XVI

Even as these thoughts flashed across my mind, the man in the bed stirred. His eyes opened. He murmured something incoherently. Then I saw his glance fasten upon me. He made no sign of recognition, but I was at once aware that he was trying to speak to me. Be he friend or foe, I must hear what he had to say.

I leaned over the bed, but the broken sounds conveyed no sort of meaning to me. I thought I caught the word “hand,” but in what connection it was used I could not tell. Then it came again, and this time I heard another word, the word “Largo.” I stared in amazement, as the possible juxtaposition of the two suggested itself to me.

“ 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 latchkey 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.