LITMIR.BIZ

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not wish to make an untimely visit. What are Mr. Bellingham's habits as to his evening meal? Would this be a convenient time to call?"

      "I generally make my evening visits a little later than this—say about half-past eight; they have finished their meal by then."

      "Ah! half-past eight, then? Then I suppose I had better take a walk until that time. I don't want to disturb them."

      "Would you care to come in and smoke a cigar until it is time to make your call? If you would, I could walk over with you and show you the house."

      "That is very kind of you," said my new acquaintance, with an inquisitive glance at me through his spectacles. "I think I should like to sit down. It's a dull affair, mooning about the streets, and there isn't time to go back to my chambers—in Lincoln's Inn."

      "I wonder," said I, as I ushered him into the room lately vacated by Miss Oman, "if you happen to be Mr. Jellicoe?"

      He turned his spectacles full on me with a keen, suspicious glance. "What makes you think I am Mr. Jellicoe?" he asked.

      "Oh, only that you live in Lincoln's Inn."

      "Ha! I see. I live in Lincoln's Inn; Mr. Jellicoe lives in Lincoln's Inn; therefore I am Mr. Jellicoe. Ha! ha! Bad logic, but a correct conclusion. Yes, I am Mr. Jellicoe. What do you know about me?"

      "Mighty little, excepting that you were the late John Bellingham's man of business."

      "The 'late John Bellingham,' hey! How do you know he is the late John Bellingham?"

      "As a matter of fact, I don't; only I rather understood that that was your own belief."

      "You understood! Now, from whom did you 'understand' that? From Godfrey Bellingham? H'm! And how did he know what I believe? I never told him. It is a very unsafe thing, my dear sir, to expound another man's beliefs."

      "Then you think that John Bellingham is alive?"

      "Do I? Who said so? I did not, you know."

      "But he must be either dead or alive."

      "There," said Mr. Jellicoe, "I am entirely with you. You have stated an undeniable truth."

      "It is not a very illuminating one, however," I replied, laughing.

      "Undeniable truths often are not," he retorted. "They are apt to be extremely general. In fact, I would affirm that the certainty of the truth of a given proposition is directly proportional to its generality."

      "I suppose that is so," said I.

      "Undoubtedly. Take an instance from your own profession. Given a million normal human beings under twenty, and you can say with certainty that a majority of them will die before reaching a certain age, that they will die in certain circumstances and of certain diseases. Then take a single unit from that million, and what can you predict concerning him? Nothing. He may die to-morrow; he may live to a couple of hundred. He may die of a cold in the head or a cut finger, or from falling off the cross of St. Paul's. In a particular case you can predict nothing."

      "That is perfectly true," said I. And then, realising that I had been led away from the topic of John Bellingham, I ventured to return to it.

      "That was a very mysterious affair—the disappearance of John Bellingham, I mean."

      "Why mysterious?" asked Mr. Jellicoe. "Men disappear from time to time, and when they reappear, the explanations that they give (when they give any) seem to be more or less adequate."

      "But the circumstances were surely rather mysterious."

      "What circumstances?" asked Mr. Jellicoe.

      "I mean the way in which he vanished from Mr. Hurst's house."

      "In what way did he vanish from it?"

      "Well, of course, I don't know."

      "Precisely. Neither do I. Therefore I can't say whether that way was a mysterious one or not."

      "It is not even certain that he did leave it," I remarked, rather recklessly.

      "Exactly," said Mr. Jellicoe. "And if he did not, he is there still. And if he is there still, he has not disappeared—in the sense understood. And if he has not disappeared, there is no mystery."

      I laughed heartily, but Mr. Jellicoe preserved a wooden solemnity and continued to examine me through his spectacles (which I, in my turn, inspected and estimated at about minus five dioptres). There was something highly diverting about this grim lawyer, with his dry contentiousness and almost farcical caution. His ostentatious reserve encouraged me to ply him with fresh questions, the more indiscreet the better.

      "I suppose," said I, "that, under these circumstances, you would hardly favour Mr. Hurst's proposal to apply for permission to presume death?"

      "Under what circumstances?" he inquired.

      "I was referring to the doubt you have expressed as to whether John Bellingham is, after all, really dead."

      "My dear sir," said he, "I fail to see your point. If it were certain that the man was alive, it would be impossible to presume that he was dead; and if it were certain that he was dead, presumption of death would still be impossible. You do not presume a certainty. The uncertainty is of the essence of the transaction."

      "But," I persisted, "if you really believe that he may be alive, I should hardly have thought that you would take the responsibility of presuming his death and dispersing his property."

      "I don't," said Mr. Jellicoe. "I take no responsibility. I act in accordance with the decision of the Court and have no choice in the matter."

      "But the Court may decide that he is dead and he may nevertheless be alive."

      "Not at all. If the Court decides that he is presumably dead, then he is presumably dead. As a mere irrelevant, physical circumstance he may, it is true, be alive. But legally speaking, and for testamentary purposes, he is dead. You fail to perceive the distinction, no doubt?"

      "I am afraid I do," I admitted.

      "Yes; members of your profession usually do. That is what makes them such bad witnesses in a court of law. The scientific outlook is radically different from the legal. The man of science relies on his own knowledge and observation and judgment, and disregards testimony. A man comes to you and tells you he is blind in one eye. Do you accept his statement? Not in the least. You proceed to test his eyesight with some infernal apparatus of coloured glasses, and you find that he can see perfectly well with both eyes. Then you decide that he is not blind in one eye; that is to say, you reject his testimony in favour of facts of your own ascertaining."

      "But surely that is the rational method of coming to a conclusion?"

      "In science, no doubt. Not in law. A court of law must decide according to the evidence which is before it; and that evidence is of the nature of sworn testimony. If a witness is prepared to swear that black is white, and no evidence to the contrary is offered, the evidence before the Court is that black is white, and the Court must decide accordingly. The judge and the jury may think otherwise—they may even have private knowledge to the contrary—but they have to decide according to the evidence."

      "Do you mean to say that a judge would be justified in giving a decision which he knew privately to be contrary to the facts? Or that he might sentence a man whom he knew to be innocent?"

      "Certainly. It has been done. There is a case of a judge who sentenced a man to death and allowed the execution to take place, notwithstanding that he—the judge—had actually seen the murder committed by another man. But that was carrying correctness of procedure to the verge of pedantry."

      "It was, with a vengeance," I agreed. "But to return to the case of John Bellingham. Supposing that after the Court has decided that he is dead he should turn up alive? What then?"

      "Ah! It would then be his turn to make an application, and the Court, having fresh evidence laid before it, would probably decide that

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