had previously known him, with the single exception of his
brother John, had ever seen Jeffrey at the inn.

"What was the import of these two facts? Probably they had none. But
still they suggested the desirability of considering the question: Was
the person who signed the will really Jeffrey Blackmore? The contrary
supposition--that some one had personated Jeffrey and forged his
signature to a false will--seemed wildly improbable, especially in view
of the identification of the body; but it involved no actual
impossibility; and it offered a complete explanation of the, otherwise
inexplicable, coincidences that I have mentioned.

"I did not, however, for a moment, think that this was the true
explanation, but I resolved to bear it in mind, to test it when the
opportunity arose, and consider it by the light of any fresh facts that
I might acquire.

"The new facts came sooner than I had expected. That same evening I went
with Dr. Jervis to New Inn and found Mr. Stephen in the chambers. By him
I was informed that Jeffrey was a learned Orientalist, with a quite
expert knowledge of the cuneiform writing; and even as he was telling me
this, I looked over his shoulder and saw a cuneiform inscription hanging
on the wall upside down.

"Now, of this there could be only one reasonable explanation.
Disregarding the fact that no one would screw the suspension plates on a
frame without ascertaining which was the right way up, and assuming it
to be hung up inverted, it was impossible that the misplacement could
have been overlooked by Jeffrey. He was not blind, though his sight was
defective. The frame was thirty inches long and the individual
characters nearly an inch in length--about the size of the D 18 letters
of Snellen's test-types, which can be read by a person of ordinary sight
at a distance of fifty-five feet. There was, I repeat, only one
reasonable explanation; which was that the person who had inhabited
those chambers was not Jeffrey Blackmore.

"This conclusion received considerable support from a fact which I
observed later, but mention in this place. On examining the soles of the
shoes taken from the dead man's feet, I found only the ordinary mud of
the streets. There was no trace of the peculiar gravelly mud that
adhered to my own boots and Jervis's, and which came from the square of
the inn. Yet the porter distinctly stated that the deceased, after
paying the rent, walked back towards his chambers across the squa