"

Thorndyke reflected a while, running his eye over the notes on the slips
of paper in his hand, and Marchmont surveyed him with a malicious smile.
Presently the latter remarked:

"Methinks the learned counsel is floored."

Thorndyke laughed. "It seems to me," he retorted, "that your proceedings
are rather like those of the amiable individual who offered the bear a
flint pebble, that he might crack it and extract the kernel. Your
confounded will seems to offer no soft spot on which one could commence
an attack. But we won't give up. We seem to have sucked the will dry.
Let us now have a few facts respecting the parties concerned in it; and,
as Jeffrey is the central figure, let us begin with him and the tragedy
at New Inn that formed the starting-point of all this trouble."

Chapter VI

Jeffrey Blackmore, Deceased

Having made the above proposition, Thorndyke placed a fresh slip of
paper on the blotting pad on his knee and looked inquiringly at Mr.
Marchmont; who, in his turn, sighed and looked at the bundle of
documents on the table.

"What do you want to know?" he asked a little wearily.

"Everything," replied Thorndyke. "You have hinted at circumstances that
would account for a change in Jeffrey's habits and that would explain an
alteration in the character of his signature. Let us have those
circumstances. And, if I might venture on a suggestion, it would be that
we take the events in the order in which they occurred or in which they
became known."

"That's the worst of you, Thorndyke," Marchmont grumbled. "When a case
has been squeezed out to the last drop, in a legal sense, you want to
begin all over again with the family history of every one concerned and
a list of his effects and household furniture. But I suppose you will
have to be humoured; and I imagine that the best way in which to give
you the information you want will be to recite the circumstances
surrounding the death of Jeffrey Blackmore. Will that suit you?"

"Perfectly," replied Thorndyke; and thereupon Marchmont began:

"The death of Jeffrey Blackmore was discovered at about eleven o'clock
in the morning of the fifteenth of March. It seems that a builder's man
was ascending a ladder to examine a gutter on number 31, New Inn, when,
on passing a second-floor window that was open at the top, he looked in
and perceived a gentleman lying on a bed. The gentleman was fully
clothed and had apparently lain down on the bed to rest; at le