h a
due regard to the legal and social proprieties); and it was in this way
that I first became introduced to the astonishing series of events that
was destined to exercise so great an influence on my own life.

The lecture which had just been concluded had dealt with the rather
unsatisfactory subject of survivorship. Most of the students had left
the theatre, and the remainder had gathered round the lecturer's table
to listen to the informal comments that Dr. Thorndyke was wont to
deliver on these occasions in an easy, conversational manner, leaning
against the edge of the table and apparently addressing his remarks to a
stick of blackboard chalk that he held in his fingers.

"The problem of survivorship," he was saying, in reply to a question put
by one of the students, "ordinarily occurs in cases where the bodies of
the parties are producible, or where, at any rate, the occurrence of
death and its approximate time are actually known. But an analogous
difficulty may arise in a case where the body of one of the parties is
not forthcoming, and the fact of death may have to be assumed on
collateral evidence.

"Here, of course, the vital question to be settled is, what is the
latest instant at which it is certain that this person was alive? And
the settlement of that question may turn on some circumstance of the
most trivial and insignificant kind. There is a case in this morning's
paper which illustrates this. A gentleman has disappeared rather
mysteriously. He was last seen by the servant of a relative at whose
house he had called. Now, if this gentleman should never reappear, dead
or alive, the question as to what was the latest moment at which he was
certainly alive will turn upon the further question: 'Was he or was he
not wearing a particular article of jewellery when he called at that
relative's house?'"

He paused with a reflective eye bent upon the stump of chalk that he
still held; then, noting the expectant interest with which we were
regarding him, he resumed:

"The circumstances in this case are very curious; in fact, they are
highly mysterious; and if any legal issues should arise in respect of
them, they are likely to yield some very remarkable complications. The
gentleman who has disappeared, Mr. John Bellingham, is a man well known
in archaeological circles. He recently returned from Egypt, bringing
with him a very fine collection of antiquities--some of which, by the
way, he has presented to the Br