If blame was attached to any one, 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 ever 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.
"And your conclusions, Hastings?" asked Poirot quietly.
"It's difficult to say. It might be an accident - the fact that some one attempted to poison him the same night might be merely a coincidence."
"But you don't think so?
You prefer to believe it - murder!"
"Don't you?"
"Mon ami, you and I do not reason in the same way.
I am not trying to make up my mind between two opposite solutions - murder or accident - that will come when we have solved the other problem - the mystery of the
'Yellow Jasmine.'
By the way, you have left out something there."
"You mean the two lines at right angles to each other faintly indicated under the words?
I did not think they could be of any possible importance."
"What you think is always so important to yourself, Hastings.
But let us pass from the mystery of the Yellow Jasmine to the Mystery of the Curry."
"I know.
Who poisoned it?
Why?
There are a hundred questions one can ask.
Ah Ling, of course, prepared it.
But why should he wish to kill his master?
Is he a member of a gang, or something like that?
One reads of such things.
The gang of the Yellow Jasmine, perhaps.
Then there is Gerald Paynter."
I came to an abrupt pause.