THE NEW ALLIANCE

The "Great Lexicographer"--tutelary deity of my adopted habitat--has
handed down to shuddering posterity a definition of the act of eating
which might have been framed by a dyspeptic ghoul. "Eat: to devour
with the mouth." It is a shocking view to take of so genial a
function: cynical, indelicate, and finally unforgivable by reason of
its very accuracy. For, after all, that is what eating amounts to, if
one must needs express it with such crude brutality. But if "the
ingestion of alimentary substances"--to ring a modern change upon the
older formula--is in itself a process material even unto carnality, it
is undeniable that it forms a highly agreeable accompaniment to more
psychic manifestations.

And so, as the lamplight, reinforced by accessory candles, falls on the
little table in the first-floor room looking on Fetter Lane--only now
the curtains are drawn--the conversation is not the less friendly and
bright for a running accompaniment executed with knives and forks, for
clink of goblet, and jovial gurgle of wine-flask. On the contrary, to
one of us, at least--to wit, Godfrey Bellingham--the occasion is one of
uncommon festivity, and his boyish enjoyment of the simple feast makes
pathetic suggestions of hard times, faced uncomplainingly, but keenly
felt nevertheless.

The talk flitted from topic to topic, mainly concerning itself with
matters artistic, and never for one moment approaching the critical
subject of John Bellingham's will. From the stepped pyramid of Sakkara
with its encaustic tiles to medieval church floors; from Elizabethan
woodwork to Mycenean pottery, and thence to the industrial arts of the
Stone Age and the civilization of the Aztecs. I began to suspect that
my two legal friends were so carried away by the interest of the
conversation that they had forgotten the secret purpose of the meeting,
for the dessert had been placed on the table (by Mrs. Gummer with the
manner of a bereaved dependent dispensing funeral bakemeats), and still
no reference had been made to the "case." But it seemed that Thorndyke
was but playing a waiting game; was only allowing the intimacy to ripen
while he watched for the opportunity. And that opportunity came, even
as Mrs. Gummer vanished spectrally with a tray of plates and glasses.

"So you had a visitor last night, Doctor," said Mr. Bellingham. "I
mean my friend Jellicoe. He told us he had seen you, and mighty
curious he was about y