"The patients mostly live in the small streets and courts within a half-mile radius of the surgery, and the abodes of some of them are pretty squalid.

Oh! and that reminds me of a very strange coincidence.

It will interest you, I think." "Life is made up of strange coincidences," said Thorndyke.

"Nobody but a reviewer of novels is ever really surprised at a coincidence.

But what is yours ?" "It is connected with a case that you mentioned to us at the hospital about two years ago, the case of a man who disappeared under rather mysterious circumstances.