afternoon staring into a wigmaker's window?"

"I am Barnard's locum; he is in practice in Fetter Lane."

"I know," said Thorndyke; "we meet him occasionally, and very pale and
peaky he has been looking of late. Is he taking a holiday?"

"Yes. He has gone for a trip to the Isles of Greece in a currant ship."

"Then," said Jervis, "you are actually a local G.P. I thought you were
looking beastly respectable."

"And, judging from your leisured manner when we encountered you," added
Thorndyke, "the practice is not a strenuous one. I suppose it is
entirely local?"

"Yes," I replied. "The patients mostly live in the small streets and
courts within a half-mile radius of the surgery, and the abodes of some
of them are pretty squalid. Oh! and that reminds me of a very strange
coincidence. It will interest you, I think."

"Life is made up of strange coincidences," said Thorndyke. "Nobody but a
reviewer of novels is ever really surprised at a coincidence. But what
is yours?"

"It is connected with a case that you mentioned to us at the hospital
about two years ago, the case of a man who disappeared under rather
mysterious circumstances. Do you remember it? The man's name was
Bellingham."