Explore "Dr Thorndyke Intervenes" by R. Austin Freeman on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Most of us have wit enough to be wise after the event, and a few of us have enough to be wise before. Thorndyke was one of these few, and I, alas! was not. I am speaking in generalities, but I am thinking of a particular case--the Winsborough Peerage Claim. That case I could not bring myself to take seriously. The story appeared to me, as it had appeared to Miller, merely grotesque. Its improbabilities were so outrageous that I could not entertain it as a problem for serious consideration. And then, such as it was, it was a purely legal case, completely outside our ordinary line of practice. At least, that is how it appeared to me.
Now, Thorndyke made no such mistake. Naturally, he could not foresee developments in detail. But subsequent events showed that he had foreseen, and very carefully considered, all the possible contingencies, so that when they arose they found him prepared. And he also saw clearly that the case might turn out to be very much in our line.