"We will be as secret as the grave," said Mr. Bellingham; "and, as a matter of fact, it will be quite easy, since it happens, by a curious coincidence, that I am already acquainted with Mr. Marchmont. He acted for Stephen Blackmore, you remember, in that case that you unraveled so wonderfully. I knew the Blackmores."
"Did you?" said Thorndyke. "What a small world it is. And what a remarkable affair that was! The intricacies and cross-issues made it quite absorbingly interesting; and it is noteworthy for me in another respect, for it was one of the first cases in which I was associated with Doctor Jervis."
"Yes, and a mighty useful associate I was," remarked Jervis, "though I did pick up one or two facts by accident. And, by the way, the Blackmore case had certain points in common with your case, Mr. Bellingham. There was a disappearance and a disputed will, and the man who vanished was a scholar and an antiquarian."
"Cases in our specialty are apt to have certain general resemblances," Thorndyke said; and as he spoke he directed a keen glance at his junior, the significance of which I partly understood when he abruptly changed the subject.
"The newspaper reports of your brother's disappearance, Mr. Bellingham, were remarkably full of detail. There were even plans of your house and that of Mr. Hurst. Do you know who supplied the information?"
"No, I don't," replied Mr. Bellingham. "I know that I didn't. Some newspaper men came to me for information, but I sent them packing. So, I understand, did Hurst; and as for Jellicoe, you might as well cross-examine an oyster."
"Well," said Thorndyke, "the pressmen have queer methods of getting 'copy'; but still, some one must have given them that description of your brother and those plans. It would be interesting to know who it was. However, we don't know; and now let us dismiss these legal topics, with suitable apologies for having introduced them."
"And perhaps," said I, "we may as well adjourn to what we call the drawing-room--it is really Barnard's den--and leave the housekeeper to wrestle with the debris."
We migrated to the cheerfully shabby little apartment, and, when Mrs. Gummer had served coffee, with gloomy resignation (as who should say: "If you will drink this sort of stuff I suppose you must, but don't blame me for the consequences"), I settled Mr. Bellingham in Barnard's favorite lop-sided easy chair--the depressed seat of which suggested its customary use by an elephant of sedentary habits--and opened the diminutive piano.