Some 35 years ago, I was a graduate student in chemistry. One day we had a water leak right over the chemical stockroom. The chairman evacuated everybody from the building. This crazy old fellow, Dr. Cantrell, an organic chemistry professor, walked back into the building. He came out and announced that it did not smell like almonds so that it was safe to go in. It took me a while to realize what he had done, he went into the stockroom and took a deep breath trying to identify the presence of hydrogen cyanide. We had know he was crazy before this, but now we were positive!
Thank you for relating that delightful story about Dr. Cantrell. I hope he lived out the rest of his academic career with similar success, to the benefit of his colleagues and students.