The Vanishing Man | Page 9

softly in my ear: "I'd have the
full-bottomed one if I were you."
I turned swiftly and rather fiercely, and looked into the face of my old

friend and fellow-student, Jervis, behind whom, regarding us with a
sedate smile, stood my former teacher, Dr. John Thorndyke. Both men
greeted me with a warmth that I felt to be very flattering, for
Thorndyke was quite a great personage, and even Jervis was several
years my academic senior.
"You are coming in to have a cup of tea with us, I hope," said
Thorndyke; and as I assented gladly, he took my arm and led me across
the court in the direction of the Treasury.
"But why that hungry gaze at those forensic vanities, Berkeley?" he
asked. "Are you thinking of following my example and
Jervis's--deserting the bedside for the Bar?"
"What! Has Jervis gone into the law?" I exclaimed.
"Bless you, yes!" replied Jervis. "I have become parasitical on
Thorndyke! 'The big fleas have little fleas,' you know. I am the
additional fraction trailing after the whole number in the rear of a
decimal point."
"Don't you believe him, Berkeley," interposed Thorndyke. "He is the
brains of the firm. I supply the respectability and moral worth. But you
haven't answered my question. What are you doing here on a summer
afternoon staring into a wigmaker's window?"
"I am Barnard's locum; he is in practice in Fetter Lane."
"I know," said Thorndyke; "we meet him occasionally, and very pale
and peaky he has been looking of late. Is he taking a holiday?"
"Yes. He has gone for a trip to the Isles of Greece in a currant ship."
"Then," said Jervis, "you are actually a local G.P. I thought you were
looking beastly respectable."
"And, judging from your leisured manner when we encountered you,"
added Thorndyke, "the practice is not a strenuous one. I suppose it is

entirely local?"
"Yes," I replied. "The patients mostly live in the small streets and
courts within a half-mile radius of the surgery, and the abodes of some
of them are pretty squalid. Oh! and that reminds me of a very strange
coincidence. It will interest you, I think."
"Life is made up of strange coincidences," said Thorndyke. "Nobody
but a reviewer of novels is ever really surprised at a coincidence. But
what is yours?"
"It is connected with a case that you mentioned to us at the hospital
about two years ago, the case of a man who disappeared under rather
mysterious circumstances. Do you remember it? The man's name was
Bellingham."
"The Egyptologist? Yes, I remember the case quite well. What about
it?"
"The brother is a patient of mine. He is living in Nevill's Court with his
daughter, and they seem to be as poor as church mice."
"Really," said Thorndyke, "this is quite interesting. They must have
come down in the world rather suddenly. If I remember rightly, the
brother was living in a house of some pretensions standing in its own
grounds."
"Yes, that is so. I see you recollect all about the case."
"My dear fellow," said Jervis, "Thorndyke never forgets a likely case.
He is a sort of medico-legal camel. He gulps down the raw facts from
the newspapers or elsewhere, and then, in his leisure moments, he
calmly regurgitates them and has a quiet chew at them. It is a quaint
habit. A case crops up in the papers or in one of the courts, and
Thorndyke swallows it whole. Then it lapses and everyone forgets it. A
year or two later it crops up in a new form, and, to your astonishment,
you find that Thorndyke has got it all cut and dried. He has been
ruminating on it periodically in the interval."

"You notice," said Thorndyke, "that my learned friend is pleased to
indulge in mixed metaphors. But his statement is substantially true,
though obscurely worded. You must tell us more about the
Bellinghams when we have fortified you with a cup of tea."
Our talk had brought us to Thorndyke's chambers, which were on the
first floor of No. 5A King's Bench Walk, and as we entered the fine,
spacious, panelled room we found a small, elderly man, neatly dressed
in black, setting out the tea-service on the table. I glanced at him with
some curiosity. He hardly looked like a servant, in spite of his neat,
black clothes; in fact, his appearance was rather puzzling, for while his
quiet dignity and his serious, intelligent face suggested some kind of
professional man, his neat, capable hands were those of a skilled
mechanic.
Thorndyke surveyed the tea-tray thoughtfully and then looked at his
retainer. "I see you have put three tea-cups, Polton," he said. "Now,
how did you know I was bringing someone in to tea?"
The little man