The Vanishing Man | Page 2

British Museum, where they are
now on view--and having made this presentation, he appears to have
gone to Paris on business. I may mention that the gift consisted of a
very fine mummy and a complete set of tomb-furniture. The latter,
however, had not arrived from Egypt at the time when the missing man
left for Paris, but the mummy was inspected on the fourteenth of
October at Mr. Bellingham's house by Dr. Norbury of the British
Museum, in the presence of the donor and his solicitor, and the latter
was authorised to hand over the complete collection to the British
Museum authorities when the tomb-furniture arrived; which he has
since done.
"From Paris he seems to have returned on the twenty-third of
November, and to have gone direct from Charing Cross to the house of
a relative, a Mr. Hurst, who is a bachelor and lives at Eltham. He
appeared at the house at twenty minutes past five, and as Mr. Hurst had
not yet come down from town and was not expected until a quarter to
six, he explained who he was and said he would wait in the study and
write some letters. The housemaid accordingly showed him into the
study, furnished him with writing materials, and left him.
"At a quarter to six Mr. Hurst let himself in with his latchkey, and
before the housemaid had time to speak to him he had passed through
into the study and shut the door.

"At six o'clock, when the dinner bell was rung, Mr. Hurst entered the
dining-room alone, and, observing that the table was laid for two, asked
the reason.
"'I thought Mr. Bellingham was slaying to dinner, sir,' was The
housemaid's reply.
"'Mr. Bellingham!' exclaimed the astonished host. 'I didn't know he was
here. Why was I not told?'
"'I thought he was in the study with you, sir,' said the housemaid.
"On this a search was made for the visitor, with the result that he was
nowhere to be found. He had disappeared without leaving a trace, and
what made the incident more odd was that the housemaid was certain
that he had not gone out by the front door. For since neither she nor the
cook was acquainted with Mr. John Bellingham, she had remained the
whole time either in the kitchen, which commanded a view of the front
gate, or in the dining-room, which opened into the hall opposite the
study door. The study itself has a French window opening on a narrow
grass plot, across which is a side gate that opens into an alley; and it
appears that Mr. Bellingham must have made his exit by this rather
eccentric route. At any rate--and this is the important fact--he was not
in the house, and no one had seen him leave it.
"After a hasty meal Mr. Hurst returned to town and called at the office
of Mr. Bellingham's solicitor and confidential agent, a Mr. Jellicoe, and
mentioned the matter to him. Mr. Jellicoe knew nothing of his client's
return from Paris, and the two men at once took the train down to
Woodford, where the missing man's brother, Mr. Godfrey Bellingham,
lives. The servant who admitted them said that Mr. Godfrey was not at
home, but that his daughter was in the library, which is a detached
building situated in a shrubbery beyond the garden at the back of the
house. Here the two men found, not only Miss Bellingham, but also her
father, who had come in by the back gate.
"Mr. Godfrey and his daughter listened to Mr. Hurst's story with the
greatest surprise, and assured him that they had neither seen nor heard

anything of John Bellingham.
"Presently the party left the library to walk up to the house; but only a
few feet from the library door Mr. Jellicoe noticed an object lying in
the grass and pointed it out to Mr. Godfrey.
"The latter picked it up, and they all recognised it as a scarab which Mr.
John Bellingham had been accustomed to wear suspended from his
watch-chain. There was no mistaking it. It was a very fine scarab of the
eighteenth dynasty fashioned of lapis lazuli and engraved with the
cartouche of Amenhotep III. It had been suspended by a gold ring
fastened to a wire which passed through the suspension hole, and the
ring, though broken, was still in position.
"This discovery, of course, only added to the mystery, which was still
further increased when, on inquiry, a suit-case bearing the initials J.B.
was found to be lying unclaimed in the cloak-room at Charing Cross.
Reference to the counterfoil of the ticket-book showed that it had been
deposited about the time of arrival of the Continental express on the
twenty-third of November, so that its owner