"Exactly, Wigan; you hit the weak spot in my theory. You will not deny that under certain conditions--criminal conditions--the wife, the assistant, and even the solicitor, Ferguson, might agree to a wrong identification; the insurance official is outside any such suspicion. He declares the dead man to be Dr. Smith. Now, Wigan, look at that notice," and he handed me a cutting from a six months old newspaper. "You see it is the obituary notice of a Dr. London, who was one of the doctors of the Meteor Insurance Company, and I have ascertained that it was he who medically examined Dr. Smith in connection with the life policy. He passed him as a first-class life. I do not fancy any doctor would have passed as a first-class life such a man as was washed up by the sea. Dr. London's death, therefore, removed a valuable witness." "I cannot see that there is any question about the identity," I said. "For a moment let us consider facts," said Quarles. "Mrs. Smith declares that she knows nothing about her husband's affairs, but she does mention a life policy, adding that she does not know whether it is in force or not. Nothing very significant in that; but, curiously enough, the solicitor, Ferguson, volunteers the statement that he introduced Smith to an office, but does not know whether the policy was taken out, because Dr. Smith insisted he should have the benefit of the commission himself. Ferguson is in a small way of business; it is evident that he did not do much work for Dr. Smith, and one wonders why he met him in town and took all this trouble when he was to get nothing out of it. The assistant, Evans, knows nothing about a life policy; in fact, intelligent as he is, he gives little information whatever. Yet there is no doubt that he was a person of some consequence in the household. When the man came to see Dr. Smith, and Mrs. Smith had to explain that her husband was dead, Evans was sent for, and he told you that he had had a trying time with the old gentleman." "He did." "I was the old fool," said Quarles. "You?" "I wanted to see the house and its inhabitants. Mrs. Smith was upset; she was, in fact, a little afraid of me, Wigan. I was an unexpected element in the affair. Patrick Evans is intelligent--very much so; but he did not give you quite a correct version of what happened. He was not sent for; he came into the room with Mrs. Smith and he did most of the talking." "Did you make any discovery in the house?" "Only that Patrick Evans was an important member in it. Now the fact that only these three people had identified the body fitted my theory exactly; but when the insurance official did so, I was puzzled. Still, my belief is this, that the person taken to the insurance company by Ferguson was not the same person who afterward went to Dr. London to be examined." "The difficulties your theory gets over, professor, are enormous."