“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?”