"I wonder if Miss Bellingham would give us a little music?" I said.
"I wonder if she could?" was the smiling response. "Do you know," she continued, "I have not touched a piano for nearly two years? It will be quite an interesting experiment--to me; but if it fails, you will be the sufferers. So you must choose."
"My verdict," said Mr. Bellingham, "is _fiat experimentum_, though I won't complete the quotation, as that would seem to disparage Doctor Barnard's piano. But before you begin, Ruth, there is one rather disagreeable matter that I want to dispose of, so that I may not disturb the harmony with it later."
He paused, and we all looked at him expectantly.
"I suppose, Doctor Thorndyke," he said, "you read the newspapers?"
"I don't," replied Thorndyke. "But I ascertain, for purely business purposes, what they contain."
"Then," said Mr. Bellingham, "you have probably met with some accounts of the finding of certain human remains, apparently portions of a mutilated body?"
"Yes, I have seen those reports and filed them for future reference."
"Exactly. Well, now, it can hardly be necessary for me to tell you that those remains--the mutilated remains of some poor murdered creature, as there can be no doubt they are--have seemed to have a very dreadful significance for me. You will understand what I mean; and I want to ask you if--if they have made a similar suggestion to you."
Thorndyke paused before replying, with his eyes bent thoughtfully on the floor, and we all looked at him anxiously.
"It is very natural," he said at length, "that you should associate these remains with the mystery of your brother's disappearance. I should like to say that you are wrong in doing so, but if I did I should be uncandid. There are certain facts that do, undoubtedly, seem to suggest a connection, and, up to the present, there are no definite facts of a contrary significance."
Mr. Bellingham sighed deeply and shifted uncomfortably in his chair.
"It is a horrible affair!" he said huskily; "horrible! Would you mind, Doctor Thorndyke, telling us just how the matter stands in your opinion--what the probabilities are, for and against?"
Again Thorndyke reflected awhile, and it seemed to me that he was not very willing to discuss the subject. However, the question had been asked pointedly, and eventually he answered: