The Collected Works of R. Austin Freeman (Illustrated Edition). R. Austin Freeman

Doctor."

      "I do," I answered hastily. "That wasn't what I meant at all. Is that Miss Bellingham coming in? I heard the front door shut."

      "Yes, that will be my girl, I expect; but don't run away. You're not afraid of her, are you?" he added as I hurriedly picked up my hat.

      "I'm not sure that I'm not," I answered. "She is a rather majestic young lady."

      Mr. Bellingham chuckled and smothered a yawn, and at that moment his daughter entered the room; and, in spite of her shabby black dress and a shabbier handbag that she carried, I thought her appearance and manner fully justified my description.

      "You come in, Miss Bellingham," I said as she shook my hand with cool civility, "to find your father yawning and me taking my departure. So I have my uses, you see. My conversation is the infallible cure for insomnia."

      Miss Bellingham smiled. "I believe I am driving you away," she said.

      "Not at all," I replied hastily. "My mission was accomplished, that was all."

      "Sit down for a few minutes, Doctor," urged Mr. Bellingham, "and let Ruth sample the remedy. She will be affronted if you run away as soon as she comes in."

      "Well, you mustn't let me keep you up," I said.

      "Oh, I'll let you know when I fall asleep," he replied, with a chuckle; and with this understanding I sat down again—not at all unwillingly.

      At this moment Miss Oman entered with a small tray and a smile of which I should not have supposed her to be capable.

      "You'll take your toast and cocoa while they're hot, dear, won't you?" she said coaxingly.

      "Yes, I will, Phyllis, thank you," Miss Bellingham answered. "I am only just going to take off my hat," and she left the room, followed by the astonishingly transfigured spinster.

      She returned almost immediately as Mr. Bellingham was in the midst of a profound yawn, and sat down to her frugal meal, when her father mystified me considerably by remarking:

      "You're late to-night, chick. Have the Shepherd Kings been giving trouble?"

      "No," she replied; "but I thought I might as well get them done. So I dropped in at the Ormond Street library on my way home and finished them."

      "Then they are ready for stuffing now?"

      "Yes." As she answered she caught my astonished eye (for a stuffed Shepherd King is undoubtedly a somewhat surprising phenomenon) and laughed softly.

      "We mustn't talk in riddles like this," she said, "before Doctor Berkeley, or he will turn us both into pillars of salt. My father is referring to my work," she explained to me.

      "Are you a taxidermist, then?" I asked.

      She hastily set down the cup that she was raising to her lips and broke into a ripple of quiet laughter.

      "I am afraid my father has misled you with his irreverent expressions. He will have to atone by explaining."

      "You see, Doctor," said Mr. Bellingham, "Ruth is a literary searcher—"

      "Oh, don't call me a 'searcher'!" Miss Bellingham protested. "It suggests the female searcher at a police-station. Say investigator."

      "Very well, investigator or investigatrix, if you like. She hunts up references and bibliographies at the Museum for people who are writing books. She looks up everything that has been written on a given subject, and then, when she has crammed herself to bursting-point with facts, she goes to her client and disgorges and crams him or her, and he or she finally disgorges into the Press."

      "What a disgusting way to put it!" said his daughter. "However, that is what it amounts to. I am a literary jackal, a collector of provender for the literary lions. Is that quite clear?"

      "Perfectly. But I don't think that, even now, I quite understand about the stuffed Shepherd Kings."

      "Oh, it was not the Shepherd Kings who were to be stuffed. It was the author! That was mere obscurity of speech on the part of my father. The position is this: A venerable archdeacon wrote an article on the patriarch Joseph—"

      "And didn't know anything about him," interrupted Mr. Bellingham, "and got tripped up by a specialist who did, and then got shirty—"

      "Nothing of the kind," said Miss Bellingham. "He knew as much as venerable archdeacons ought to know; but the expert knew more. So the archdeacon commissioned me to collect the literature on the state of Egypt at the end of the seventeenth dynasty, which I have done; and to-morrow I shall go and stuff him, as my father expresses it, and then—"

      "And then," Mr. Bellingham interrupted, "the archdeacon will rush forth and pelt that expert with Shepherd Kings and Seqenen-Ra and the whole tag-rag and bobtail of the seventeenth dynasty. Oh, there'll be wigs on the green, I can tell you."

      "Yes, I expect there will be quite a lively little skirmish," said Miss Bellingham. And thus dismissing the subject, she made an energetic attack on the toast while her father refreshed himself with a colossal yawn.

      I watched her with furtive admiration and deep and growing interest. In spite of her pallor, her weary eyes, and her drawn and almost haggard face, she was an exceedingly handsome girl; and there was in her aspect a suggestion of purpose, of strength and character that marked her off from the rank and file of womanhood. I noted this as I stole an occasional glance at her or turned to answer some remark addressed to me; and I noted, too, that her speech, despite a general undertone of depression, was yet not without a certain caustic, ironical humour. She was certainly a rather enigmatical young person, but very decidedly interesting.

      When she had finished her repast she put aside the tray and, opening the shabby handbag, asked:

      "Do you take any interest in Egyptian history? We are as mad as hatters on the subject. It seems to be a family complaint."

      "I don't know much about it," I answered. "Medical studies are rather engrossing and don't leave much time for general reading."

      "Naturally," she said. "You can't specialise in everything. But if you would care to see how the business of a literary jackal is conducted, I will show you my notes."

      I accepted the offer eagerly (not, I fear, from pure enthusiasm for the subject), and she brought forth from the bag four blue-covered, quarto note-books, each dealing with one of the four dynasties from the fourteenth to the seventeenth. As I glanced through the neat and orderly extracts with which they were filled we discussed the intricacies of the peculiarly difficult and confused period that they covered, gradually lowering our voices as Mr. Bellingham's eyes closed and his head fell against the back of his chair. We had just reached the critical reign of Apepa II when a resounding snore broke in upon the studious quiet of the room and sent us both into a fit of silent laughter.

      "Your conversation has done its work," she whispered as I stealthily picked up my hat, and together we stole on tiptoe to the door, which she opened without a sound. Once outside, she suddenly dropped her bantering manner and said quite earnestly:

      "How kind it was of you to come and see him to-night! You have done him a world of good, and I am most grateful. Good night!"

      She shook hands with me really cordially, and I took my way down the creaking stairs in a whirl of happiness that I was quite at a loss to account for.

The Watercress-Bed

       Table of Contents

      Barnard's practice, like most others, was subject to those fluctuations that fill the struggling practitioner alternately with hope and despair. The work came in paroxysms with intervals of almost complete stagnation. One of these intermissions occurred on the day after my visit to Nevill's Court, with the result that by half-past eleven I found myself wondering what I should do with the remainder of the day. The better to consider this weighty problem, I strolled down to the