“People do commit suicide, don’t they, by leaving the gas on?”
“Yes, but they don’t get up and turn the gas off and then go back to bed to die. They don’t open the window, and leave it open—”
“The gas turned off? The window opened? You don’t mean—”
“I mean that if it was suicide it was a very rum kind of suicide, and if it was accident it was a very rum kind of accident. Mark you, I’m saying that to you; but don’t you go putting it about the place. Some of these people in the inn may know more about it than they ought to. Mum’s the word.”
“Yes, I can see that. Let’s see, who were there in the house? This secretary fellow, and the old gentleman I saw down by the river, I suppose, and Mrs. Davis and the barmaid and the Boots—that’s all I’ve heard of up to now. That’s right, keep ’em all under suspicion. But I wish you’d let me see the room; it seems to me there must be points of interest about it.”
“Best see it now, I think. They’re going to fix up the corpse properly tonight; so far they’ve left things more or less untouched. There’s just light enough left to have a look round.”
The inn must at some time have known better days, for this room was generously proportioned, and could clearly be used as a bed-sitting room. But the wallpaper had seen long service; the decorations were mean, the furniture shabby; it was not the sort of accommodation that would attract a rich man from Pullford but for the reputation the place had for fishing and, perhaps, the want of any rival establishment. Chilthorpe, in spite of its possibilities of waterpower, had no electric light; but the inn, with one or two neighbouring houses, was lighted by acetylene gas from a plant which served the vicarage and the parish hall. These unpleasant fumes, still hanging in the air after two days, were responsible, it seemed, for the tragic loading of the bed which stood beside them.
To this last, Bredon paid little attention. He had no expert medical knowledge, and the cause of death was unquestioned; both the local man and a doctor whom the police had called in were positive that the symptoms were those of gas poisoning and that no other symptoms were present; that there were no marks of violence, no indications even of a struggle; the man had died, it seemed, in his sleep as if from an overdose of anaesthetic. Beside his bed stood a glass slightly encrusted with some whitish mixture; Bredon turned toward Leyland with an inquiring look as his eye met it.
“No good,” said Leyland. “We had it analysed, and it’s quite a mild sort of sleeping draught. He sometimes took them, it seems, because he slept badly, especially in a strange bed. But there’s no vice in the thing; it wouldn’t kill a man however heavily he doped himself with it, the doctor says.”
“Of course it explains why he slept so soundly and didn’t notice the gas leaking.”
“It does that; and, if it comes to that, it sets me wondering a little. I mean, supposing it was murder, it looks as if it was done by somebody who knew Mottram’s habits.”
“If it was murder, yes. But if it was suicide, it’s easy to understand the man doping himself, so that he should die off more painlessly. The only thing it doesn’t look like is accident, because it would be rather a coincidence that he should happen to be laid out by a sleeping draught just on the very night when the gas was left on. I’d like to have a look at this gas.”
There was a bracket on the wall, not far from the door, which originally had been the only light in the room. But for bed-sitting room purposes a special fitting had been added to this giving a second vent for the gas; and this new vent was connected by a long piece of rubber tubing with a standard lamp that stood on the writing-table near the window. There were thus three taps in all, and all of these close together on the bracket. One opened the jet on the bracket itself, one led to the rubber tubing and the standard lamp and the third was the oldest and closest to the wall, serving to cut off the supply of gas from both passages at once. This third main tap was turned off now; of the other two, the one on the bracket was closed, the one which led to the standard lamp stood open.
“Is this how the taps were when the body was first found?” asked Bredon.
“Exactly. Of course we’ve turned them on and off since to make certain that the jets were both in working order. They were, both of them. And we tried the taps for fingerprints—with powder, you know.”
“Any results?”
“Only on the main tap. We could just trace where it had been turned on, with the thumb pressing on the right-hand side. But there were no marks of fingers turning it off.”
“That’s damned queer.”
“Gloves?”
“Oh, of course you think it was murder. Still, if it was murder it should have been the murderer who turned it on and off. Why did he conceal his traces in one case and not in the other?”
“Well, as a matter of fact, it was Mottram who turned the gas on. At the main, that is. The tap of the standard seems to have been on all the time, at least there were no marks on it. That’s queer too.”
“Yes, if he wanted it to be known that he committed suicide. But if he didn’t, you see, the whole business may have been bluff.”
“I see, you want it to be suicide masquerading as accident. I want it to be murder masquerading as suicide. Your difficulty, it seems to me, is explaining how
