“The hole is of no importance. The coin may have been given him for luck,” replied my companion. “Lots of people believe in such things, especially betting men.”
“He was evidently very careful of it,” I said, at the same time searching and finding another pocket on the other side of the vest, and from this I took a neat little cloth-covered case, not much larger than those containing cigarette tubes, and found on opening it that it contained a small hypodermic syringe, complete with its needles and accessories.
“This shows that he was addicted to the morphia habit,” I remarked. “An overdose, perhaps.”
My friend, who had now recovered something of his coolness and self-possession, took the tiny instrument and examined it carefully beneath the gas-light.
“There’s been no morphia in this lately,” he said. “It’s quite dry, and certainly hasn’t been used to-day.”
“Let’s search the whole house,” I suggested. “We may find something which will give us a clue as to who and what these people were. Funny that the servants don’t come back, isn’t it?”
“I don’t expect they will,” answered Patterson.
“Depend upon it that there’s more mystery in this affair than we at present suspect.”
“Why?”
“Look at these,” he said, passing over to me the three banknotes found upon the dead man. “They are spurious!”