“‘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 must have gone straight on to Eltham.