“It is very remarkable,” I said, poring over the cards to verify Thorndyke’s statements. “I don’t quite know what to make of it. If the circumstances admitted of the idea of forgery, one would suspect the genuineness of some of the signatures. But they don’t⁠—at any rate, in the case of the later will, to say nothing of Mr. Britton’s opinion on the signatures.”

“Still,” said Thorndyke, “there must be some explanation of the change in the character of the signatures, and that explanation cannot be the failing eyesight of the writer; for that is a gradually progressive and continuous condition, whereas the change in the writing is abrupt and intermittent.”

I considered Thorndyke’s remark for a few moments; and then a light⁠—though not a very brilliant one⁠—seemed to break on me.

“I think I see what you are driving at,” said I. “You mean that the change in the writing must be associated with some new condition affecting the writer, and that that condition existed intermittently?”