“Well?” Thorndyke said presently, after watching with grave interest my unavailing efforts; “what do you make of it?”
“Nothing!” I exclaimed desperately, slapping the paper down on the table. “Of course, I can see that there are some queer coincidences. But how do they bear on the case? I understand that you want to upset this will; which we know to have been signed without compulsion or even suggestion in the presence of two respectable men, who have sworn to the identity of the document. That is your object, I believe?”
“Certainly it is.”
“Then I am hanged if I see how you are going to do it. Not, I should say, by offering a group of vague coincidences that would muddle any brain but your own.”
Thorndyke chuckled softly but pursued the subject no farther.
“Put that paper in your file with your other notes,” he said, “and think it over at your leisure. And now I want a little help from you. Have you a good memory for faces?”
“Fairly good, I think. Why?”
“Because I have a photograph of a man whom I think you may have met. Just look at it and tell me if you remember the face.”
He drew a cabinet size photograph from an envelope that had come by the morning’s post and handed it to me.
“I have certainly seen this face somewhere,” said I, taking the portrait over to the window to examine it more thoroughly, “but I can’t, at the moment, remember where.”
“Try,” said Thorndyke. “If you have seen the face before, you should be able to recall the person.”
I looked intently at the photograph, and the more I looked, the more familiar did the face appear. Suddenly the identity of the man flashed into my mind and I exclaimed in astonishment:
“It can’t be that poor creature at Kennington, Mr. Graves?”
“I think it can,” replied Thorndyke, “and I think it is. But could you swear to the identity in a court of law?”
“It is my firm conviction that the photograph is that of Mr. Graves. I would swear to that.”
“No man ought to swear to more,” said Thorndyke. “Identification is always a matter of opinion or belief. The man who will swear unconditionally to identity from memory only is a man whose evidence should be discredited. I think your sworn testimony would be sufficient.”
It is needless to say that the production of this photograph filled me with amazement and curiosity as to how Thorndyke had obtained it. But, as he replaced it impassively in its envelope without volunteering any explanation, I felt that I could not question him directly. Nevertheless, I ventured to approach the subject in an indirect manner.
“Did you get any information from those Darmstadt people?” I asked.
“Schnitzler? Yes. I learned, through the medium of an official acquaintance, that Dr. H. Weiss was a stranger to them; that they knew nothing about him excepting that he had ordered from them, and been supplied with, a hundred grams of pure hydrochlorate of morphine.”
“All at once?”
“No. In separate parcels of twenty-five grams each.”
“Is that all you know about Weiss?”
“It is all that I actually know; but it is not all that I suspect—on very substantial grounds. By the way, what did you think of the coachman?”
“I don’t know that I thought very much about him. Why?”
“You never suspected that he and Weiss were one and the same person?”
“No. How could they be? They weren’t in the least alike. And one was a Scotchman and the other a German. But perhaps you know that they were the same?”
“I only know what you have told me. But considering that you never saw them together, that the coachman was never available for messages or assistance when Weiss was with you; that Weiss always made his appearance some time after you arrived, and disappeared some time before you left; it has seemed to me that they might have been the same person.”
“I should say it was impossible. They were so very different in appearance. But supposing that they were the same; would the fact be of any importance?”
“It would mean that we could save ourselves the trouble of looking for the coachman. And it would suggest some inferences, which will occur to you if you think the matter over. But being only a speculative opinion, at present, it would not be safe to infer very much from it.”
“You have rather taken me by surprise,” I remarked. “It seems that you have been working at this Kennington case, and working pretty actively I imagine, whereas I supposed that your entire attention was taken up by the Blackmore affair.”
“It doesn’t do,” he replied, “to allow one’s entire attention to be taken up by any one case. I have half a dozen others—minor cases, mostly—to which I am attending at this moment. Did you think I was proposing to keep you under lock and key indefinitely?”
“Well, no. But I thought the Kennington case would have to wait its turn. And I had no idea that you were in possession of enough facts to enable you to get any farther with it.”
“But you knew all the very striking facts of the case, and you saw the further evidence that we extracted from the empty house.”
“Do you mean those things that we picked out from the rubbish under the grate?”
“Yes. You saw those curious little pieces of reed and the pair of spectacles. They are lying in the top drawer of that cabinet at this moment, and I should recommend you to have another look at them. To me they are most instructive. The pieces of reed offered an extremely valuable suggestion, and the spectacles enabled me to test that suggestion and turn it into actual information.”
“Unfortunately,” said I, “the pieces of reed convey nothing to me. I don’t know what they are or of what they have formed a part.”
“I think,” he replied, “that if you examine them with due consideration, you will find their use
