Merton reflected in silence.
‘The obvious view is not always the correct one,’ he said. ‘The marquis was, at least I thought that he was, a very eccentric person.’
‘No doubt about that,’ said the doctor.
‘Very well. He had reasons, such reasons as might occur to a mind like his, for wanting to test the character and conduct of Mr. Logan, his only living kinsman. What I am going to say will seem absurd to you, but—the marquis spoke to me of his malady as a kind of “dwawming,” I did not know what he meant, at the time, but yesterday I consulted the glossary of a Scotch novel: to dwawm, I think, is to lose consciousness?’
The doctor nodded.
‘Now you have read,’ said Merton, ‘the case published by Dr. Cheyne, of a gentleman, Colonel Townsend, who could voluntarily produce a state of “dwawm” which was not then to be distinguished from death?’
‘I have read it in the notes to Aytoun’s Scottish Cavaliers,’ said the doctor.
‘Now, then, suppose that the marquis, waking out of such a state, whether voluntarily induced (which is very improbable) or not, thought fit to withdraw himself, for the purpose of secretly watching, from some retreat, the behaviour of his heir, if he has made Mr. Logan his heir? Is that hypothesis absolutely out of keeping with his curious character?’
‘No. It’s crazy enough, if you will excuse me, but, for these last few weeks, at any rate, I would have swithered about signing a fresh certificate to the marquis’s sanity.’
‘You did, perhaps, sign one when he made his will, as he told me?’