“It is the law,” said Lewis.  “One may draw up a holograph will if he likes, in his own hand, and it is valid without a witness in this State, although the law does not so run in every commonwealth.”

“And now, sir,” continued the Englishman, turning to my father, “we will inquire into the theft of this testament.”

But my father did not appear to notice Mr. Gosford.  He seemed perplexed and in some concern.

“Lewis,” he said, “what is your definition of a crime?”

“It is a violation of the law,” replied the lawyer.

“I do not accept your definition,” said my father.  “It is, rather, I think, a violation of justice — a violation of something behind the law that makes an act a crime.  I think,” he went on, “that God must take a broader view than Mr. Blackstone and Lord Coke.  I have seen a murder in the law that was, in fact, only a kind of awful accident, and I have seen your catalogue of crimes gone about by feeble men with no intent except an adjustment of their rights.  Their crimes, Lewis, were merely errors of their impractical judgment.”

Then he seemed to remember that the Englishman was present.

“And now, Mr. Gosford,” he said, “will you kindly ask young Marshall to come in here?”

The man would have refused, with some rejoinder, but my father was looking at him, and he could not find the courage to resist my father’s will.  He got up and went out, and presently returned followed by the lad and Gaeki.  The old country doctor sat down by the door, his leather case of bottles by the chair, his cloak still fastened under his chin.  Gosford went back to the table and sat down with his writing materials to keep notes.  The boy stood.

My father looked a long time at the lad.  His face was grave, but when he spoke, his voice was gentle.

“My boy,” he said, “I have had a good deal of experience in the examination of the devil’s work.”  He paused and indicated the violated room.  “It is often excellently done.  His disciples are extremely clever.  One’s ingenuity is often taxed to trace out the evil design in it, and to stamp it as a false piece set into the natural sequence of events.”

He paused again, and his big shoulders blotted out the window.

“Every natural event,” he continued, “is intimately connected with innumerable events that precede and follow.  It has so many serrated points of contact with other events that the human mind is not able to fit a false event so that no trace of the joinder will appear.  The most skilled workmen in the devil’s shop are only able to give their false piece a blurred joinder.”

He stopped and turned to the row of mahogany drawers beside him.

“Now, my boy,” he said, “can you tell me why the one who ransacked this room, in opening and tumbling the contents of all the drawers, about, did not open the two at the bottom of the row where I stand?”