyptology is largely a museum science, he was a learned Egyptologist, but his real interest was in things rather than events. Of course, he knew a great deal, a very great deal, about Egyptian history, but still he was, before all, a collector. And what will happen to his collection if he is really dead? The greater part of it goes to the British Museum by his will, and the remainder he has left to his solicitor, Mr. Jellico. To Mr. Jellico? Why, what will Mr. Jellico do with Egyptian antiquities? Oh, he is an Egyptologist too, and quite an enthusiast. He has really a fine collection of scarabs, and other small objects, such as it is possible to keep in a private house. I have always thought that it was his enthusiasm for everything in Egyptian that brought him and my uncle together on terms of such intimacy, though I believe he is an excellent lawyer, and he is certainly a very discrete, cautious man. Is he? I shouldn't have thought so, judging by your uncle's will. Oh, that is not Mr. Jellico's fault. He assures us that he entreated my uncle to let him drop a fresh document with more reasonable provisions, but he says Uncle John was immovable, and he really was a rather obstinate man. Mr. Jellico repudiates any responsibility in the matter. He washes his hands of the whole affair, and says that it is the will of a lunatic, and so it is. I was glancing through it only a night or two ago, and really, I cannot conceive how a sane man could have written such nonsense. You have a copy then? I asked eagerly, remembering Thorndyke's parting instructions. Yes, would you like to see it? I know my father has told you about it, and it is worth reading as a curiosity of perverseness. I should very much like to show it to my friend. Dr. Thorndyke, I replied, he said he would be interested to read it and learn the exact provisions, and it might be well to let him, and hear what he has to say about it. I see no objection, she rejoined. But you know what my father is, his horror, I mean, of what he calls caging for advice gratis. Oh, but he need have no scruples on that score. Dr. Thorndyke wants to see the will, because the case interests him. He is an enthusiast, you know, and he put the request as a personal favour to himself. That is very nice and delicate of him, and I will explain the position to my father. If he is willing for Dr. Thorndyke to see the copy, I will send or bring it over this evening. Have we finished? I regretfully admitted that we had, and when I had paid the modest reckoning, we saled forth, turning back with one accord into Great Russell Street to avoid the noise and bustle of the larger thoroughfares. What sort of man was your uncle? I asked presently, as we walked along the quiet, dignified street, and then I added hastily. I hope you don't think me inquisitive, but to my mind he presents himself as a kind of mysterious abstraction, the unknown quantity of a legal problem. My uncle John, she answered reflectively, was a very peculiar man, rather obstinate, very self-willed, what people call masterful, and decidedly wrong-headed and unreasonable. That is certainly the impression that the terms of his will convey, I said. Yes, and not the will only. There was the absurd allowance that he made to my father. That was a ridiculous arrangement, and very unfair too. He ought to have divided the property up as my grandfather intended, and yet he was by no means ungenerous. Only he would have his own way, and his own way was very commonly the wrong way. I remember, she continued, after a short pause, a very odd instance of his wrong-headedness and obstancy. It was a small matter, but very typical of him. He had, in his collection, a beautiful little ring of the Eighteenth Dynasty. It was said to have belonged to Queen Ty, the mother of our friend Amonhotep IV. But I don't think that could have been so, because the device on it was the Eye of Osiris, and Ty, as you know, was an aton worshiper. However, it was a very charming ring, and Uncle John, who had a queer sort of devotion to the mystical Eye of Osiris, commissioned a very clever goldsmith to make two exact copies of it, one for himself and one for me. The goldsmith naturally wanted to take the measurements of our fingers, but this Uncle John would not hear of. The rings were to be exact copies, and an exact copy must be the same size as the original. You can imagine the result. My ring was so loose that I couldn't keep it on my finger, and Uncle John's was so tight that though he did manage to get it on, he was never able to get it off. And it was only the circumstance that his left hand was decidedly smaller than his right that made it possible for him to wear it at all. So you never wore your copy? No. I wanted to have it altered to make it fit, but he objected strongly, so I put it away and have it in a box still. He must have been an extraordinarily pigheaded old fellow, I remarked. Yes, he was very tenacious. He annoyed my father a good deal, too, by making unnecessary alterations in the house in Queen Square when he fitted up his museum. We have a certain sentiment with regard to that house. Our people have lived in it ever since it was built, when the square was first laid out in the reign of Queen Anne, after whom it was named. It is a dear old house. Would you like to see it? We are quite near it now. I assented eagerly. If it had been a coal shed or a fried fish shop, I would still have visited it with pleasure, for the sake of prolonging our walk. But I was also really interested in this old house, as a part of the background of the mystery of the vanished John Bellingham. We crossed into Cosmo Place, with its quaint row of the now rare, cannon-shaped iron posts, and passing through stood for a few moments, looking into the peaceful, stately old square. A party of boys disported themselves noisily on the range of stone posts that formed a bodyguard round the ancient lamp-surmounted pump, but otherwise the place was wrapped in dignified repose, suited to its age and station. And very pleasant it looked on this summer afternoon, with the sunlight gilding the foliage of its wide-spreading plain trees and lighting up the warm-toned brick of the house fronts. We walked slowly down the shady west side, near the middle of which my companion halted. This is the house, she said. It looks gloomy and forsaken now, but it must have been a delightful house in the days when my ancestors could look out of the windows through the open end of the square, across the fields of meadows, to the heights of Hampstead and Highgate. She stood at the edge of the pavement, looking up with a curious wistfulness at the old house, a very pathetic figure, I thought, with her handsome face and proud carriage, her threadbare dress and shabby gloves, standing at the threshold of the home that had been her family's for generations, that should now have been hers, and that was shortly to pass away into the hands of strangers. I, too, looked up at it with a strange interest, impressed by something gloomy and forbidding in its aspect. The windows were shuttered from basement to attic, and no sign of life was visible. Silent, neglected, desolate, it breathed an air of tragedy. It seemed to mourn in sackcloth and ashes for its lost master. The mass of door within the splendid carven portico was crusted with grime and seemed to have passed out of use as completely as the ancient lamp-irons or the rusted extinguishers wherein the footmen were want to quench their torches when some Bellingham dame was born up the steps in her gilded chair in the days of Good Queen Anne. It was in a somewhat sobered frame of mind that we presently turned away and started homeward by way of Great Ormond Street. My companion was deeply thoughtful, relapsing for a time into that somberness of manner that had so impressed me when I first met her. Nor was I without a certain sympathetic pensiveness. As if, from the great silent house, the spirit of the vanished man had issued forth to bear us company. But still it was a delightful walk, and I was sorry when at last we arrived at the entrance to Neville's Court and Miss Bellingham halted and held out her hand. Good-bye, she said, and many, many thanks for your invaluable help. Shall I take the bag, if you want it, but I must take out the notebooks? Why must you take them? she asked. Why, haven't I got to copy the notes out into longhand? An expression of utter consternation spread over her face. In fact, she was so completely taken aback that she forgot to release my hand. Heavens! she exclaimed. How idiotic of me! But it is impossible, Dr. Berkeley. It will take you hours. It is perfectly possible, and it is going to be done. Otherwise the notes would be useless. Do you want the bag? No, of course not. But I am positively appalled. How didn't you better give up the idea? And this is the end of our collaboration. I exclaimed tragically, giving her hand a final squeeze, whereby she became suddenly aware of his position, and withdrew it rather hastily. Would you throw away a whole afternoon's work? I won't, certainly. So good-bye until to-morrow. I shall turn up in the reading-room as early as I can. You had better take the tickets. Oh, and you won't forget about the copy of the will for Dr. Thorndike, will you? No, if my father agrees, you shall have it this evening. She took the tickets from me, and, thanking me again, retired into the court. Chapter 7 of The Eye of Osiris The task upon which I had embarked so lightheartedly, when considered in cold blood, did certainly appear, as Ms. Bellingham had said, rather appalling, the result of two-and-a-half hours pretty steady work at an average speed of nearly a hundred words a minute, would take some time to transcribe into longhand, and if the notes were to be delivered punctually on the morrow, the sooner I got to work the better. Recognizing this truth, I lost no time, but within five minutes of my arrival at the surgery was seated at the writing-table with my copy before me, busily converting the sprawling inexpressive characters into good legible roundhand. The occupation was by no means unpleasant, apart from the fact that it was a labor of love, for the sentences as I picked them up were fragrant with the reminiscences of the gracious whisper in which they had first come to me, and then the matter itself was full of interest. I was gaining a fresh outlook on life, was crossing the threshold of a new world, which was her world, and so the occasional interruptions from the patients, while they gave me intervals of enforced rest, were far from welcome. The evening were on without any sign from Neville's court, and I began to fear that Mr. Bellingham's scruples had proved insurmountable. Not, I am afraid, that I was so much concerned for the copy of the will, as for the possibility of a visit, no matter howsoever brief, from my fair employer. And when, on the stroke of half-past seven, the surgery door flew open with startling abruptness, my fears were allayed and my hopes shattered simultaneously. For it was Miss Oman who stalked in, holding out a blue, full-skept envelope with a war-like air, as if it were an ultimatum. I've brought you this from Mr. Bellingham, she said. There's a note inside. May I read the note, Miss Oman? I asked. Bless the man! she exclaimed. What else would you do with it? Isn't that what it's brought for? I supposed it was, and thanking her for her gracious permission. I glanced through the note, a few lines authorizing me to show the copy of the will to Dr. Thorndike. When I looked up from the paper, I found her eyes fixed on me, with an expression critical and rather disapproving. You seem to be making yourself mighty agreeable in a certain quarter, she remarked. I make myself universally agreeable. It is my nature to. Ha! she snorted. Don't you find me rather agreeable? I asked. Oily! said Miss Oman, and then with a sour smile at the open notebooks, she remarked. You've got some work to do now. Quite a change for you. A delightful change, Miss Oman, for Satan findeth, but no doubt you are acquainted with the philosophical works of Dr. Watts. If you are referring to idle hands, she replied, I'll give you a bit of advice. Don't you keep that hand idle any longer than is really necessary. I have my suspicions about that splint. Oh, you know what I mean. And before I had time to reply, she had taken advantage of the entrance of a couple of patients to whisk out of the surgery with the abruptness that had distinguished her arrival. The evening consultations were considered to be over by half past eight, at which time a doffus was want, with exemplary punctuality, to close the outer door of the surgery. Tonight he was not less prompt than usual, and having performed this, his last daily office, and turned down the surgery gas, he reported the fact and took his departure. As his retreating footsteps died away and the slamming of the outer door announced his final disappearance, I sat up and stretched myself, the envelope containing the copy of the will lay on the table, and I considered it thoughtfully. It ought to be conveyed to Thorndike with as little delay as possible, and as it certainly could not be trusted out of my hands it ought to be conveyed by me. I looked at the notebooks. Nearly two hours' work had made a considerable impression on the matter that I had to transcribe, but still a great deal of the task yet remained to be done. However, I reflected, I could put in a couple of hours or more before going to bed, and there would be an hour or two to spare in the morning. Finally I locked the notebooks, open as they were, in the writing-table drawer, and slipping the envelope into my pocket, set out for the temple. The soft chime of the treasury clock was telling out, in confidential tones, the third quarter, as I wrapped with my stick on the forbidding oak of my friend's chambers. There was no response, nor had I perceived any gleam of light from the windows as I approached, and I was considering the advisability of trying the laboratory on the next floor when footsteps on the stone stairs and familiar voices gladdened my ear. Hello, Berkeley, said Thorndike. Do we find you waiting like a parry at the gates of paradise? Polton is upstairs, you know, tinkering at one of his inventions. If you ever find the nest empty you had better go and bang at the laboratory door. He is always there in the evenings. I hadn't been waiting long, said I, and I was just thinking of rousing him up when you came. That was right, said Thorndike, turning up the gas. And what news do you bring? Do I see a blue envelope sticking out of your pocket? You do. Is it a copy of the will? He asked. I answered yes, and added that I had full permission to show it to him. What did I tell you? exclaimed Jervis. Didn't I say he would get a copy for us if it existed? We admit to the excellence of your prognosis, said Thorndike. But there is no need to be boastful. Have you read through the document, Berkeley? No, I haven't taken it out of the envelope. Then it will be equally new to us all, and we shall see if it tallies with your description. He placed three easy chairs at a convenient distance from the light, and Jervis, watching him with a smile, remarked, Now Thorndike is going to enjoy himself. To him a perfectly unintelligible will is a thing of beauty and joy forever, especially if associated with some kind of recondite navery. I don't know, said I, that this will is particularly unintelligible. The mischief seems to be that it is rather too intelligible. However, here it is, and I handed it over to Thorndike. I suppose that we can depend on this copy, as he drew out the document and glanced at it. Oh yes, he added, I see it is copied by Godfrey Bellingham, compared with the original and certified correct. In that case, I will get you to read it out slowly, Jervis, and I will make a rough copy for reference. Let us make ourselves comfortable and light our pipes before we begin. He provided himself with a writing-pad, and when we had seated ourselves and got our pipes well alight, Jervis opened the document, and with a peremptory commenced the reading. In the name of God, amen. This is the last will and testament of me, John Bellingham of No. 141, Queens Square, in the Paris of St. George, Bloomsbury, London, in the County of Middlesex. Gentlemen, made this twenty-first day of September, in the year of our Lord, 1892. 1. I give N.B. Queeth unto Arthur Jellicoe, of No. 184, New Square, Lincolns, in London, in the County of Middlesex, Attorney-at-Law, the whole of my collection of seals and its carabs, and those in my cabinets marked A, B, and D, together with the contents thereof, and the sum of two thousand pounds sterling, free of legacy duty. Unto the trustees of the British Museum, the residue of my collection of antiquities. Unto my cousin George Hearst, of the Poplar's Elfam, in the County of Kent, the sum of five thousand pounds, free of legacy duty. And unto my brother Godfrey Bellingham, or if he should die before the occurrence of my death, unto his daughter Ruth Bellingham, the residue of my estate, and affects real and personal, subject to the conditions set forth here and after, namely, two, that my body shall be deposited with those of my ancestors. In the church art, appertaining to the church and parish of St. George the martyr, or if that shall not be possible, in some other church art cemetery, burial ground, church or chapel, or other authorized place, for the reception of the bodies of the dead, situate within or appertaining to the parishes of St. Andrew above the bars, and St. George the martyr, or St. George Bloomsbury, or St. Giles in the fields. But if the conditions in this clause be not carried out, then, three, I give and devise the said residue of my estate and affects unto my cousin George Hearst, aforesaid, and I hereby revoke all wills and codices made by me at any time here to fore, and I appoint Arthur Jellico, aforesaid, to be the executor of this my will jointly with the principal beneficiary and residuary legatee. That is to say, with the aforesaid Godfrey Bellingham, if the conditions set forth here and before in clause two, shall be duly carried out, but with the aforesaid George Hearst, if the said conditions in the said clause two be not carried out, John Bellingham. Signed by the said testitor, John Bellingham, in the presence of us present at the same time, who at his request, and in his presence, and in the presence of each other, have subscribed our names as witnesses, Frederick Wilton, 16 Medford Road, London North, Clerk, James Barber, 32 Wadbury Crescent, London, Southwest, Clerk. Well, said Jervis, laying down the document as Thordike detached the last sheet from his writing-pad. I have met with a good many idiotic wills, but this one can give them all points. I don't see how it is ever going to be administered. One of the two executors is a mere abstraction, a sort of algebraical problem with no answer. I think that difficulty could be overcome, said Thordike. I don't see how, retorted Jervis, if the body is deposited in a certain place, A is executor. If it is somewhere else, B is the executor. But as you cannot produce the body, and no one has the least idea where it is, it is impossible to prove either that it is or that it is not in any specified place. You are magnifying the difficulty, Jervis, said Thordike. The body may of course be anywhere in the entire world, but the place where it is lying is either inside or outside the general boundary of those two parishes. If it has been deposited within the boundary of those two parishes, the fact must be ascertainable by examining the burial certificates issued since the date when the missing man was last seen alive and by consulting the registers of those specified places of burial. I think that if no record can be found of any such internment within the boundary of those two parishes, that fact will be taken by the court as proof that no such internment has taken place, and that therefore the body must have been deposited somewhere else. Such a decision would constitute George Hearst, the co-executor and residuary legatee. That is cheerful for your friends, Berkeley, Jervis remarked, for we may take it as pretty certain that the body has not been deposited in any of the places named. Yes, I agree gloomily. I'm afraid there is very little doubt of that. But what an ass that fellow must have been to make such a to-do about his beastly carcass. What the deuce could it have mattered to him where it was dumped when he had done with it? Thordike chuckled softly. Thus the irreverent youth of today, said he. But yours is hardly a fair comment, Berkeley. Our training makes us materialists, and puts us a little out of sympathy with those in whom primitive beliefs and emotions survive. A worthy priest who came to look at our dissecting room expressed surprise to me that the students, thus constantly in the presence of relics of mortality, should be able to think of anything but the resurrection in the life hereafter. He was a bad psychologist. There is nothing so dead as a dissecting room subject, and the contemplation of the human body in the process of being quietly taken to pieces, being resolved into its structural units, like a worn-out clock or an old engine in the scrapper-shard, is certainly not conducive to a vivid realization of the doctrine of the resurrection. No, but this absurd anxiety to be buried in some particular place has nothing to do with religious belief, it is merely silly sentiment. It is sentiment, I admit, said Thorndike, but I wouldn't call it silly. The feeling is so widespread in time and space that we must look on it with respect as something inherent in human nature. Think, as doubtless John Bellingham did, of the ancient Egyptians, whose chief aspiration was that of everlasting repose for the dead. See the trouble they took to achieve it. Think of the Great Pyramid, or that of Amonhotep IV, with its labyrinth of false passages, and its sealed and hidden separical chambers. Think of Jacob, born after death all those hundreds of weary miles in order that he might sleep with his fathers, and then, remember Shakespeare and his solemn adoration to posterity, to let him rest undisturbed in his grave. No, Berkeley, it is not a silly sentiment. I am as indifferent as you as to what becomes of my body when I have done with it, to use your irreverent phrase, but I recognize the solicitude that some other men display on the subject as a natural feeling that has to be taken seriously. But even so, I said, if this man had a hankering for a freehold residence in some particular boneyard, he might have gone about the business in a more reasonable way. There I am entirely with you, Thorndike replied. It is the absurd way in which this provision is worded that not only creates all the trouble, but also makes the whole document so curiously significant in view of the testitor's disappearance. How significant! Jervis demanded eagerly. Let us consider the provisions of the will point by point, said Thorndike, and first note that the testitor commanded the services of a very capable lawyer. But Mr. Jellico disapproved of the will, said I. In fact, he protested strongly against the form of it. We will bear that in mind, too, Thorndike replied. And now, with reference to what we may call the contentious clauses, the first thing that strikes us is their preposterous injustice. Godfrey's inheritance is made conditional on a particular disposal of the testitor's body, but that is a matter not necessarily under Godfrey's control. The testitor might have been lost at sea, or killed in a fire or explosion, or have died abroad, and been buried where his grave could not have been identified. There are numerous probable contingencies beside the improbable one that has happened that might prevent the body from being recovered. But even if the body had been recovered, there is another difficulty. The places of burial in the parishes have all been closed for many years. It would be impossible to reopen any of them without a special faculty. And I doubt whether such a faculty would be granted. Possibly cremation might meet the difficulty, but even that is doubtful, and in any case, the matter would not be in the control of Godfrey Bellingham. Yet, if the required interment should prove impossible, he is to be deprived of his legacy. It is a monstrous and absurd injustice, I exclaimed. It is, Thorndike agreed, but this is nothing to the absurdity that comes to light when we consider clauses two and three in detail. Observe that the testitor presumably wished to be buried in a certain place. Also, he wished his brother should benefit under the will. Let us take the first point, and see how he has said about securing the accomplishment of what he desired. Now if we read clauses two and three carefully, we shall see that he has rendered virtually impossible that his wishes can be carried out. He desires to be buried in a certain place, and makes Godfrey responsible for his being so buried. But he gives Godfrey no power or authority to carry out the provision, and places insurmountable obstacles in his way. For until Godfrey is an executor, he has no power or authority to carry out the provision, and until the provisions are carried out, he does not become an executor. It is a preposterous model, exclaimed Jervis. Yes, but that is not the worst of it, Thorndike continued. The moment John Bellingham dies, his dead body has come into existence, and it is deposited for the time being wherever he happens to have died. But unless he should happen to have died in one of the places of burial mentioned, which is in the highest degree unlikely, his body will be, for the time being, deposited in some place other than those specified, in that case Clause 2 is, for the time being, not complied with, and consequently George Hearst becomes automatically the co-executor. But will George Hearst carry out the provisions of Clause 2? Probably not. Why should he? The will contains no instructions to that effect. It throws the whole duty on Godfrey. On the other hand, if he should carry out Clause 2, what happens? He ceases to be an executor, and he loses some seventy thousand pounds. We may be pretty certain that he will do nothing of the kind, so that, on considering the two clauses, we see that the wishes of the testitor could only be carried out in the unlikely event of his dying in one of the burial places mentioned, or his body being conveyed immediately after death to a public mortuary in one of the said parishes. In any other event, it is virtually certain that he will be buried in some place other than that which he desired, and that his brother will be left absolutely without provisions or recognition. John Bellingham could never have intended that, I said. Clearly not, agreed Thorndike. The provisions of the will furnish internal evidence that he did not. You note that he bequeathed five thousand pounds to George Hurst in the event of Clause 2 being carried out. But he has made no bequest to his brother in the event of its not being carried out. Obviously, he had not entertained the possibility of this contingency at all. He assumed, as a matter of course, that the conditions of Clause 2 would be fulfilled, and regarded the conditions themselves as a mere formality. But, Jervis objected, Jellico must have seen the danger of a miscarriage and pointed it out to his client. Exactly, said Thorndike, there is the mystery. We understand that he objected strenuously, and that John Bellingham was obdurate. Now it is perfectly understandable that a man should adhere obstinately to the most stupid and perverse disposition of his property, but that a man should persist in retaining a particular form of words after it has been proved to him that the use of such form will almost certainly result in the defeat of his own wishes. That, I say, is a mystery that calls for very careful consideration. If Jellico had been an interested party, said Jervis, one would have suspected him of lying low, but the form of Clause 2 doesn't affect him at all. No, said Thorndike. The person who stands to profit by the muddle is George Hurst. But we understand that he was unacquainted with the terms of the will, and there is certainly nothing to suggest that he is in any way responsible for it. The practical question is, said I, what is going to happen, and what can be done for the Bellinghams? The probability is, Thorndike replied, that the next move will be made by Hurst. He is the party immediately interested. He will probably apply to the court for permission to presume death and administer the will. And what will the court do? Thorndike smiled dryly. Now you are asking a very pretty conundrum. The decisions, of course, depend on idiosyncrasies of temperament that no one can foresee. But one may say that a court does not likely grant permission to presume death. There will be a rigorous inquiry, and a decidedly unpleasant one I suspect, and the evidence will be reviewed by the judge with a strong predisposition to regard the testitor as being still alive. On the other hand, the known facts point very distinctly to the probability that he is dead. And if the will were less complicated and all the parties interested were unanimous in supporting the application, I don't see why it might not be granted. But it will clearly be to the interest of Godfrey to oppose the application, unless he can show that the conditions of clause two have been complied with, which it is virtually certain he cannot, and he may be able to bring forward reasons for believing John to be still alive. But even if he is unable to do this, in as much as it is pretty clear that he was intended to be the chief beneficiary, his opposition is likely to have considerable weight with the court. Oh, is it? I exclaimed eagerly. Then that accounts for a very peculiar proceeding on the part of Hearst. I have stupidly forgotten to tell you about it. He has been trying to come to a private agreement with Godfrey Bellingham. Indeed, said Thorndike, what sort of agreement? His proposal was this, that Godfrey should support him and Jelloko in an application to the court for permission to presume death and to administer the will, that if it was successful, Hearst should pay him four hundred pounds a year for life, the arrangement to hold good in all eventualities, by which he means, that if the body should be discovered at any future time, so that the conditions of clause two could be carried out, Hearst should still retain the property and continue to pay Godfrey the four hundred a year for life. Hey, ho! exclaimed Thorndike, that is a queer proposal, a very queer proposal indeed. Not to say fishy, added Jervis. I don't fancy the court would look with approval on that little arrangement. The law does not look with much favor on any little arrangements that aim at getting behind the provisions of a will, Thorndike replied, though there would be nothing to complain of in this proposal if it were not for the reference to all eventualities. If a will is hopelessly impracticable, it is not unreasonable or improper for the various beneficiaries to make such private arrangements among themselves as may seem necessary to avoid useless litigation and delay in administering the will. If, for instance, Hearst had proposed to pay four hundred a year to Godfrey, so long as the body remained undiscovered, on condition that, in the event of its discovery, Godfrey should pay him a likesum for life, there would have been nothing to comment upon. It would have been an ordinary sporting chance. But the reference to all eventualities is an entirely different matter. Of course it may be mere greediness, but all the same it suggests some very curious reflections. Yes, it does, said Jervis. I wonder if he has any reason to expect that the body will be found. Of course it doesn't follow that he has. He may be merely taking the opportunity offered by the other man's poverty to make sure of the bulk of the property whatever happens, but it is uncommonly sharp practice to say the least. Do I understand that Godfrey declined the proposal? Thorndike asked. Yes, he did, very emphatically, and I fancy the two gentlemen proceeded to exchange opinions on the circumstances of the disappearance with more frankness than delicacy. Ah, said Thorndike, that is a pity. If the case comes into court, there is bound to be a good deal of unpleasant discussion and still more unpleasant comment in the newspapers. But if the parties themselves begin to express suspicions of one another, there is no telling where the matter will end. No, by Jove, said Jervis. If they begin flinging accusations of murder about, the fat will be in the fire with the vengeance. That way lies the old Bailey. We must try to prevent them from making an unnecessary scandal, said Thorndike. It may be that an exposure will be unavoidable, and that must be ascertained in advance. But to return to your question, Berkeley, as to what is to be done, Hearst will probably make some move pretty soon. Do you know if Jellico will act with him? No, he won't. He declines to take any steps without Godfrey's assent. At least, that is what he says at present. His attitude is one of correct neutrality. That is satisfactory so far, said Thorndike, though he may alter his tone when the case comes into court. From what you said just now, I gathered that Jellico would prefer to have the will administered and be quit of the whole business. Which is natural enough, especially as he benefits under the will to the extent of two thousand pounds an invaluable collection. Consequently, we may fairly assume that, even if he maintains an apparent neutrality, his influence will be exerted in favor of Hearst rather than of Bellingham, from which it follows that Bellingham ought certainly to be properly advised, and when the case goes into court, properly represented. He can't afford either the one or the other, said I. He's as poor as an insolvent church mouse and as proud as the devil. He wouldn't accept professional aid that he couldn't pay for. Hmm, grunted Thorndike, that's awkward, but we can allow the case to go by default, so to speak, to fail for the mere lack of technical assistance. Besides, it is one of the most interesting cases that I have ever met with, and I am not going to see it bungled. He couldn't object to a little general advice in a friendly, informal way. Amicus Curie, as old broad rib is so fond of saying, and there is nothing to prevent us from pushing forward the preliminary inquiries. Of what nature would they be? Well, to begin with, we have to satisfy ourselves that the conditions of clause two have not been complied with, that John Bellingham has not been buried within the parish boundaries mentioned. Of course he has not, but we must not take anything for granted. Then we have to satisfy ourselves that he is not still alive and accessible. It is perfectly possible that he is, after all, and it is our business to trace him if he is still in the land of the living. Jervis and I can carry out these investigations without saying anything to Bellingham. My learned brother will look through the register of burials, not forgetting the cremations in the metropolitan area, and I will take the other matter in hand. You really think that John Bellingham may still be alive, said I? Since his body has not been found, it is obviously a possibility. I think in the highest degree improbable, but the improbable has to be investigated before it can be excluded. It sounds a rather hopeless quest, I remarked. How do you propose to begin? I think of beginning at the British Museum. The people there may be able to throw some light on his movements. I know that there are some important excavations in progress at Heliopolis. In fact, the director of the Egyptian department is out there at the present moment, and Dr. Norbury, who is taking his place temporarily, is an old friend of Bellingham's. I shall call on him and try to discover if there is anything that might have induced Bellingham suddenly to go abroad to Heliopolis, for instance. Also, he may be able to tell me what it was that took the missing man to Paris on that last, rather mysterious journey. That might turn out to be an important clue. And meanwhile, Berkeley, you must endeavor tactfully to reconcile your friend to the idea of letting us give an eye to the case. Make it clear to him that I am doing this entirely for the enlargement of my own knowledge. But wouldn't you have to be instructed by a solicitor, I asked? Yes, nominally, but only as a matter of etiquette. We shall do all the actual work. Why do you ask? I was thinking of the solicitor's costs, and I was going to mention that I have a little money of my own. Then you keep it, my dear fellow. You'll want it when you go into practice. There will be no difficulty about the solicitor. I shall ask one of my friends to act nominally as a personal favor to me. Marchmont would take the case for us, Jervis, I am sure. Yes, said Jervis. Or old broad rib, if we put it to him, amicus curia. It is excessively kind of both of you to take this benevolent interest in the case of my friends, I said. And it is to be hoped that they won't be foolishly proud and stiff-naked about it. It's rather the way with poor gentlefolk. I'll tell you what, exclaimed Jervis. I have a most brilliant idea. You shall give us a little supper at your rooms, and invite the Bellinghams to meet us. Then you and I will attack the old gentleman, and Thorndike shall exercise his persuasive powers on the lady. These chronic incurable old bachelors, you know, are quite irresistible. You observe that my respected junior condemns me to lifelong celibacy," Thorndike remarked. But, he added, his suggestion is quite a good one. Of course, we mustn't put any sort of pressure on Bellingham to employ us. For that is what it amounts to, even if we accept no payment. But our friendly talk over the supper table would enable us to put the matter delicately, and yet convincingly. Yes, said I, I see that, and I like the idea immensely. But it won't be possible for several days, because I've got a job that takes up all my spare time, and that I ought to be at work on now," I added, with a sudden qualm at the way in which I had forgotten the passage of time in the interest of Thorndike's analysis. My two friends looked at me inquiringly, and I felt it necessary to explain about the injured hand and the tail-el Amorna tablets, which I accordingly did rather shyly, and with a nervous eye upon Jervis. The slow grin, however, for which I was watching, never came. On the contrary, he not only heard me through quite gravely, but when I had finished said with some warmth, and using my old hospital pet name. I'll say one thing for you, Polly. You're a good chum, and you always were. I hope your Neville's court friends appreciate the fact. They are far more appreciative than the occasion, Lawrence, I answered. But to return to this question, how will this day week suit you? It will suit me, Thorndike answered, with a glance at his junior. And me, too, said the latter. So, if it will do for the Bellingham's, we will consider it settled. But if they can't come, you must fix another night. Very well, I said, rising and knocking out my pipe. I will issue the invitation to-morrow, and now I must be off to have another slog at those notes. As I walked homeward, I speculated cheerfully on the prospect of entertaining my friends under my own, or rather Barnard's, roof. If they could be lured out of their aromethical retirement. The idea had, in fact, occurred to me already, but I had been deterred by the peculiarities of Barnard's housekeeper. For Mrs. Gummer was one of those housewives who make up for an archaic simplicity of production by preparations on the most pretentious and alarming scale. But this time I would not be deterred. If only the guests could be enticed into my humble lair, it would be easy to furnish the raw materials of the feast from outside, and the consideration of ways and means occupied me pleasantly, until I found myself once more at my writing-table, confronted by my voluminous notes on the incidents of the North Syrian War. End of Chapter 7 Chapter 8 OF THE EYE OF OSIRIS This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The Eye of Osiris by R. Austin Freeman Chapter 8 A Museum Idol Whether it was that practice revived a forgotten skill on my part, or that Miss Bellingham had overestimated the amount of work to be done, I am unable to say. But whichever may have been the explanation, the fact is that the fourth afternoon saw our task so nearly completed that I was feigned to plead that a small remainder might be left over to form an excuse for yet one more visit to the reading-room. Short, however, as had been the period of our collaboration, it had been long enough to produce a great change in our relations to one another, for there is no friendship so intimate and satisfying as that engendered by community of work, and none between man and woman at any rate, so frank and wholesome. Every day had arrived to find a pile of books with the places duly marked and the blue-covered corto notebooks in readiness. Every day we had worked steadily at the allotted task, had then handed in the books and gone forth together to enjoy a most companionable tea in the milk shop, thereafter to walk home by way of Queen Square. Talking over the day's work and discussing the state of the world in the far-off days, when Akhenaten was king, and the Tel-Aamarna tablets were a-writing. It had been a pleasant time, so pleasant, that as I handed in the books for the last time, I sighed to think that it was over, that not only was the task finished, but that the recovery of my fair patient's hand, from which I had that morning removed the splint, had put an end to the need of my help. What shall we do, I asked, as we came out into the central hall. It is too early for tea. Shall we go and look at some of the galleries? Why not, she answered. We might look over some of the things connected with what we have been doing. For instance, there is a relief of Akhenaten upstairs in the third Egyptian room. We might go and look at it. I fell in eagerly with the suggestion, placing myself under her experienced guidance, and we started by way of the Roman gallery, past the long row of extremely commonplace and modern-looking Roman emperors. I don't know, she said, pausing for a moment opposite a bust labelled Trajan, but obviously a portrait of Phil May, how I am ever to even thank you for all that you have done, to say nothing of repayment. There is no need to do either, I replied. I have enjoyed working with you, so I have had my reward. But still, I added, if you want to do me a great kindness, you have it in your power. How? In connection with my friend Dr. Thorndike, I told you he was an enthusiast. Now he is, for some reason, most keenly interested in everything relating to your uncle, and I happen to know that, if any legal proceedings should take place, he would very much like to keep a friendly eye on the case. And what do you want me to do? I want you, if an opportunity should occur, for him to give your father advice or help of any kind, to use your influence with your father in favour of, rather than in opposition to, his accepting it, always assuming that you have no real feeling against his doing so. Miss Bellingham looked at me thoughtfully for a few moments and then laughed softly. So the great kindness that I am to do you is to let you do me a further kindness through your friend? No, I protested. That is where you are mistaken. It isn't benevolence on Dr. Thorndike's part, it's professional enthusiasm. She smiled skeptically. You don't believe in it, I said, but consider other cases. Why does a surgeon get out of bed on a winter's night to do an emergency operation at a hospital? He doesn't get paid for it. Do you think it is altruism? Yes, of course, isn't it? Certainly not. He does it because it is his job, because it is his business to fight with disease and win. I don't see much difference, she said. It's work done for love instead of for payment. However, I will do as you ask if the opportunity arises, but I shan't suppose that I am repaying your kindness to me. I don't mind as long as you do it, I said, and we walked on for some time in silence. Isn't it odd, she said presently, how our talk always seems to come back to my uncle? Oh, and that reminds me that the things he gave to the museum are in the same room as the Ock and Otten Relief. Would you like to see them? Of course I would. Then we will go and look at them first. She paused, and then rather shyly and with a rising color she continued, and I think I should like to introduce you to a very dear friend of mine, with your permission, of course. This last edition she made hastily, seeing, I suppose, that I looked rather glum at the suggestion. Inwardly I consigned her friend to the devil, especially if of the masculine gender. Outwardly I expressed my felicity at making the acquaintance of any person whom she should honor with her friendship. Where at, to my discomforture, she laughed enigmatically, a very soft laugh, low-pitched and musical, like the cooing of a glorified pigeon. I strolled on by her side, speculating a little anxiously on the coming introduction. Was I being conducted to the lair of one of the savants attached to the establishment? Would he add a superfluous third to our little party of two, so complete and companionable, solace comes sola, in this populated wilderness? Above all, would he turn out to be a young man and bring my aerial castles tumbling about my ears? The shy look and the blush with which she had suggested the introduction were ominous indications, upon which I mused gloomily as we ascended the stairs and passed through the wide doorway. I glanced apprehensively at my companion and met a quiet, inscrutable smile, and at that moment she halted opposite a wall case and faced me. This is my friend, she said. Let me present to you Artemidorus, late of Phaeum. Oh, don't smile, she pleaded. I am quite serious. Have you never heard of pious Catholics who cherish a devotion to some long-departed saint? That is my feeling toward Artemidorus, and if you only knew what comfort he has shed into the heart of a lonely woman, what a quiet, unobtrusive friend he has been to me in my solitary, friendless days, always ready with a kindly greeting on his gentle, thoughtful face. You would like him for that alone, and I want you to like him and to share our silent friendship. Am I very silly, very sentimental? A wave of relief swept over me and the mercury of my emotional thermometer, which had shrunk almost into the bulb, leaped up to summer heat. How charming it was of her and how sweetly intimate to wish to share this mystical friendship with me, and what a pretty conceit it was, too, and how like this strange, inscrutable maiden to come here and hold silent converse with this long-departed Greek. And the pathos of it all touched me deeply amidst the joy of this newborn intimacy. Are you scornful? She asked, with a shade of disappointment, as I made no reply. No, indeed I am not, I answered earnestly. I want to make you aware of my sympathy and my appreciation without offending you by seeming to exaggerate, and I don't know how to express it. Oh, never mind about the expression, so long as you feel it. I thought you would understand, and she gave me a smile that made me tingle to my fingertips. We stood a while gazing in silence at the mummy, for such, indeed, was her friend Artemodorus. But not an ordinary mummy. Egyptian in form, it was entirely Greek in feeling, and brightly colored as it was, in accordance with the racial love of color, the tasteful refinement with which the decoration of the case was treated, made those around look garish and barbaric. But the most striking feature was a charming panel picture, which occupied the place of the usual mask. This painting was a revelation to me, except that it was executed in tempura instead of oil. It differed in no respect from modern work. There was nothing archaic or ancient about it. With its freedom of handling, and its correct rendering of light and shade, it might have been painted yesterday. Indeed, enclosed in an ordinary gilt frame, it might have passed without remark in an exhibition of modern portraits. Miss Bellingham observed my admiration and smiled approvingly. It's a charming little portrait, isn't it? She said, and such a sweet face, too, so thoughtful and human, was just a shade of melancholy. But the whole thing is full of charm. I fell in love with it the first time I saw it, and it is so Greek. Yes, it is, in spite of the Egyptian gods and symbols. Rather, because of them, I think, she said, there we have the typical Greek attitude, the genial, cultivated eclecticism that appreciated the fitness of even the most alien forms of art. There is anubis standing beside the beer, there are Isis and Nephthys, and there below Horus and Tahuti. But we can't suppose Artemidoras worshipped or believed in those gods. They are there because they are splendid decoration and perfectly appropriate in character. The real feeling of those who love the dead man breaks out in the inscription. She pointed to a band below the pectoral where, in gilt capital letters, was written the two words, Artemidore Epsychai. Yes, I said, it is very dignified and very human, and so sincere and full of real emotion, she added. I find it unspeakably touching. Oh, Artemidoras, farewell. There is the real note of human grief, the sorrow of eternal parting, how much finer it is than the vulgar boastfulness of the Semitic epithets, or our own miserable, insincere make-believe of the not-lost-but-gone-before type. He was gone from them forever. They would look on his face and hear his voice no more. They realized that this was their last farewell. Oh, there is a world of love and sorrow in those two simple words. For some time neither of us spoke. The glamour of this touching memorial of a long-buried grief had stolen over me, and I was content to stand silent by my beloved companion and revive, with a certain pence of pleasure, the ghosts of human emotions over which so many centuries had rolled. Presently she turned to me with a frank smile. You have been weighed in the balance of friendship, she said, and not found wanting. You have the gift of sympathy, even with a woman's sentimental fancies. I suspected that a good many men would have developed this precious quality under the circumstances, but I refrained from saying so. There is no use in crying down one's own wares. I was glad enough to have earned her good opinion so easily, and when she at length turned away from the case and passed into the adjoining room, it was a very complacent young man who bore her company. Here is Akhenaten, or Ku-anaten, as the authorities here render the hieroglyphics. She indicated a fragment of a coloured relief labeled, portion of a painted stone tablet with a portrait figure of Amenhotep IV, and we stop to look at the frail, effeminate figure of the Great King, with his large cranium, his queer pointed chin, and the otten rays stretching out their weird hands as if caressing him. We mustn't stay here if you want to see my uncle's gift, because this room closes at four today. With this admonition, she moved on to the other end of the room, where she halted before a large floor case, containing a mummy and a large number of other objects. A black label with white lettering set forth the various contents with a brief explanation as follows. Mummy of Sepikhotep, a scribe of the 22nd dynasty, together with the objects found in the tomb. These include the four canopic jars in which the internal organs were deposited, the yushapi figures, tomb provisions, and various articles that had belonged to the deceased, his favorite chair, his headrest, his ink palette, inscribed with his name and the name of the king, or Sarkhan I, in whose reign he lived, and other smaller articles, presented by John Bellingham Esquire. They have put all the objects together in one case, Miss Bellingham explained, to show the contents of an ordinary tomb of the better class. You see that the dead man was provided with all his ordinary comforts, provisions, furniture, the ink palette that he had been accustomed to use in writing on papyri, and a staff of servants to wait on him. Where are the servants? I asked. The little yushapi figures, she answered. They were the attendants of the dead, you know, his servants in the underworld. It was a quaint idea, wasn't it? But it was all very complete and consistent, and quite reasonable, too, if one once accepts the belief in the persistence of the individual, apart from the body. Yes, I agreed, and that is the only fair way to judge a religious system, by taking the main beliefs for granted. But what a business it must have been, bringing all these things from Egypt to London. It is worth the trouble, though, for it is a fine and instructive collection, and the work is all very good of its kind. You notice that the yushapi figures, and the heads that form the stoppers of the Canopic jars, are quite finely modelled. The mummy itself, too, is rather handsome, though that coat of bitumen on the back doesn't improve it, but sepicotep must have been a fine-looking man. The mask on the face is a portrait, I suppose? Yes, in fact it's rather more. To some extent it is the actual face of the man himself. This mummy is enclosed in what is called a cartonage. That is a case moulded on the figure. The cartonage was formed of a number of layers of linen or papyrus, united by glue or cement, and when the case had been fitted to a mummy, it was moulded to the body, so that the general form of the features and limbs was often apparent. After the cement was dry, the case was covered with a thin layer of stucco, and the face modelled more completely, and then decorations and inscriptions were painted on. So that, you see, in a cartonage, the body was sealed up like a nut in its shell, unlike the more ancient forms in which the mummy was merely rolled up and enclosed in a wooden coffin. At this moment they're smoked upon our ears, a politely protesting voice, announcing in sing-song tones that it was closing time, and simultaneously a desire for tea suggested the hospitable milk shop. With leisurely dignity that ignored the official who shepherded us along the galleries, we made our way to the entrance, still immersed in conversation on matters sepulchral. It was rather earlier than our usual hour for leaving the museum, and moreover it was our last day for the present. Wherefore we lingered over our tea to an extent that caused the milk shop lady to view us with some disfavour, and when at length we started homeward, we took so many shortcuts that six o'clock found us no nearer our destination than Lincoln's infields, wither we had journeyed by a slightly indirect route that traversed, among other places, Russell Square, Red Lion Square, with the quaint passage of the same name, Bedford Row, Jockeys Fields, Handcourt, and Great Turnstile. It was in the last thoroughfare that our attention was attracted by a flaring poster outside a news-vendors bearing the startling inscription, More Momentos of Murdered Man. Miss Bellingham glanced at the poster and shuddered. Horrible, isn't it? She said, Have you read about them? I haven't been noticing the papers the last few days. I replied, No, of course you haven't. You've been slaving at those wretched notes. We don't very often see the papers, at least we don't take them in, but Miss Elman has kept us supplied during the last day or two. She is a perfect little ghoul. She delights in horrors of every kind, and the more horrible, the better. But, I asked, what is it they have found? Oh, they are the remains of some poor creature, who seems to have been murdered and cut into pieces. It is dreadful. It made me shudder to read of it, for I couldn't help thinking of poor Uncle John, and as for my father, he was really quite upset. Are these the bones that were found in a water-crest bed at Sidcup? Yes, but they have found several more. The police have been most energetic. They seem to have been making a systematic search, and the result has been that they have discovered several portions of the body, scattered about in very widely separated places, Sidcup, Lee, St. Mary, Cray, and yesterday it was reported that an arm had been found in one of the ponds called the Cuckoo Pits, close to our old home. What, in Essex? I exclaimed. Yes, in Epping Forest, quite near Woodford. Is it dreadful to think of it? They were probably hidden when we were living there. I think it was that that horrified my father so much. When he read it, he was so upset that he gathered up the whole bundle of newspapers and tossed them out of the window, and they blew over the wall, and poor Miss Omen had to rush and pursue them up the court. Do you think he suspects that these remains may be those of your Uncle? I think so, though he has said nothing to that effect, and, of course, I have not made any suggestion to him. We always preserved the fiction between ourselves of believing that Uncle John is still alive. But you don't think he is, do you? No, I'm afraid I don't, and I feel pretty sure that my father doesn't think so either, but he doesn't like to admit it to me. Do you happen to remember what bones have been found? No, I don't. I know that an arm was found in the Cuckoo Pits, and I think a thigh bone was dredged up out of a pond near St. Mary Cray. But Miss Omen will be able to tell you all about it if you are interested. She will be delighted to meet a kindred spirit, Miss Bellingham added, with a smile. I don't know that I claim spiritual kinship with a ghoul, said I, especially with a very sharp-tempered ghoul. Oh, don't disparage her, Dr. Berkeley, Miss Bellingham pleaded. She isn't really bad-tempered, only a little prickly on the surface. I oughtn't to have called her a ghoul. She is just the sweetest, most affectionate, most unselfish little angelic human hedgehog that you could find if you traveled the wide world through. Do you know that she has been working her fingers to the bone, making an old dress of mine presentable, because she is so anxious that I shall look nice at your little supper party? You are sure to do that, in any case, I said, but I withdraw my remark as to her temper unreservedly. I really didn't mean it, you know, I have always liked the little lady. That's right, and now won't you come in and have a few minutes to chat with my father? We are quite early in spite of the shortcuts. I accepted readily, and the more so in as much as I wanted a few words with Miss Omen on the subject of catering and did not want to discuss it before my friends. Accordingly, I went in and gossiped with Mr. Bellingham, chiefly about the work we had done at the museum, until it was time for me to return to the surgery. Having taken my leave, I walked down the stairs with reflective slowness and as much creaking of my boots as I could manage, with the result, hopefully anticipated, that as I approached the door of Miss Omen's room, it opened and the lady's head protruded. I'd change my cobbler if I were you, she said. I thought of the angelic human hedgehog and nearly sniggered in her face. I'm sure you would, Miss Omen. Instantly. Though mind you, the poor fellow can't help his looks. You're a very flippant young man, she said severely, whereas I grinned, and she regarded me silently with a baleful glare. Suddenly I remembered my mission and became serious and sober. Miss Omen, 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 Isaac 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 Omen. I'm due at the surgery now. But if you would be passing and should have a few minutes to spare, I should be greatly obliged if you would look in. I really don't know quite 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. End of Chapter 8 Chapter 9 of The Eye of Osiris This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The Eye of Osiris by R. Austin Freeman Chapter 9 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 suffice to make me feel 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 patient's chair, and laying a bundle of newspapers on the table, glared at me expectantly. Thank you, Miss Oman, said I. 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 wrapped 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 to 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 and getting it ready. So I thought of having a cold spread and getting the things 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 had better let me do your shopping, and manage the whole business, was her final verdict. This was precisely what I 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 being a sort of miniature record office of frayed and time-stained bills, already bulged with a lading of draper samples, ends of tape, a cart 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 her lips. You're a very plausible young man, she remarked. What makes you say that, I asked. The landering about museums, she continued, with handsome young ladies on the pretense 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 Omen, I began. Oh, don't talk to me, she snapped. I can see it all. You can't impose upon me. I can see you staring into those glass cases, egging her on to talk, and listening open-mouth and bulging-eyed, and sitting at her feet. Now, didn't you? I don't know about the 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 Omen, whose admiration and loyalty I knew were only equaled 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 at 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 ibernation, 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 had 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 realize 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 vacancies 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 missing. The police think it's an important clue. I don't know 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 nearsight and a pair of deep, spectacle glasses. Suddenly he aspired me, and crossed the road with his chin thrust forward and a pair of keen blue eyes directed at me through the centers 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 49 Neville'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, moaning 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. Jemico. He turned his spectacles full on me with a keen, suspicious glance. What makes you think that I am Mr. Jelico? he asked. Oh, only that you live in Lincoln's Inn. Ha! I see. I live in Lincoln's Inn. Mr. Jelico lives in Lincoln's Inn. Therefore I am Mr. Jelico. Ha! Ha! Bad logic, but a correct conclusion. Yes, I am Mr. Jelico. What do you know about me? Mighty little, accepting that you are 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? 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. Jelico, 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 tomorrow. He may live to be 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 realizing 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 then they reappear. The explanations that they give, when they give any, seem 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. Hearst'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 diopters. 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 favor Mr. Hearst'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. Jalco. 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, the 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 colored 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 favor 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 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 return 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. Hearst was contemplating some action of the kind. No doubt you had your information from a reliable quarter. This answer Mr. Jellico delivered without moving a muscle, regarding me with the fixity of a spectacled figurehead. I smiled feebly. The operation of pumping Mr. Jellico 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 maneuvers, 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 several 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 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 facia suspicion upon the owner or occupant of the 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 skeptical 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 were found? Well, I replied, rather graveled by this very pertinent question. The appearances seem to suggest that the person who deposited these remains started from the neighborhood 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 neighborhood 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. Jellico, with more animation than I had thought possible in his wooden face, it is a fascinating subject, the study of this venerable civilization, extending back to the childhood of the human race, preserved forever 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, 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 canvases were not the race who marched into Egypt 5,000 years before, the dynastic people whose portraits we see on the early monuments. In those 50 centuries, the blood of Haesos, 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 to the glamour of things Egyptian. Since you made Miss Bellingham's acquaintance, perhaps, suggested Mr. Jellicoke, himself as unchanging an aspect, as an Egyptian effigy. I suppose I must have readened. 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. Jellicoke, 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 cartonage 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. Jellicoke, 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, except 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 an oddity of this mummy of sepico-tep. Evidently there was an intention of obliterating the inscriptions. The hole of the back is covered thickly with bitumen, and so are the feet. Then the workers seemed 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 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 onto her cheek, and they had to hang the portrait upside down and keep it warm, until the eye slipped back again 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 have softened, under certain circumstances, and become quite tacky. But, bless my soul, here I am, gossipping 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 fulfill my promise to guide him to his destination. As we salad forth together, the glamour of Egypt faded by degrees, and when he shook my hand stiffly at the gate of the Bellingham's house, all his vivacity and enthusiasm had vanished, leaving the taciturn lawyer dry, uncommunicative, and not a little suspicious.