“Third point, the handkerchief. Why should Brotherhood be carrying somebody else’s handkerchief?”
“If it comes to that, why should somebody else be carrying Brotherhood’s correspondence?”
“Oh, Brotherhood is mixed up in it somehow right enough. We shall see. Next point to be considered, was it accident, suicide, or murder?”
“You can cut out accident, surely. That would be a coincidence—somebody carrying Brotherhood’s letter to fall out of the train by mere accident just where Brotherhood lives.”
“Very well, for the present we’ll ask Murder or Suicide? Now, I’ve several arguments against suicide. First, as I told you, the hat. He wasn’t alone when he fell out of the carriage, or who threw the hat after him?”
“There was no mark in the hat, was there?”
“Only the maker’s; that’s the irritating thing about this business. Hats, collars, shirts, people buy them at a moment’s notice and pay cash for them, so there’s no record in the books. And watches—of course you don’t have a watch sent, you take it with you, to save the danger of carriage by post. I’ll try all those tradesmen if the worst comes to the worst; probably the police have already; but I bet nothing comes of it.”
“What’s your next argument against suicide?”
“The ticket. That extra four bob would have got him a first instead of a third. Now, a man who means to commit suicide doesn’t want four bob, but he does want to be alone.”
“But the suicide might have been an impulse at the last moment.”