He turned the contents of the silver box on to his hand. There were seven tiny lozenges. He returned three to the box, and laid it on the seat; the other four he placed beside it. Taking an envelope out of an inner pocket of his jacket, he tore off a corner. In it he placed the four tabloids, carefully folded it, and put it in his waistcoat pocket. Then he balanced the cap of the box on the arm of the seat beside his uncle; the box itself he placed between the fingers of his uncle's left hand, with--in it--the other three tabloids. So tightly were the fingers clenched that Rodney had to use force to open them sufficiently to enable him to insert the box. Then, seating himself opposite, he looked his uncle carefully over with an artist's eye for detail. In his present attitude, with that open box with its tell-tale contents held tightly between his stiffened fingers, it seemed to Rodney that a coroner would be bound to instruct his jury that suicide was the only possible explanation of Graham Patterson's death. Having satisfied himself on which point, he withdrew to the opposite end of the carriage, being, in spite of himself, conscious of a feeling that the dead man's too immediate neighbourhood was not a thing to be desired.
Seated in his original place, he took out his white cambric handkerchief, and with it delicately wiped his fingers, having an uncomfortable notion that something disagreeable had adhered to them which it would be better to remove. Then he set himself to consider the position. A great smoker of cigarettes, absent-mindedly and as a matter of course he took out his case, and was about to light one when it occurred to him that it might be a dangerous thing to do. It was not a smoking carriage; if, when the discovery was made, it smelt strongly of smoke--and nothing lingers like a cigarette--it might be shown that his uncle had not been smoking, and the question might arise--who had? He returned the case to his pocket. As he did so the train rushed past a signal-box. He remembered reading of the strange things which signalmen see in trains as they rushed past them. When his uncle was found, exhaustive inquiries would be set on foot. Quite conceivably some signalman had seen them struggling, or something which had piqued his curiosity as it had caught his eye. His uncle would be found alone. The signalman's story might suggest that at one period of the journey someone had been in the carriage with him. What had become of that someone? The mere question might start a hue and cry. Rodney recalled, with quite a little sense of shock, that his uncle had been partly pushed into the carriage by an official on the Brighton platform. Graham Patterson was a noticeable-looking person; he must have presented a striking spectacle as he had come hurrying along the platform. When discovery came about, the official would recollect the incident and recognise him beyond a doubt.