early blind or quite idiotic; for the
photograph was over two feet long and the characters large enough to be
read easily by a person of ordinary eyesight at a distance of forty or
fifty feet. Now he obviously was not in a state of dementia, whereas his
eyesight was admittedly bad; and it seemed to me that the only
conclusion deducible from the photograph was that it furnished a measure
of the badness of the deceased man's vision--that it proved him to have
been verging on total blindness.

But there was nothing startling new in this. He had, himself, declared
that he was fast losing his sight. And again, what was the bearing of
his partial blindness on the will? A totally blind man cannot draw up
his will at all. But if he has eyesight sufficient to enable him to
write out and sign a will, mere defective vision will not lead him to
muddle the provisions. Yet something of this kind seemed to be in
Thorndyke's mind, for now I recalled the question that he had put to the
porter: "When you read the will over in Mr. Blackmore's presence, did
you read it aloud?" That question could have but one significance. It
implied a doubt as to whether the testator was fully aware of the exact
nature of the document that he was signing. Yet, if he was able to write
and sign it, surely he was able also to read it through, to say nothing
of the fact that, unless he was demented, he must have remembered what
he had written.

Thus, once more, my reasoning only led me into a blind alley at the end
of which was the will, regular and valid and fulfilling all the
requirements that the law imposed. Once again I had to confess myself
beaten and in full agreement with Mr. Marchmont that "there was no
case"; that "there was nothing in dispute." Nevertheless, I carefully
fixed in the pocket file that Thorndyke had given me the copy that I had
made of his notes, together with the notes on our visit to New Inn, and
the few and unsatisfactory conclusions at which I had arrived; and this
brought me to the end of my first morning in my new capacity.

"And how," Thorndyke asked as we sat at lunch, "has my learned friend
progressed? Does he propose that we advise Mr. Marchmont to enter a
caveat?"

"I've read all the documents and boiled all the evidence down to a stiff
jelly; and I am in a worse fog than ever."

"There seems to be a slight mixture of metaphors in my learned friend's
remarks. But never mind the fog, Jervis. There is a certain virtue in