reason: his
body could hardly have failed to be identified.

"These three explanations are what we may call the outside
explanations. They touched none of the parties mentioned; they were
all obviously improbable on general grounds; and to all of them there
was one conclusive answer--the scarab which was found in Godfrey
Bellingham's garden. Hence I put them aside and gave my attention to
the fourth explanation. This was that the missing man had been made
away with by one of the parties mentioned in the report. But, since
the reports mentioned three parties, it was evident that there was a
choice of three hypotheses, namely:

"(_a_) That John Bellingham had been made away with by Hurst; or (_b_)
by the Bellinghams; or (_c_) by Mr. Jellicoe.

"Now, I have constantly impressed on my pupils that the indispensable
question that must be asked at the outset of such an inquiry as this
is, 'When was the missing person last undoubtedly seen or known to be
alive?' That is the question that I asked myself after reading the
newspaper report; and the answer was, that he was last certainly seen
alive on the fourteenth of October, nineteen hundred and two, at 141,
Queen Square, Bloomsbury. Of the fact that he was alive at that time
and place there could be no doubt whatever; for he was seen at the same
moment by two persons, both of whom were intimately acquainted with
him, and one of whom, Doctor Norbury, was apparently a disinterested
witness. After that date he was never seen, alive or dead, by any
person who knew him and was able to identify him. It was stated that
he had been seen on the twenty-third of November following by the
housemaid of Mr. Hurst; but as this person was unacquainted with him,
it was uncertain whether the person whom she saw was or was not John
Bellingham.

"Hence the disappearance dated, not from the twenty-third of November,
as every one seems to have assumed, but from the fourteenth of October;
and the question was not, 'What became of John Bellingham after he
entered Mr. Hurst's house?' but, 'What became of him after his
interview in Queen Square?'

"But as soon as I had decided that that interview must form the real
starting point of the inquiry, a most striking set of circumstances
came into view. It became obvious that if Mr. Jellicoe had had any
reason for wishing to make away with John Bellingham, he had such an
opportunity as seldom falls to the lot of an intending murderer.

"Just