“Did you find him deep?”
“Not in that way. Miles, I forbid you to suspect Mr. Pulteney; he’s my favourite man. He told me that suicide generally followed, instead of preceding, the arrival of young ladies. I giggled.”
“I wish he’d drown himself. He’s one too many in this darned place. And it’s all confusing enough without him.”
“Want me to put in some Watson work?”
“If you aren’t wanting to go to bed.” Watson work meant that Angela tried to suggest new ideas to her husband under a mask of carefully assumed stupidity. “You see, I’m all for suicide. My instincts tell me that it’s suicide. I can smell it in the air.”
“I only smelt acetylene. Why suicide particularly?”
“Well, there’s the locked door. I’ve still got to see the Boots and verify Brinkman’s facts; but a door locked on the inside, with barred windows, makes nonsense of Leyland’s idea.”
“But a murderer might want to lock the door, so as to give himself time to escape.”
“Exactly; but he’d lock it on the outside. On the other hand, a locked door looks like suicide, because, unless Brinkman is lying, Mottram didn’t lock his door as a rule; and the Boots had orders to go into the room with shaving-water that morning.”
“Why the Boots? Why not the maid?”