We won't trouble you with the corpse much longer.
If there's an inquest, you will have to appear at it, I dare say.
Good morning, sir."
With a rather uncouth bow he shambled out of the room.
A few minutes later Japp arrived.
The Scotland Yard Inspector was jaunty and dapper as usual.
"Here I am Moosior Poirot.
What can I do for you?
Thought you were off to the coral strands of somewhere or other today?"
"My good Japp, I want to know if you have ever seen this man before."
He led Japp into the bedroom.
The inspector stared down at the figure on the bed with a puzzled face.
"Let me see now - he seems sort of familiar - and I pride myself on my memory, too.
Why, God bless my soul, it's Mayerling!"
"And who is - or was - Mayerling?"
"Secret Service chap - not one of our people.
Went to Russia five years ago.
Never heard of again.
Always thought the Bolshies had done him in."
"It all fits in," said Poirot, when Japp had taken his leave, "except for the fact that he seems to have died a natural death."
He stood looking down on the motionless figure with a dissatisfied frown.
A puff of wind set the window-curtains flying out, and he looked up sharply.
"I suppose you opened the windows when you laid him down on the bed, Hastings?"
"No, I didn't," I replied. "As far as I remember, they were shut."
Poirot lifted his head suddenly.
"Shut - and now they are open.
What can that mean?"
"Somebody came in that way," I suggested.
"Possibly," agreed Poirot, but he spoke absently and without conviction.
After a minute or two he said: "That is not exactly the point I had in mind, Hastings.
If only one window was open it would not intrigue me so much.
It is both windows being open that strikes me as curious."
He hurried into the other room.
"The sitting-room window is open, too.
That also we left shut.
Ah!"
He bent over the dead man, examining the corners of the mouth minutely.
Then he looked up suddenly.
"He has been gagged, Hastings.
Gagged and then poisoned."
"Good heavens!" I exclaimed, shocked. "I suppose we shall find out all about it from the postmortem."
"We shall find out nothing.
He was killed by inhaling strong prussic acid.
It was jammed right under his nose. Then the murderer went away again, first opening all the windows.
Hydrocyanic acid is exceedingly volatile, but it has a pronounced smell of bitter almonds.
With no trace of the smell to guide them, and no suspicion of foul play, death would be put down to some natural cause by the doctors.
So this man was in the Secret Service, Hastings.
And five years ago he disappeared in Russia."
"The last two years he's been in the Asylum," I said. "But what of the three years before that?"
Poirot shook his head, and then caught my arm.