“That,” Thorndyke concluded, “is Joseph Ridley’s statement; and I think it will enable you to give a meaning to the other facts that I have offered for your consideration.”
“I am not so sure about that,” said Marchmont. “It is all exceedingly mysterious. Your suggestion is, of course, that the woman who came to New Inn in the cab was Mrs. Schallibaum!”
“Not at all,” replied Thorndyke. “My suggestion is that the woman was Jeffrey Blackmore.”
There was deathly silence for a few moments. We were all absolutely thunderstruck, and sat gaping at Thorndyke in speechless-astonishment. Then—Mr. Winwood fairly bounced out of his chair.
“But—my—good—sir!” he screeched. “Jeffrey Blackmore was with her at the time!”
“Naturally,” replied Thorndyke, “my suggestion implies that the person who was with her was not Jeffrey Blackmore.”
“But he was!” bawled Winwood. “The porter saw him!”
“The porter saw a person whom he believed to be Jeffrey Blackmore. I suggest that the porter’s belief was erroneous.”
“Well,” snapped Winwood, “perhaps you can prove that it was. I don’t see how you are going to; but perhaps you can.”
He subsided once more into his chair and glared defiantly at Thorndyke.
“You seemed,” said Stephen, “to suggest some connection between the sick man, Graves, and my uncle. I noted it at the time, but put it aside as impossible. Was I right. Did you mean to suggest any connection?”
“I suggest something more than a connection. I suggest identity. My position is that the sick man, Graves, was your uncle.”
“From Dr. Jervis’s description,” said Stephen, “this man must have been very like my uncle. Both were blind in the right eye and had very poor vision with the left; and my uncle certainly used brushes of the kind that you have shown us, when writing in the Japanese character, for I have watched him and admired his skill; but—”
“But,” said Marchmont, “there is the insuperable objection that, at the very time when this man was lying sick in Kennington Lane, Mr. Jeffrey was living at New Inn.”
“What evidence is there of that?” asked Thorndyke.
“Evidence!” Marchmont exclaimed impatiently. “Why, my dear sir—”
He paused suddenly, and, leaning forward, regarded Thorndyke with a new and rather startled expression.
“You mean to suggest—” he began.
“I suggest that Jeffrey Blackmore never lived at New Inn at all.”
For the moment, Marchmont seemed absolutely paralysed by astonishment.
“This is an amazing proposition!” he exclaimed, at length. “Yet the thing is certainly not impossible, for, now that you recall the fact, I realize that no one who had known him previously—excepting his brother, John—ever saw him at the inn. The question of identity was never raised.”
“Excepting,” said Mr. Winwood, “in regard to the body; which was certainly that of Jeffrey Blackmore.”
“Yes, yes. Of course,” said Marchmont. “I had forgotten that for the moment. The body was identified beyond doubt. You don’t dispute the identity of the body, do you?”
“Certainly not,” replied Thorndyke.
Here Mr. Winwood grasped his hair with both hands and stuck his elbows on his knees, while Marchmont drew forth a large handkerchief and mopped his forehead. Stephen Blackmore looked from one to the other expectantly, and finally said:
“If I might make a suggestion, it would be that, as Dr. Thorndyke has shown us the pieces now of the puzzle, he should be so kind as to put them together for our information.”
“Yes,” agreed Marchmont, “that will be the best plan. Let us have the argument, Doctor, and any additional evidence that you possess.”
“The argument,” said Thorndyke, “will be a rather long one, as the data are so numerous, and there are some points in verification on which I shall have to dwell in some detail. We will have some coffee to clear our brains, and then I will bespeak your patience for what may seem like a rather prolix demonstration.”
XVI
An Exposition and a Tragedy
“You may have wondered,” Thorndyke commenced, when he had poured out the coffee and handed round the cups, “what induced me to undertake the minute investigation of so apparently simple and straightforward a case. Perhaps I had better explain that first and let you see what was the real starting-point of the inquiry.
“When you, Mr. Marchmont and Mr. Stephen, introduced the case to me, I made a very brief précis of the facts as you presented them, and of these there were one or two which immediately attracted my attention. In the first place, there was the will. It was a very strange will. It was perfectly unnecessary. It contained no new matter; it expressed no changed intentions; it met no new circumstances, as known to the testator. In short it was not really a new will at all, but merely a repetition of the first one, drafted in different and less suitable language. It differed only in introducing a certain ambiguity from which the original was free. It created the possibility that, in certain circumstances, not known to or anticipated by the testator, John Blackmore might become the principal beneficiary, contrary to the obvious wishes of the testator.
“The next point that impressed me was the manner of Mrs. Wilson’s death. She died of cancer. Now people do not die suddenly and unexpectedly of cancer. This terrible disease stands almost alone in that it marks out its victim months in advance. A person who has an incurable cancer is a person whose death may be predicted with certainty and its date fixed within comparatively narrow limits.
“And now observe the remarkable series of coincidences that are brought into light when we consider this peculiarity of the disease. Mrs. Wilson died on the twelfth of March of this present year. Mr. Jeffrey’s second will was signed on the twelfth of November of last year; at a time, that is to say, when the existence of cancer must have been known to Mrs. Wilson’s doctor, and might have been known to any of her relatives who chose to inquire after her.
“Then you will observe that the remarkable change in Mr. Jeffrey’s habits coincides in
