“Well, the man was very heavily insured, you know; and, for one reason or another, the company is inclined to suspect suicide. Of course if it’s suicide it doesn’t pay up.”
“Well, you’d better lie low about it and stay on for a few days. Good for you and Mrs. Bredon to get a bit of a holiday. But of course suicide is right off the map.”
“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 to-night; 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 wall-paper 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 water-power, 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 anæsthetic. 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.