parently 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 everyone 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 consider the conditions. John Bellingham was known to be setting
out alone upon a journey beyond the sea. His exact destination was not
stated. He was to be absent for an undetermined period, but at least
three weeks. His disappearance would occasion no comment; his absence
would lead to no inquiries, at least for several weeks, during which the
murderer would have leisure quietly to dispose of the body and conceal
all traces of the crime. The conditions were, from a murderer's point of
view, ideal.

"But that was not all. During that very period of John Bellingham's
absence Mr. Jellicoe was engaged to deliver to the British Museum what
was admittedly a dead human body; and that body was to be enclosed in a
sealed case. Could any more perfect or secure method of disposing of a
body be devised by the most ingenious murderer? The plan would have had
only one weak point: the mummy would be known to have left Queen Square
_after_ the disappearance of John Bellingham, and suspicion might in the
end have arisen. To this point I shall return presently; meanwhile we
will consider the second hypothesis--that the missing man was made away
with by Mr. Hurst.

"Now, there seemed to be no doubt that some person, purporting to be
John Bellingham, did actually visit Mr. Hurst's house; and he must
either have left that house or remained in it. If he left, he did so
surreptitiously; if he remained, there could be no reasonable