R. Austin Freeman

“ I agreed; "but that is no reason why they should bore their friends."
"But they don't. Friends should help one another and think it a privilege."
"Oh, I shouldn't mind coming to you for help, knowing you as I do. But no one can help a poor devil in a case like this—and certainly not a medical jurist."
"Oh, come, Berkeley!" he protested, "don't rate us too low. The humblest of creatures has its uses—'even the little pismire,' you know, as Izaak Walton tells us. Why, I have got substantial help from a stamp-collector. And then reflect upon the motor-scorcher and the earthworm and the blow-fly. ”

“ That would be a perfectly sound reason, but then it would only be a temporary one, not the insuperable obstacle that she assumes to exist, especially as we really got on excellently together. I hope it isn't some confounded perverse feminine scruple. I don't see how it could be; but women are most frightfully tortuous and wrong-headed at times."
"I don't see," said Thorndyke, "why we should cast about for perversely abnormal motives when there is a perfectly reasonable explanation staring us in the face." ”

“ I will maintain, and you will agree with me, I know, that the love of a serious and honorable man for a woman who is worthy of him is the most momentous of all human affairs. It is the foundation of social life, and its failure is a serious calamity, not only to those whose lives may be thereby spoilt, but to society at large. ”

“ When a man of essentially serious nature has found the one woman of all the world who fulfils his highest ideals of womanhood, who is, in fact, a woman in ten thousand, to whom he has given all that he has to give of love and worship, the sudden wreck of all his hopes is no small calamity. ”

“ Jervis looked more uncomfortable than ever. "Well—yes," he replied hesitatingly, "something has happened—there! It's no use beating about the bush; Berkeley may as well learn it from me as from those yelling devils outside." He took a couple of papers from his bundle and silently handed one to me and the other to Thorndyke. ”

“ Resign myself as I would to the bitter reality, the ghost of the might-have-been haunted me night and day, so that I spent my leisure wandering abstractedly about the streets, always trying to banish thought and never for an instant succeeding. ”

“ And you will remember that, when Hurst and Jellicoe called, Mr. Bellingham had only just come in. Previous to that time Miss Bellingham had been alone in the library; that is to say, she was alone in the library at the very time when John Bellingham is said to have made his visit. That is the position, Berkeley. Nothing pointed has been said up to the present. But, sooner or later, if John Bellingham is not found, dead or alive, the question will be opened. Then it is certain that Hurst, in self-defense, will make the most of any facts that may transfer suspicion from him to some one else. ”

“ The mystery that has surrounded the remains of a mutilated human body, portions of which have been found in various places in Kent and Essex, has received a partial and very sinister solution. The police have, all along, suspected that those remains were those of a Mr. John Bellingham who disappeared under circumstances of some suspicion about two years ago. ”

“ I mean with regard to her uncle's disappearance?"
"I don't think I quite understand you."
"Well, there is no use in blinking the facts," said Thorndyke. "The position is this: if John Bellingham ever went to his brother's house at Woodford, it is nearly certain that he went there after his visit to Hurst. Mind, I say 'if he went' ”