"Handel's Largo?" I queried.
The Chinaman's eyelids flickered rapidly, as though in assent, and he added another Italian word, the word "carrozza."
Two or three more words of murmured Italian came to my ears, and then he fell back abruptly.
The doctor pushed me aside.
It was all over.
The man was dead.
I went out into the air again thoroughly bewildered.
"Handel's Largo," and a "carrozza."
If I remembered rightly, a carrozza was a carriage.
What possible meaning could lie behind those simple words.
The man was a Chinaman, not an Italian, why should he speak in Italian?
Surely, if he were indeed Ingles's servant, he must know English?
The whole thing was profoundly mystifying.
I puzzled over it all the way home.
Oh, if only Poirot had been there to solve the problem with his lightning ingenuity!
I let myself in with my latch-key and went slowly up to my room.
A letter was lying on the table, and I tore it open carelessly enough.
But in a minute I stood rooted to the ground whilst I read.
It was a communication from a firm of solicitors.
"Dear Sir (it ran),
"As instructed by our late client, M. Hercule Poirot, we forward you the enclosed letter.
This letter was placed in our hands a week before his death, with instructions that in the event of his demise, it should be sent to you at a certain date after his death.
"Yours faithfully, etc."
I turned the enclosed missive over and over.
It was undoubtedly from Poirot.
I knew that familiar writing only too well.
With a heavy heart, yet a certain eagerness, I tore it open.
"Mon Cher Ami (it began),
"When you receive this I shall be no more.
Do not shed tears about me, but follow my orders.
Immediately upon receipt of this, return to South America.
Do not be pig-headed about this.
It is not for sentimental reasons that I bid you undertake the journey.
It is necessary.
It is part of the plan of Hercule Poirot!
To say more is unnecessary, to any one who has the acute intelligence of my friend Hastings.
"A bas the Big Four!
I salute you, my friend, from beyond the grave.
"Ever thine, "Hercule Poirot."
I read and re-read this astonishing communication.
One thing was evident.
This amazing man had so provided for every eventuality that even his own death did not upset the sequence of his plans!
Mine was to be the active part - his the directing genius.
Doubtless I should find full instructions awaiting me beyond the seas.
In the meantime my enemies, convinced that I was obeying their warning, would cease to trouble their heads about me.
I could return, unsuspected, and work havoc in their midst.
There was now nothing to hinder my immediate departure.
I sent off cables, booked my passage, and one week later found me embarking in the Ansonia en route for Buenos Ayres.
Just as the boat left the quay, a steward brought me a note.
It had been given him, so he explained, by a big gentleman in a fur coat who had left the boat last thing before the gangway planks were lifted.