CHAPTER 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 precis 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.