The Vanishing Man Part 16

"Hibernation!" I exclaimed.

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

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

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

"Well, then, I don't."

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

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

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

"Impossible!" I e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed.

"Fact," said Miss Oman.

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

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

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

"The finger?" I repeated.

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

With this parting injunction she bustled out through the surgery, and I followed to bid her a ceremonious adieu on the doorstep. I watched her little figure tripping with quick, bird-like steps down Fetter Lane, and was about to turn back into the surgery when my attention was attracted by the evolutions of an elderly gentleman on the opposite side of the street. He was a somewhat peculiar-looking man, tall, gaunt, and bony, and the way in which he carried his head suggested to the medical mind a p.r.o.nounced degree of near sight and a pair of "deep" spectacle gla.s.ses.

Suddenly he espied me and crossed the road with his chin thrust forward and a pair of keen blue eyes directed at me through the centres of his spectacles.

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

"Do you mean Mr. G.o.dfrey Bellingham?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He turned his spectacles full on me with a keen, suspicious glance.

"What makes you think I am Mr. Jellicoe?" he asked.

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

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

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

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

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

"You understood! Now, from whom did you 'understand' that? From G.o.dfrey Bellingham? H'm! And how did he know what I believe? I never told him.

It is a very unsafe thing, my dear sir, to expound another man's beliefs."

"Then you think that John Bellingham is alive?"

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

"But he must be either dead or alive."

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

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

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

"I suppose that is so," said I.

"Undoubtedly. Take an instance from your own profession. Given a million normal human beings under twenty, and you can say with certainty that a majority of them will die before reaching a certain age, that they will die in certain circ.u.mstances and of certain diseases. Then take a single unit from that million, and what can you predict concerning him?

Nothing. He may die to-morrow; he may live to a couple of hundred. He may die of a cold in the head or a cut finger, or from falling off the cross of St. Paul's. In a particular case you can predict nothing."

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

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

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

"But the circ.u.mstances were surely rather mysterious."

"What circ.u.mstances?" asked Mr. Jellicoe.

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

"In what way did he vanish from it?"