“No good,” said Leyland. “We had it analysed, and it’s quite a mild sort of sleeping draught. He sometimes took them, it seems, because he slept badly, especially in a strange bed. But there’s no vice in the thing; it wouldn’t kill a man however heavily he doped himself with it, the doctor says.”
“Of course it explains why he slept so soundly and didn’t notice the gas leaking.”
“It does that; and, if it comes to that, it sets me wondering a little. I mean, supposing it was murder, it looks as if it was done by somebody who knew Mottram’s habits.”
“If it was murder, yes. But if it was suicide, it’s easy to understand the man doping himself, so that he should die off more painlessly. The only thing it doesn’t look like is accident, because it would be rather a coincidence that he should happen to be laid out by a sleeping draught just on the very night when the gas was left on. I’d like to have a look at this gas.”
There was a bracket on the wall, not far from the door, which originally had been the only light in the room. But for bed-sitting room purposes a special fitting had been added to this giving a second vent for the gas; and this new vent was connected by a long piece of rubber tubing with a standard lamp that stood on the writing-table near the window. There were thus three taps in all, and all of these close together on the bracket. One opened the jet on the bracket itself, one led to the rubber tubing and the standard lamp and the third was the oldest and closest to the wall, serving to cut off the supply of gas from both passages at once. This third main tap was turned off now; of the other two, the one on the bracket was closed, the one which led to the standard lamp stood open.
“Is this how the taps were when the body was first found?” asked Bredon.
“Exactly. Of course we’ve turned them on and off since to make certain that the jets were both in working order. They were, both of them. And we tried the taps for finger-prints—with powder, you know.”
“Any results?”
“Only on the main tap. We could just trace where it had been turned on, with the thumb pressing on the right-hand side. But there were no marks of fingers turning it off.”
“That’s damned queer.”