An archaeologist returns from Egypt and then becomes the absent center of R. Austin Freeman's The Eye of Osiris Illustrated. John Bellingham disappears after a voyage connected with newly uncovered treasures. He leaves traces behind, but each apparent clue sends the search down another blind alley, raising the possibility that the evidence was arranged to mislead.
Dr. Thorndyke enters where ordinary pursuit has stalled. His method depends on close observation and medical knowledge, disciplines suited to testing whether a clue records an event or merely imitates one. The investigation begins to focus on a man tattooed with the Eye of Osiris, an image that links bodily evidence to Bellingham's archaeological world.
Freeman makes the missing person problem more complex than locating a traveler who failed to return home. Identity, remains, and the interpretation of physical signs all matter when the subject of the search is himself an expert in ancient objects. The novel's suspense grows through competing explanations that must fit the same material facts. Thorndyke's task is to reconstruct what happened to Bellingham without trusting the path that the vanished man seems to have marked out for his pursuers.
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