The Greatest Works of R. Austin Freeman: 80+ Titles in One Volume (Illustrated Edition). R. Austin Freeman
woke up in the morning to find myself practically a beggar. Not a cheerful experience that, you know, at my time of life, eh?"
"No," I agreed, "nor at any other."
"And that was not all," he continued; "for, at the same moment, I lost my only brother, my dearest, kindest friend. He disappeared—vanished off the face of the earth; but perhaps you have heard of the affair. The confounded papers were full of it at the time."
He paused abruptly, noticing, no doubt, a sudden change in my face. Of course, I recollected the case now. Indeed, ever since I had entered the house some chord of memory had been faintly vibrating, and now his last words had struck out the full note.
"Yes," I said, "I remember the incident, though I don't suppose I should but for the fact that our lecturer on medical jurisprudence drew my attention to it."
"Indeed," said Mr. Bellingham, rather uneasily, as I fancied. "What did he say about it?"
"He referred to it as a case that was calculated to give rise to some very pretty legal complications."
"By Jove!" exclaimed Mr. Bellingham, "that man was a prophet! Legal complications, indeed! But I'll be bound he never guessed at the sort of infernal tangle that has actually gathered round the affair. By the way, what was his name?"
"Thorndyke," I replied. "Doctor John Thorndyke."
"Thorndyke," Mr. Bellingham repeated in a musing, retrospective tone. "I seem to remember that name. Yes, of course. I have heard a legal friend of mine, a Mr. Marchmont, speak of him in reference to the case of a man whom I knew slightly years ago—a certain Jeffrey Blackmore, who also disappeared very mysteriously. I remember now that Doctor Thorndyke unravelled that case with most remarkable ingenuity."
"I daresay he would be very much interested to hear about your case," I suggested.
"I daresay he would," was the reply; "but one can't take up a professional man's time for nothing, and I couldn't afford to pay him. And that reminds me that I'm taking up your time by gossiping about my purely personal affairs."
"My morning round is finished," said I, "and, moreover, your personal affairs are highly interesting. I suppose I mustn't ask what is the nature of the legal entanglement?"
"Not unless you are prepared to stay here for the rest of the day and go home a raving lunatic. But I'll tell you this much: the trouble is about my poor brother's will. In the first place, it can't be administered because there is no sufficient evidence that my brother is dead; and in the second place, if it could, all the property would go to people who were never intended to benefit. The will itself is the most diabolically exasperating document that was ever produced by the perverted ingenuity of a wrong-headed man. That's all. Will you have a look at my knee?"
As Mr. Bellingham's explanation (delivered in a rapid crescendo and ending almost in a shout) had left him purple-faced and trembling, I thought it best to bring our talk to an end. Accordingly I proceeded to inspect the injured knee, which was now nearly well, and to overhaul my patient generally; and having given him detailed instructions as to his general conduct, I rose to take my leave.
"And remember," I said as I shook his hand, "no tobacco, no coffee, no excitement of any kind. Lead a quiet, bovine life."
"That's all very well," he grumbled, "but supposing people come here and excite me?"
"Disregard them," said I, "and read Whitaker's Almanack." And with this parting advice I passed out into the other room.
Miss Bellingham was seated at the table with a pile of blue-covered note-books before her, two of which were open, displaying pages closely written in a small, neat handwriting. She rose as I entered and looked at me inquiringly.
"I heard you advising my father to read Whitaker's Almanack," she said. "Was that as a curative measure?"
"Entirely," I replied. "I recommended it for its medicinal virtues, as an antidote to mental excitement."
She smiled faintly. "It certainly is not a highly emotional book," she said, and then asked: "Have you any other instructions to give?"
"Well, I might give the conventional advice—to maintain a cheerful outlook and avoid worry; but I don't suppose you would find it very helpful."
"No," she answered bitterly; "it is a counsel of perfection. People in our position are not a very cheerful class, I am afraid; but still they don't seek out worries from sheer perverseness. The worries come unsought. But, of course, you can't enter into that."
"I can't give any practical help, I fear, though I do sincerely hope that your father's affairs will straighten themselves out soon."
She thanked me for my good wishes and accompanied me down to the street door, where, with a bow and a rather stiff handshake, she gave me my congé.
Very ungratefully the noise of Fetter Lane smote on my ears as I came out through the archway, and very squalid and unrestful the little street looked when contrasted with the dignity and monastic quiet of the old garden. As to the surgery, with its oilcloth floor and walls made hideous with gaudy insurance show-cards in sham gilt frames, its aspect was so revolting that I flew to the day-book for distraction, and was still busily entering the morning's visits when the bottle-boy, Adolphus, entered stealthily to announce lunch.
John Thorndyke
That the character of an individual tends to be reflected in his dress is a fact familiar to the least observant. That the observation is equally applicable to aggregates of men is less familiar, but equally true. Do not the members of the fighting professions, even to this day, deck themselves in feathers, in gaudy colours and gilded ornaments, after the manner of the African war-chief or the "Redskin brave," and thereby indicate the place of war in modern civilisation? Does not the Church of Rome send her priests to the altar in habiliments that were fashionable before the fall of the Roman Empire, in token of her immovable conservatism? And, lastly, does not the Law, lumbering on in the wake of progress, symbolise its subjection to precedent by head-gear reminiscent of the days of good Queen Anne?
I should apologise for obtruding upon the reader these somewhat trite reflections; which were set going by the quaint stock-in-trade of the wig-maker's shop in the cloisters of the Inner Temple, whither I had strayed on a sultry afternoon in quest of shade and quiet. I had halted opposite the little shop window, and, with my eyes bent dreamily on the row of wigs, was pursuing the above train of thought when I was startled by a deep voice saying 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