“Case 7? That's the converse of the last one. He was shot deliberately and she died by accident. What about it?”
“That would mean, sir, that either she took an overdose of the drug by mistake or someone gave her a fatal dose, ditto. Then either she or a third party shot young Hassendean.”
“Something of the sort.”
“H'm! It's no worse than some of the other suggestions. I wonder, now. . . . She didn't look like a dope-fiend, so far as I could see; but she might have been just a beginner and taken an overdose by accident. Her eye-pupils were pretty wide-open. That wouldn't fit in with her snuffing morphine or heroin, but she might have been a cocaine addict, for all we know. . . . This method of yours is very stimulating, sir. It makes one think along fresh lines.”
“Well, have another think, Inspector. Case 8: he suicided and she was murdered.”
“That brings us up against the missing motive again, sir. I'd like to think over that later on.”
“Case 9, then: He was murdered and she committed suicide. What about that?”
“Let me take it bit by bit, sir. First of all, if he was murdered, then either she did it or a third party did it. If she did it, then she might have premeditated it, and had her dose of poison with her, ready to swallow when she'd shot young Hassendean. That's that. If a third party murdered young Hassendean, she might have suicided in terror of what was going to happen to her; but that would imply that she was carrying poison about with her. Also, this third party—whoever he was—must have had his knife pretty deep in both of them. That's one way of looking at it. But there's another side to the thing as well. Suppose it was one of these suicide-pacts and she took the poison as her part of the bargain; then, before he can swallow his dose, the third party comes on the scene and shoots him. That might be a possibility.”
“And the third party obligingly removed the superfluous dose of poison, for some inscrutable reason of his own, eh?”
“H'm! It seems silly, doesn't it?”