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"Did you?" said Thorndyke "What a small world it is! And what a remarkable affair that was! The intricacies and cross-issues ; 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 h I did pick up one or two facts by accident And, by the way, the Blackmore case had certain points in coham There was a disappearance and a disputed will, and the man who vanished was a scholar and an antiquarian"

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

"The newspaper reports of your brother's disappearance, Mr Bellingham, were remarkably full of detail There were even plans of your house and that of Mr Hurst Do you knoho supplied the inforham "I know that I didn't Some newspaperSo, I understand, did Hurst; and as for Jellicoe, you ht as well cross-examine an oyster"

"Well," said Thorndyke, "the Press- 'copy'; but still, soiven them that description of your brother and those plans It would be interesting to knoho it was However, we don't know; and now let us dis introduced them"

"And perhaps," said I, "we -room--it is really Barnard's den--and leave the housekeeper to wrestle with the debris"

We rated to the cheerfully shabby little apartloonation (as who should say: "If you will drink this sort of stuff I suppose you must, but don't blaham in Barnard's favourite lop-sided easy chair--the depressed seat of which suggested its customary use by an elephant of sedentary habits--and opened the diive us a littleresponse "Do you know," she continued, "I have not touched a piano for nearly two years? It will be quite an interesting experiment--to me; but if it fails, you will be the sufferers So you hah I won't coe Doctor Barnard's piano But before you begin, Ruth, there is one rather disagreeable matter that I want to dispose of, so that I may not disturb the harmony with it later"