In two or three hours the men would come and open the doors
and windows and ventilate the place. The operation was
quite familiar to him; it had indeed interested him more
when he first saw it done than had anything else connected
with the greenhouses.
His abstracted gaze happened to take note of the fact
that the door-key was hanging on a nail overhead, and then
suddenly this seemed to be related to something else in his
thoughts--some obscure impression or memory which evaded him.
Continuing to look at the key, a certain recollection
all at once assumed great definiteness in his mind: it
came to him that the labels on this patent fumigator they
were using warned people against exposing themselves to its
fumes more than was absolutely necessary. That meant,
of course, that their full force would kill a human being.
It was very interesting. He looked through the glass again,
but could not see that the air was any thicker.
The lamp still burned brightly.
He turned away, and beheld a man, in an old cap and apron,
at the further end of the palm-house he was in,
doing something to a plant. Thorpe noted the fact that
he felt no surprise in seeing that it was Gafferson.
Somehow the sight of the key, and of the poison-spreading
flame inside the locked door, seemed to have prepared
him for the spectacle of Gafferson close at hand.
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