-wrote at Florence.'

'How do you know?' he asked. 'A different machine? Some small
peculiarity in the shape of the letters?'

'No, the rogue who typed this will was too cunning for that. He didn't
allow himself to be foiled by such a scholar's mate. It is written with
a Spread Eagle, the same sort of machine precisely as my own. I know the
type perfectly. But----' I hesitated.

'But what?'

'Well, it is difficult to explain. There is character in typewriting,
just as there is in handwriting, only, of course, not quite so much of
it. Every operator is liable to his own peculiar tricks and blunders.
If I had some of my own typewritten manuscript here to show you, I could
soon make that evident.'

'I can easily believe it. Individuality runs through all we do, however
seemingly mechanical. But are the points of a sort that you could make
clear in court to the satisfaction of a jury?'

'I think so. Look here, for example. Certain letters get habitually
mixed up in typewriting; _c_ and _v_ stand next one another on the
keyboard of the machine, and the person who typed this draft sometimes
strikes a _c_ instead of a _v_, or _vice versa_. I never do that. The
letters I tend to confuse are _s_ and _w_, or else _e_ and _r_, which
also come very near one another in the arbitrary arrangement. Besides,
when I type-wrote the original of this will, I made no errors at all; I
took such very great pains about it.'

'And this person did make errors?'

'Yes; struck the wrong letter first, and then corrected it often by
striking another rather hard on top of it. See, this was a _v_ to begin
with, and he turned it into a _c_. Besides, the hand that wrote this
will is heavier than mine: it comes down _thump_, _thump_, _thump_,
while mine glides lightly. And the hyphens are used with a space between
them, and the character of the punctuation is not exactly as I make it.'

'Still,' Mr. Hayes objected, 'we have nothing but your word. I'm afraid,
in such a case, we could never induce a jury to accept your unsupported
evidence.'

'I don't want them to accept it,' I answered. 'I am looking this up for
my own satisfaction. I want to know, first, who wrote this will. And of
one thing I am quite clear: it is _not_ the document I drew up for Mr.
Ashurst. Just look at that _x_. The _x_ alone is conclusive. My
typewriter had the upper right-hand stroke of the small _x_ badly
formed, or broken, while this one is perfect. I remember it well,