``I knew there was a dead body inside because of the smell,'' said Sub-Inspector Chandrakant Bhosale of the Oshiwara police station. ``But I wasn't quite prepared for the sight.''

Seventy-year-old James Sommers lay sprawled in a sticky pool of congealed, black blood, oozing from his mouth and leading to the bathroom door. His head lay on the footrest of a wheelchair belonging to his wife Colleen, who was sitting in the pool of blood in a state of shock. The body was blue and swollen and the skin was peeling when the stunned police officials discovered the couple.

Even as the police party covered their nostrils to ward off the nauseating stench, the couple's Pomeranian bounded about frantically in theflat. The dead body was taken to Cooper Hospital for a post-mortem. The results are awaited. Police have, however, ruled out foul play. ``There was no sign of any injury on the body. He probably died of a heart attack,'' a police official said.

The Sommers had landed at Chennai on April 17 on a tourist visa and arrived in Mumbai soon after. They had taken the flat on lease from one Sangita Khanna.

Residents of the building recall Sommers to be a cheerful old man who took his wheelchair-ridden wife out in the garden with their dog. ``He was a good neighbour, always greeting everyone and making conversation. But his wife remained silent,'' a neighbour in an adjacent flat recalled.

On Tuesday morning, a 25-year-old maid servant who worked for the couple left the flat. That was the last anyone saw him alive. The maid, the milkman and daily vendors rang the bell for two full days without any response. On Thursday evening, the smell from the flat became unbearable and a neighbour complained to thepolice.

Colleen lies in a daze in a bed in Ward No 9 at V N Desai Hospital, Santacruz. Try talking to her and she looks at you with her blue eyes, mumbling incoherently: ``I don't know.''

``It's no use, that's all she ever says,'' a doctor says. ``We don't even know what her problem is.''

Reading papers and prescriptions gathered from the flat, doctors discovered she was suffering from diabetes and hypertension and had recently undergone surgery. Doctors, who suspect that Colleen may be mentally unstable, have recommended nuerological examination.

Meanwhile Colleen lies wearing a patient's white clothes staring at the ceiling. The only mute witness to what really happened at flat number 289.