We wandered into the little cupboard-like kitchen and glanced round. A
ring-burner on a shelf, a kettle, a frying-pan and a few pieces of
crockery were its sole appointments. Apparently the porter was correct
in his statement as to Jeffrey's habits.

Returning to the sitting-room, Thorndyke resumed his inspection, pulling
out the table drawers, peering inquisitively into cupboards and
bestowing a passing glance on each of the comparatively few objects that
the comfortless room contained.

"I have never seen a more characterless apartment," was his final
comment. "There is nothing that seems to suggest any kind of habitual
activity on the part of the occupant. Let us look at the bedroom."

We passed through into the chamber of tragic memories, and, when
Thorndyke had lit the gas, we stood awhile looking about us in silence.
It was a bare, comfortless room, dirty, neglected and squalid. The bed
appeared not to have been remade since the catastrophe, for an
indentation still marked the place where the corpse had lain, and even a
slight powdering of ash could still be seen on the shabby counterpane.
It looked to me a typical opium-smoker's bedroom.

"Well," Thorndyke remarked at length, "there is character enough
here--of a kind. Jeffrey Blackmore would seem to have been a man of few
needs. One could hardly imagine a bedroom in which less attention seemed
to have been given to the comfort of the occupant."

He looked about him keenly and continued: "The syringe and the rest of
the lethal appliances and material have been taken away, I see.
Probably the analyst did not return them. But there are the opium-pipe