The Eye of Osiris

“The problem of survivorship,” he was saying, in reply to a question put by one of the students, “ordinarily occurs in cases where the bodies of the parties are producible, or where, at any rate, the occurrence of death and its approximate time are actually known. But an analogous difficulty may arise in a case where the body of one of the parties is not forthcoming, and the fact of death may have to be assumed on collateral evidence.

“Here, of course, the vital question to be settled is, what is the latest instant at which it is certain that this person was alive? And the settlement of that question may turn on some circumstance of the most trivial and insignificant kind. There is a case in this morning’s paper which illustrates this. A gentleman has disappeared rather mysteriously. He was last seen by the servant of a relative at whose house he had called. Now, if this gentleman should never reappear, dead or alive, the question as to what was the latest moment at which he was certainly alive will turn upon the further question: ‘Was he or was he not wearing a particular article of jewelry when he called at the relative’s house?’ ”

He paused with a reflective eye bent upon the stump of chalk he still held; then, noting the expectant interest with which we were regarding him, he resumed:

was not until a most infernal jangling from within recalled me to my business that I observed underneath it a small brass plate inscribed “Miss Oman.”

The door opened with some suddenness and a short, middle-aged woman surveyed me hungrily.

“Have I rung the wrong bell?” I asked⁠—foolishly enough, I must admit.

“How can I tell?” she demanded. “I expect you have. It’s the sort of thing a man would do⁠—ring the wrong bell and then say he’s sorry.”

“I didn’t go as far as that,” I retorted. “It seems to have had the desired effect, and I’ve made your acquaintance into the bargain.”

“Whom do you want to see?” she asked.

“Mr. Bellingham.”

“Are you the doctor?”

“I’m a doctor.”

“Follow me upstairs,” said Miss Oman, “and don’t tread on the paint.”

I crossed the spacious hall, and preceded by my conductress, ascended a noble oak staircase, treading carefully on a ribbon of matting that ran up the middle. On the first-floor landing Miss Oman opened a door and, pointing to the room, said, “Go in there and wait; I’ll tell her you’re here.”

“I said Mr. Bellingham⁠—” I began; but the door slammed on me, and Miss Oman’s footsteps retreated rapidly down the stairs.

It was at once obvious to me that I was in a very awkward position. The room into which I had been shown communicated with another, and though the door of communication was shut, I was unpleasantly aware of a conversation that was taking place in the adjoining room.

“Yes, I did! And I say it again. Bribery! Collusion! That’s what it amounts to. You want to square me!”

“Nothing of the kind, Godfrey,” was the reply in a lower tone; but at this point I coughed emphatically and moved a chair, and the voices subsided once more into an indistinct murmur.

To distract my attention from my unseen neighbors I glanced curiously about the room and speculated upon the personalities of its occupants. A very curious room it was, with its pathetic suggestion of decayed splendor and old-world dignity; a room full of interest and character and of contrasts and perplexing contradictions. For the most part it spoke of unmistakable though decent poverty. It was nearly bare of furniture, and what little there was was of the cheapest⁠—a small kitchen table and three Windsor chairs (two of them with arms); a threadbare string carpet on the floor, and a cheap cotton cloth on the table; these, with a set of bookshelves, frankly constructed of grocer’s boxes, formed the entire suite. And yet, despite its poverty, the place exhaled an air of homely if rather ascetic comfort, and the taste was irreproachable. The quiet russet of the tablecloth struck a pleasant harmony with the subdued bluish green of the worn carpet; the Windsor chairs and the legs of the table had been carefully denuded of

With this parting injunction she bustled out through the surgery, and I followed to bid her a ceremonious adieu on the doorstep. I watched her little figure tripping with quick, birdlike steps down Fetter Lane, and was about to turn back into the surgery when my attention was attracted by the evolutions of an elderly gentleman on the opposite side of the street. He was a somewhat peculiar-looking man, tall, gaunt, and bony, and the way in which he carried his head suggested to the medical mind a pronounced degree of near sight and a pair of “deep” spectacle glasses. Suddenly he espied me and crossed the road with his chin thrust forward and a pair of keen blue eyes directed at me through the centers of his spectacles.

“I wonder if you can and will help me,” said he, with a courteous salute. “I wish to call on an acquaintance, and I have forgotten his address. It is in some court, but the name of that court has escaped me for the moment. My friend’s name is Bellingham. I suppose you don’t chance to know it? Doctors know a great many people, as a rule.”

“Do you mean Mr. Godfrey Bellingham?”

“Ah! Then you do know him. I have not consulted the oracle in vain. He is a patient of yours, no doubt?”

“A patient and a personal friend. His address is Forty-nine Nevill’s Court.”

“Thank you, thank you. Oh, and as you are a friend, perhaps you can inform me as to the customs of the household.

“Doctor Summers has insinuated that this murder was committed by a butcher. Now a member of that honorable calling is sitting on this jury⁠—”

“You let me alone,” growled the butcher.

“I will not let you alone,” persisted the cobbler. “I desire⁠—”

“Oh, shut up, Pope!” This was from the foreman, who, at the same moment, reached out an enormous hairy hand with which he grabbed the cobbler’s coattails and brought him into a sitting posture with a thump that shook the room.

But Mr. Pope, though seated, was not silenced. “I desire,” he said, “to have my protest put on record.”

“I can’t do that,” said the coroner, “and I can’t allow you to interrupt the witnesses.”

“I am acting,” said Mr. Pope, “in the interests of my friend here and the members of a honorable⁠—”

But here the butcher turned on him savagely, and, in a hoarse stage-whisper, exclaimed:

“Look here, Pope; you’ve got too much of what the cat licks⁠—”

“Gentlemen! gentlemen!” the coroner protested sternly; “I cannot permit this unseemly conduct. You are forgetting the solemnity of the occasion and your own responsible positions. I must insist on more decent and decorous behavior.”

There was profound silence, in the midst of which the butcher concluded in the same hoarse whisper:

“⁠—licks ’er paws with.”

The coroner cast a withering glance at him, and, turning to the witness, resumed the examination.