and that that person has suppressed it."

"Surely you do not make this suggestion seriously!" I exclaimed.

"Certainly I do not," he replied with a smile. "I merely give it as an
instance to show that your final and absolute fact is really only
conditional on there being no other fact that cancels it."

"Do you think he might have made a third will?"

"It is obviously possible. A man who makes two wills may make three or
more; but I may say that I see no present reason for assuming the
existence of another will. What I want to impress on you is the
necessity of considering all the facts instead of bumping heavily
against the most conspicuous one and forgetting all the rest. By the
way, here is a little problem for you. What was the object of which
these are the parts?"

He pushed across the table a little cardboard box, having first removed
the lid. In it were a number of very small pieces of broken glass, some
of which had been cemented together by their edges.

"These, I suppose," said I, looking with considerable curiosity at the
little collection, "are the pieces of glass that we picked up in poor
Blackmore's bedroom?"

"Yes. You see that Polton has been endeavouring to reconstitute the
object, whatever it was; but he has not been very successful, for the
fragments were too small and irregular and the collection too
incomplete. However, here is a specimen, built up of six small pieces,
which exhibits the general character of the object fairly well."

He picked out the little irregularly shaped object and handed it to me;
and I could not but admire the neatness with which Polton had joined the
tiny fragments together.

I took the little "restoration," and, holding it up before my eyes,
moved it to and fro as I looked through it at the window.

"It was not a lens," I pronounced eventually.

"No," Thorndyke agreed, "it was not a lens."

"And so cannot have been a spectacle-glass. But the surface was
curved--one side convex and the other concave--and the little piece that
remains of the original edge seems to have been ground to fit a bezel or
frame. I should say that these are portions of a watch-glass."

"That is Polton's opinion," said Thorndyke, "and I think you are both
wrong."

"What do you say to the glass of a miniature or locket?"

"That is rather more probable, but it is not my view."

"What do you think it is?" I asked. But Thorndyke was not to be drawn.

"I am submitting the problem for s