The great consultant smiled at him indulgently.
“I am sure that this discovery has made Dr. Cassilis renounce that theory,” he answered. “A man who was accustomed to take opium in such doses as these would have to take a terrible quantity to kill himself. And this box, is nearly full.”
My brain was buzzing while he spoke. Utter darkness seemed to be settling down on my mind. I gazed at my chief in stupefaction greater than the Inspector’s.
“The problem for Dr. Cassilis and myself is this,” he continued, addressing his explanation to Captain Charles, although I realized that he was speaking at least as much for my benefit. “The corpse shows all the usual symptoms of poisoning by opium. But if the deceased had accustomed his system to opium it is not easy to understand how anyone could have given him enough to produce death. The dose must have been enormous, and he must have detected the taste at once in any ordinary medium such as a cup of coffee.”
I just managed to nod my head with assent.
“The inference I am inclined to draw at the moment,” the specialist concluded, “is that Wilson was not a taker of the drug and that these pellets were not intended for himself. I think it is more probable that he carried them as weapons of self-defense. Perhaps Salome would have been given one last night if her jealousy had carried her too far, perhaps Zenobia. And perhaps the Leopardess left so early because she had been given one.”
My brain seemed to resume its normal clearness as the doctor spoke. There was really nothing very extraordinary in the coincidence, if he was right. After all, opium was the drug which it was natural for anyone to use in such circumstances. It was practically tasteless, its effects were easily mistaken for those of alcohol even by the victim, till it was too late for him to resist them. And the character of the Domino Club was such, and its members came to it in such secrecy, that one of them might be carried home in a narcotic sleep, and die before wakening from it, without his death ever being traced to the place where he had been.
While these reflections were coming to compose my mind Tarleton was renewing his investigation of the dead man’s pockets. This time the result was negative, so far as I could see. It gave a start to me and to the Inspector when the doctor suddenly raised himself with a look of triumph and exclaimed, “I see it!”
Charles bent forward with a bewildered gaze. I held my breath. The next sentence was decisive.
“There are no keys—not even a latchkey. Whoever drugged him took his keys, and took them for a purpose.” He turned on the startled Inspector, and issued his commands like a general on a battlefield ordering an advance all along the line. “Ring up your people and find out if they have received a report of any house being entered during the night or early this morning. And ask them to send a man round the theatrical costumiers to find out if any of them have supplied costumes lately of a Zenobia and a Salome and an Eastern one with a leopard skin. Though I doubt if you will hear anything about the last. It sounds like one made up privately. Meanwhile we will ask Madame Bonnell to give us some breakfast.”