“I heard him sneeze when I had scarcely sat down. He had such a bad cold. I think myself that it was the influenza that made him go off his head and drink poison and all. I mean to say I've read of such cases.”
“It looks very like it,” he agreed, “and now, Maggie, I think I heard Miss Leslie go out a little while ago?”
“Yes, sir. She's due at a rehearsal at the Columbine.”
“Then seat yourself in her room and listen. I shall drop something on the table, then I shall drop something else on it. I want you to come back and tell me which of the two sounds the heaviest. Listen carefully.”
Maggie disappeared. Pointer could hear the wicker easy-chair creak slightly. He dropped one of the dental works which Eames had always had out on his table. Then after a pause he dropped it again. He and Watts had already tested just how much could be heard through the partition wall, but this time he was testing Maggie's accuracy.
She came back a second later, looking rather awkward.
“Well, sir, they both sounded alike. I mean to say I reely couldn't tell any difference, not to speak of.”
“That proves they were both about the same weight, which is quite likely. Now, Maggie, go back again; sit where you sat on Saturday afternoon. I shall drop into this easy chair. I want to find out if the chair makes as much noise with me as it did with Mr. Eames. I mean to say”—the Superintendent bit his lip for a second—“that time you heard Mr. Eames fall into it, after he had taken his medicine. Knock once on the wall if it's not so loud, and twice if it's louder.”
He listened till he heard Maggie draw up her chair, then he dropped heavily into his. Maggie knocked once. He let himself fall with all his weight, and Maggie came in.
“That's as near as no matter, sir, to the sound poor Mr. Eames made.”