"After a hasty meal Mr. Hurst returned to town and called at the office of Mr. Bellingham's solicitor and confidential agent, a Mr. Jellicoe, and mentioned the matter to him.

Mr. Jellicoe knew nothing of his client's return from Paris, and the two men at once took the train down to Woodford, where the missing man's brother, Mr. Godfrey Bellingham, lives.

"Presently the party left the library to walk up to the house; but only a few feet from the library door Mr. Jellicoe noticed an object lying in the grass and pointed it out to Mr. Godfrey.

There are two executors; Jellicoe is one, and the other is the principal beneficiaryHurst or myself, as the case may be.

"You see, Jellicoe naturally refuses to move in the matter alone.

He points outquite correctly, I am afraidthat as the conditions as to burial have not been complied with, the property must come to him, and he proposes a very neat little arrangement, which is this: That I shall support him and Jellicoe in their application for permission to presume death and administer the will, and that he shall pay me four hundred a year for life; the arrangement to hold good in all eventualities.

Do you know if Jellicoe will act with him?" "No, he won't.

From what you said just now I gathered that Jellicoe would prefer to have the will administered and be quit of the whole business; which is natural enough, especially as he benefits under the will to the extent of two thousand pounds and a valuable collection.

"Exactly," said Mr. Jellicoe.

" I laughed heartily, but Mr. Jellicoe preserved a wooden solemnity and continued to examine me through his spectacles (which I, in my turn, inspected and estimated at about minus five dioptres).

" "Again," said Mr. Jellicoe, "I fail to follow you, unless you are suggesting that it is customary for murderers who mutilate bodies to be punctilious in depositing the dismembered remains upon land belonging to their victims.

" "Since you made Miss Bellingham's acquaintance, perhaps?" suggested Mr. Jellicoe, himself as unchanging in aspect as an Egyptian effigy.

" "So I had supposed," said Mr. Jellicoe.

But can you explain to me why, after taking all that trouble to decorate it, they should have disfigured it with those great smears of bitumen?" "Ah!" said Mr. Jellicoe, "that is quite an interesting question.

"I mean my friend Jellicoe.

He sent Jellicoe to give me another chance, and I was tempted to take it; but my daughter was strongly against any compromise, and probably she is right.

" "What view did Mr. Jellicoe take?"

Meanwhile, and until the case goes into Court, I think it very necessary that neither Mr. Jellicoe nor anyone else should know that I am to be connected with it.

"Well, it is evident that Hurstand, I fancy, Jellicoe toois anxious to buy off Bellingham's opposition, and at a pretty long price, under the circumstances.

"Jellicoe is the trustee for his absent client, and, if he thinks that client is alive, it is his duty to keep the estate intact; and he knows that perfectly well.

We may take it that Jellicoe is of the same opinion as I am: that John Bellingham is dead.

We are assured by Jellicoe that no one but himself knew the contents of the will, and if this is sobut, mind, we have no evidence that it is soHurst would have no reason to suppose that he had anything material to gain by his cousin's death.

We can pick up somebody else to make a party for you, and finish with a supper at Jellicoe's.

And before he could retreat he Found himself engaged with BEATTY, Who, as you already know, Led him on to JELLICOE.

If I had to christen a pup now I should naturally call him "Jellicoe the Brave.