But when I had heard his account, I began to
suspect that there was something more than mere parallelism of method.
It began to look as if his patient, Mr. Graves, might actually be
Jeffrey Blackmore.

"The coincidences were remarkable. The general appearance of the patient
tallied completely with Mr. Stephen's description of his uncle Jeffrey.
The patient had a tremulous iris in his right eye and had clearly
suffered from dislocation of the crystalline lens. But from Mr.
Stephen's account of his uncle's sudden loss of sight in the right eye
after a fall, I judged that Jeffrey had also suffered from dislocation
of the lens and therefore had a tremulous iris in the right eye. The
patient, Graves, evidently had defective vision in his left eye, as
proved by the marks made behind his ears by the hooked side-bars of his
spectacles; for it is only on spectacles that are intended for constant
use that we find hooked side-bars. But Jeffrey had defective vision in
his left eye and wore spectacles constantly. Lastly, the patient Graves
was suffering from chronic morphine poisoning, and morphine was found in
the body of Jeffrey.

"Once more, it appeared to me that there were too many coincidences.

"The question as to whether Graves and Jeffrey were identical admitted
of fairly easy disproof; for if Graves was still alive, he could not be
Jeffrey. It was an important question and I resolved to test it without
delay. That night, Jervis and I plotted out the chart, and on the
following morning we located the house. But it was empty and to let.
The birds had flown, and we failed to discover whither they had gone.

"However, we entered the house and explored. I have told you about the
massive bolts and fastenings that we found on the bedroom doors and
window, showing that the room had been used as a prison. I have told you
of the objects that we picked out of the dust-heap under the grate. Of
the obvious suggestion offered by the Japanese brush and the bottle of
'spirit gum' or cement, I need not speak now; but I must trouble you
with some details concerning the broken spectacles. For here we had come
upon the crucial fact to which, as I have said, all sound inductive
reasoning brings one sooner or later.

"The spectacles were of a rather peculiar pattern. The frames were of
the type invented by Mr. Stopford of Moorfields and known by his name.
The right eye-piece was fitted with plain glass, as is usual in the case
of a blind,