In fact, I would affirm that the certainty of the
truth of a given proposition is directly proportional to its
generality."

"I suppose that is so," said I.

"Undoubtedly. Take an instance from your own profession. Given a million
normal human beings under twenty, and you can say with certainty that a
majority of them will die before reaching a certain age, that they will
die in certain circumstances and of certain diseases. Then take a single
unit from that million, and what can you predict concerning him?
Nothing. He may die to-morrow; he may live to a couple of hundred. He
may die of a cold in the head or a cut finger, or from falling off the
cross of St. Paul's. In a particular case you can predict nothing."

"That is perfectly true," said I. And then, realising that I had been
led away from the topic of John Bellingham, I ventured to return to it.

"That was a very mysterious affair--the disappearance of John
Bellingham, I mean."

"Why mysterious?" asked Mr. Jellicoe. "Men disappear from time to time,
and when they reappear, the explanations that they give (when they give
any) seem to be more or less adequate."

"But the circumstances were surely rather mysterious."

"What circumstances?" asked Mr. Jellicoe.

"I mean the way in which he vanished from Mr. Hurst's house."

"In what way did he vanish from it?"

"Well, of course, I don't know."

"Precisely. Neither do I. Therefore I can't say whether that way was a
mysterious one or not."

"It is not even certain that he did leave it," I remarked, rather
recklessly.

"Exactly," said Mr. Jellicoe. "And if he did not, he is there still. And
if he is there still, he has not disappeared--in the sense understood.
And if he has not disappeared, there is no mystery."

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). There was
something highly diverting about this grim lawyer, with his dry
contentiousness and almost farcical caution. His ostentatious reserve
encouraged me to ply him with fresh questions, the more indiscreet the
better.

"I suppose," said I, "that, under these circumstances, you would hardly
favour Mr. Hurst's proposal to apply for permission to presume death?"

"Under what circumstances?" he inquired.

"I was referring to the doubt you have expressed as to whether John
Bellingham is, after all, r