"Oh, not at all. Suicide is, of course, the most natural suspicion in a case like this, and it isn't hard to conceal enough opium in a cigarette to kill a dozen men."
"Blazes! I never thought of that!" ejaculated the deputy. "Come on!" and he led the way back to the cell.
Singa Phut's body had been removed to another part of the jail. But the cell was as it had been when the final summons came to the East Indian.
There were the few poor possessions he had been allowed to have with him—simple and apparently safe enough. And, scattered on the floor, were some of the cigarettes, made from strong Latakia tobacco, the peculiar odor of which was, even yet, noticeable in the corners of the cell.
"He smoked some of 'em all right," observed the deputy.
"Let's have a look," suggested the colonel. "If we had a better light in here it might help."
"I'll bring one of the two-hundred watt bulbs we use down in the office," said the warden, who had joined the little group. There was an electric light socket in each cell—recently installed as the result of the agitation of a prison reform committee. The low-powered bulb was taken out and the glaring nitrogen gas one substituted. It made the cell very bright, and by the glare the colonel gathered up a number of the cigarettes. Some had been smoked down to a mere stub; others had not been lighted, and two or three were broken in half, neither end showing signs of either having been scorched by a match or wet by the lips of Singa Phut.
"Queer he'd waste 'em that way," observed Donovan. "Usually they can't get enough to smoke."
"He didn't exactly waste them," said the colonel grimly, as he looked at the divided but otherwise perfect cigarettes in his hand.
"What do you call it then?" demanded the headquarters detective.