The connection was accidental and in no wise relevant.
Then, too, there was the missing finger. No reference to any such injury
or deformity had been made in the original report of the disappearance,
though it could hardly have been overlooked. But it was useless to
speculate without facts. I should be seeing Thorndyke in the course of
the next few days, and, undoubtedly, if the discovery had any bearing
upon the disappearance of John Bellingham, I should hear of it. With
which reflection I rose from the table, and, adopting the advice
contained in the spurious Johnsonian quotation proceeded to "take a walk
in Fleet Street" before settling down for the evening.
CHAPTER VI
SIDELIGHTS
The association of coal with potatoes is one upon which I have
frequently speculated, without arriving at any more satisfactory
explanation than that both products are of the earth, earthy. Of the
connection itself Barnard's practice furnished several instances besides
Mrs. Jablett's establishment in Fleur-de-Lys Court, one of which was a
dark and mysterious cavern a foot below the level of the street, that
burrowed under an ancient house on the west side of Fetter Lane--a
crinkly, timber house of the three-decker type that leaned back
drunkenly from the road as if about to sit down in its own back yard.
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