Throughout this time, Soames had made no attempt to seek the light of
day: he had not seen a newspaper; he knew nothing of the hue and cry
raised throughout England, of the hunt for the murderer of Mrs. Vernon.
He suffered principally from lack of companionship. The only human being
with whom he ever came in contact was Said, the Egyptian; and Said, at
best, was uncommunicative. A man of very limited intellect, Luke Soames
had been at a loss for many days to reconcile Block A and its temporary
occupants with any comprehensible scheme of things. Whereas some of
the rooms would be laden with nauseating fumes, others would be free of
these; the occupants, again, exhibited various symptoms.
That he was a servant of an opium-den de luxe did not for some time
become apparent to him; then, when first the theory presented itself, he
was staggered by a discovery so momentous.
But it satisfied his mind only partially. Some men whom he valeted might
have been doped with opium, certainly, but all did not exhibit those
indications which, from hearsay, he associated with the resin of the
white poppy.
Knowing nothing of the numerous and exotic vices which have sprung from
the soil of the Orient, he was at a loss for a full explanation of the
facts as he saw them.
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