occasionally at the lodge and have a chat with
me. I went into his chambers with him once or twice on some small
matters of business and I noticed that there were always a number of
books and papers on the table. I understood from him that he spent most
of his time indoors engaged in study and writing. I know very little
about his way of living. He had no laundress to look after his rooms, so
I suppose he did his own house-work and cooking; but he told me that he
took most of his meals outside, at restaurants or his club.

"'Deceased impressed me as a rather melancholy, low-spirited gentleman.
He was very much troubled about his eyesight and mentioned the matter to
me on several occasions. He told me that he was practically blind in one
eye and that the sight of the other was failing rapidly. He said that
this afflicted him greatly, because his only pleasure in life was in the
reading of books, and that if he could not read he should not wish to
live. On another occasion he said that "to a blind man life was not
worth living."

"'On the twelfth of last November he came to the lodge with a paper in
his hand which he said was his will'--But I needn't read that," said
Marchmont, turning over the leaf, "I've told you how the will was signed
and witnessed. We will pass on to the day of poor Jeffrey's death.

"'On the fourteenth of March,' the porter says, 'at about half-past six
in the evening, the deceased came to the Inn in a four-wheeled cab. That
was the day of the great fog. I do not know if there was anyone in the
cab with the deceased, but I think not, because he came to the lodge
just before eight o'clock and had a little talk with me. He said that
he had been overtaken by the fog and could not see at all. He was quite
blind and had been obliged to ask a stranger to call a cab for him as he
could not find his way through the streets. He then gave me a cheque for
the rent. I reminded him that the rent was not due until the
twenty-fifth, but he said he wished to pay it now. He also gave me some
money to pay one or two small bills that were owing to some of the
tradespeople--a milk-man, a baker and a stationer.

"'This struck me as very strange, because he had always managed his
business and paid the tradespeople himself. He told me that the fog had
irritated his eye so that he could hardly read, and he was afraid he
should soon be quite blind. He was very depressed; so much so that I
felt quite uneasy about him. Whe