The Hanged Man Read Online Free

skills.
    Again, she cast about, searching every corner, every item in the room.
    The table next to the bed held a water carafe and a glass on a little tray. Neither had apparently been used, but a clever killer would have tidied things.
    Alex went to the bedside to examine the carafe. There were potent soporifics without color, though they were often detectable by taste or smell. If one wanted to render a person insensible, then a large amount would have to be dissolved in the carafe—and when would the killer have an opportunity to do that?
    â€œYou think there’s something nasty in his water?” Lennon asked.
    â€œIt’s too uncertain. How could he be sure his victim would even take a drink in the night? Or when?”
    â€œToo true, but I’ll collect it in evidence.”
    Someone had silently entered the room and—what? Injected the man with some substance? If so, then the sting of the needle had not wakened him. The medical examiner might find the puncture, giving lie to this being a suicide.
    â€œWhat makes this murder, eh?” pressed Lennon.
    Alex checked a drawer in the bedside table. Inside was a pocket watch and a Bible. She had to forsake the scented handkerchief, needing both hands. She took a deep breath, then picked up the watch and used the small key on its chain to wind it. A quarter turn and no more, so he’d wound it before retiring, read a bit of his Bible, then put out his candle, just as a thousand other men might do.
    â€œWhat suicide troubles to wind his watch?” she asked.
    â€œForce of habit,” Lennon countered. “I’ve seen queerer stuff. What else?”
    Her pent-up breath puffed out as she put the items back, and she did not get the handkerchief to her nose in time, catching a whiff of the stench—and something else.
    She bent to sniff the man’s pillow.
    Sharp and astringent, no more than a whisper of it remained, and that was well masked by the stronger smell of night soil, and further diluted by the freezing air blowing in; this death might well be ruled a suicide but for that.
    â€œGot you,” she said, pointing and stepping back to make room for the inspector.
    He shot her a suspicious glare, as though expecting a trick, then bent and breathed in.
    He snorted, but not dismissively. “Now that is interesting. Let’s have another opinion, just to be sure. Brook! Up here on the double!”
    Brook must have been at the foot of the stairs. He charged up in quick response to Lennon’s bellow, but stopped short in the doorway to stare at the corpse, and lost much of his color.
    â€œIn here, man,” Lennon snapped. “That beggar’s past harming aught.”
    Brook visibly braced himself, assuming the carefully blank expression again, and came forward.
    â€œPut your beezer to that pillow and tell me what’s there.”
    With puzzled reluctance, Brook did so, then straightened. “It’s … like a hospital?” he hazarded.
    â€œYes, something you might notice in a hospital,” Lennon prompted.
    â€œNot carbolic or vinegar.… Pungent stuff.”
    â€œYou’d think so. Ever have surgery? Of course not. I have, and when you’re facing a jolly fellow in a black coat with a knife in his hand you’ll bless the stink of this poison. It’ll turn your belly over after, but better than being awake when the cuttin’ starts.”
    â€œEther,” Brook said. “Of course.”
    â€œJust so.” The two of them looked at the body and back to the pillow. No need to explain to Brook; he’d clearly grasped that foul play had been involved.
    Lennon said, “Once they clean him up, they’ll find ether still trapped in his lungs. Anyone will be smelling that off him for days. When I come back from getting cut, my missus had the windows up, complaining how it filled the house just from my breathing.”
    Lennon’s emotions were starting to