Big Four - Agatha Christie [31]
‘The housekeeper answered these questions as best she could, but was rather puzzled as to their purport. A terrible discovery was made on the following morning. One of the housemaids, on descending, was met by a sickening odour of burned flesh which seemed to come from her master’s study. She tried the door, but it was locked on the inside. With the assistance of Gerald Paynter and the Chinaman, that was soon broken in, but a terrible sight greeted them. Mr Paynter had fallen forward into the gas fire, and his face and head were charred beyond recognition.
‘Of course, at the moment, no suspicion was aroused as to its being anything but a ghastly accident. If blame attached to anyone, it was to Doctor Quentin for giving his patient a narcotic and leaving him in such a dangerous position. And then a rather curious discovery was made.
‘There was a newspaper on the floor, lying where it had slipped from the old man’s knees. On turning it over, words were found to be scrawled across it, feebly traced in ink. A writing-table stood close to the chair in which Mr Paynter had been sitting, and the forefinger of the victim’s right hand was ink-stained up to the second joint. It was clear that, too weak to hold a pen, Mr Paynter had dipped his finger in the ink-pot and managed to scrawl these two words across the surface of the newspaper he held—but the words themselves seemed utterly fantastic: Yellow Jasmine—just that and nothing more.
‘Croftlands has a large quantity of yellow jasmine growing up its walls, and it was thought that this dying message had some reference to them, showing that the poor old man’s mind was wandering. Of course the newspapers, agog for anything out of the common, took up the story hotly, calling it the Mystery of the Yellow Jasmine—though in all probability the words are completely unimportant.’
‘They are unimportant, you say?’ said Poirot. ‘Well, doubtless, since you say so, it must be so.’
I regarded him dubiously, but I could detect no mockery in his eye.
‘And then,’ I continued, ‘there came the excitements of the inquest.’
‘This is where you lick your lips, I perceive.’
‘There was a certain amount of feeling evidenced against Dr Quentin. To begin with, he was not the regular doctor, only a locum, putting in a month’s work, whilst Dr Bolitho was away on a well-earned holiday. Then it was felt that his carelessness was the direct cause of the accident. But his evidence was little short of sensational. Mr Paynter had been ailing in health since his arrival at Croftlands. Dr Bolitho had attended him for some time, but when Dr Quentin first saw his patient, he was mystified by some of the symptoms. He had only attended him once before the night when he was sent for after dinner. As soon as he was alone with Mr Paynter, the latter had unfolded a surprising tale. To begin with, he was not feeling ill at all, he explained, but the taste of some curry that he had been eating at dinner had struck him as peculiar. Making an excuse to get rid of Ah Ling for a few minutes, he had turned the contents of his plate into a bowl, and he now handed it over to the doctor with injunctions to find out if there were really anything wrong with it.
‘In spite of his statement that he was not feeling ill, the doctor noted that the shock of his suspicions had evidently affected him, and that his heart was feeling it. Accordingly he administered an injection—not of a narcotic, but of strychnine.
‘That, I think, completes the case—except for the crux of the whole thing—the fact that the uneaten curry, duly analysed, was found to contain enough powdered opium to have killed two men!’
I paused.