" He took a couple of papers from his bundle and silently
handed one to me and the other to Thorndyke.
Jervis's ominous manner, naturally enough, alarmed me not a little. I
opened the paper with a nameless dread. But whatever my vague fears,
they fell far short of the occasion; and when I saw those yells from
without crystallised into scare headlines and flaming capitals I turned
for a moment sick and dizzy with fear.
The paragraph was only a short one, and I read it through in less than a
minute:
"THE MISSING FINGER
"DRAMATIC DISCOVERY AT WOODFORD.
"The mystery that has surrounded the remains of a mutilated human body,
portions of which have been found in various places in Kent and Essex,
has received a partial and very sinister solution. The police have, all
along, suspected that these remains were those of a Mr. John Bellingham
who disappeared under circumstances of some suspicion about two years
ago. There is now no doubt upon the subject, for the finger which was
missing from the hand that was found at Sidcup has been discovered at
the bottom of a disused well _together with a ring_, which has been
identified as one habitually worn by Mr.
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