Murder in Mesopotamia: A Hercule Poirot Mystery Read online

  I’d like to get this next bit quite clear. You see, I wasn’t quite sure what M. Poirot did or didn’t want me to do. He might, I mean, have sent me back for that handkerchief on purpose. To get me out of the way.

  It was just like an operation over again. You’ve got to be careful to hand the doctor just what he wants and not what he doesn’t want. I mean, suppose you gave him the artery forceps at the wrong moment, and were late with them at the right moment! Thank goodness I know my work in the theatre well enough. I’m not likely to make mistakes there. But in this business I was really the rawest of raw little probationers. And so I had to be particularly careful not to make any silly mistakes.

  Of course, I didn’t for one moment imagine that M. Poirot didn’t want me to hear what he and Mr. Carey were saying. But he might have thought he’d get Mr. Carey to talk better if I wasn’t there.

  Now I don’t want anybody to get it into their heads that I’m the kind of woman who goes about eavesdropping on private conversations. I wouldn’t do such a thing. Not for a moment. Not however much I wanted to.

  And what I mean is if it had been a private conversation I wouldn’t for a moment have done what, as a matter of fact, I actually did do.

  As I looked at it I was in a privileged position. After all, you hear many a thing when a patient’s coming round after an anaesthetic. The patient wouldn’t want you to hear it—and usually has no idea you have heard it—but the fact remains you do hear it. I just took it that Mr. Carey was the patient. He’d be none the worse for what he didn’t know about. And if you think that I was just curious, well, I’ll admit that I was curious. I didn’t want to miss anything I could help.

  All this is just leading up to the fact that I turned aside and went by a roundabout way up behind the big dump until I was a foot from where they were, but concealed from them by the corner of the dump. And if anyone says it was dishonourable I just beg to disagree. Nothing ought to be hidden from the nurse in charge of the case, though, of course, it’s for the doctor to say what shall be done.

  I don’t know, of course, what M. Poirot’s line of approach had been, but by the time I’d got there he was aiming straight for the bull’s eye, so to speak.

  “Nobody appreciates Dr. Leidner’s devotion to his wife more than I do,” he was saying. “But it is often the case that one learns more about a person from their enemies than from their friends.”

  “You suggest that their faults are more important than their virtues?” said Mr. Carey. His tone was dry and ironic.

  “Undoubtedly—when it comes to murder. It seems odd that as far as I know nobody has yet been murdered for having too perfect a character! And yet perfection is undoubtedly an irritating thing.”

  “I’m afraid I’m hardly the right person to help you,” said Mr. Carey. “To be perfectly honest, Mrs. Leidner and I didn’t hit it off particularly well. I don’t mean that we were in any sense of the word enemies, but we were not exactly friends. Mrs. Leidner was, perhaps, a shade jealous of my old friendship with her husband. I, for my part, although I admired her very much and thought she was an extremely attractive woman, was just a shade resentful of her influence over Leidner. As a result we were quite polite to each other, but not intimate.”

  “Admirably explained,” said Poirot.

  I could just see their heads, and I saw Mr. Carey’s turn sharply as though something in M. Poirot’s detached tone struck him disagreeably.

  M. Poirot went on: “Was not Dr. Leidner distressed that you and his wife did not get on together better?”

  Carey hesitated a minute before saying: “Really—I’m not sure. He never said anything. I always hoped he didn’t notice it. He was very wrapped up in his work, you know.”

  “So the truth, according to you, is that you did not really like Mrs. Leidner?”

  Carey shrugged his shoulders.

  “I should probably have liked her very much if she hadn’t been Leidner’s wife.”

  He laughed as though amused by his own statement.

  Poirot was arranging a little heap of broken potsherds. He said in a dreamy, faraway voice: “I talked to Miss Johnson this morning. She admitted that she was prejudiced against Mrs. Leidner and did not like her very much, although she hastened to add that Mrs. Leidner had always been charming to her.”

  “All quite true, I should say,” said Carey.

  “So I believed. Then I had a conversation with Mrs. Mercado. She told me at great length how devoted she had been to Mrs. Leidner and how much she had admired her.”

  Carey made no answer to this, and after waiting a minute or two Poirot went on: “That—I did not believe! Then I come to you and that which you tell me—well, again—I do not believe. . . .”

  Carey stiffened. I could hear the anger—repressed anger—in his voice.

  “I really cannot help your beliefs—or your disbeliefs, M. Poirot. You’ve heard the truth and you can take it or leave it as far as I am concerned.”

  Poirot did not grow angry. Instead he sounded particularly meek and depressed.

  “Is it my fault what I do—or do not believe? I have a sensitive ear, you know. And then—there are always plenty of stories going about—rumours floating in the air. One listens—and perhaps—one learns something! Yes, there are stories. . . .”

  Carey sprang to his feet. I could see clearly a little pulse that beat in his temple. He looked simply splendid! So lean and so brown—and that wonderful jaw, hard and square. I don’t wonder women fell for that man.

  “What stories?” he asked savagely.

  Poirot looked sideways at him.

  “Perhaps you can guess. The usual sort of story—about you and Mrs. Leidner.”

  “What foul minds people have!”

  “N’est-ce pas? They are like dogs. However deep you bury an unpleasantness a dog will always root it up again.”

  “And you believe these stories?”

  “I am willing to be convinced—of the truth,” said Poirot gravely.

  “I doubt if you’d know the truth if you heard it,” Carey laughed rudely.

  “Try me and see,” said Poirot, watching him.

  “I will then! You shall have the truth! I hated Louise Leidner—there’s the truth for you! I hated her like hell!”

  Twenty-two

  DAVID EMMOTT, FATHER

  LAVIGNY AND A DISCOVERY

  Turning abruptly away, Carey strode off with long, angry strides.

  Poirot sat looking after him and presently he murmured: “Yes—I see. . . .”

  Without turning his head he said in a slightly louder voice: “Do not come round the corner for a minute, nurse. In case he turns his head. Now it is all right. You have my handkerchief? Many thanks. You are most amiable.”

  He didn’t say anything at all about my having been listening—and how he knew I was listening I can’t think. He’d never once looked in that direction. I was rather relieved he didn’t say anything. I mean, I felt all right with myself about it, but it might have been a little awkward explaining to him. So it was a good thing he didn’t seem to want explanations.

  “Do you think he did hate her, M. Poirot?” I asked.

  Nodding his head slowly with a curious expression on his face, Poirot answered.

  “Yes—I think he did.”

  Then he got up briskly and began to walk to where the men were working on the top of the mound. I followed him. We couldn’t see anyone but Arabs at first, but we finally found Mr. Emmott lying face downwards blowing dust off a skeleton that had just been uncovered.

  He gave his pleasant, grave smile when he saw us.

  “Have you come to see round?” he asked. “I’ll be free in a minute.”

  He sat up, took his knife and began daintily cutting the earth away from round the bones, stopping every now and then to use either a bellows or his own breath. A very insanitary proceeding the latter, I thought.

  “You’ll get all sorts of nasty germs in your mouth, Mr. Emmott,” I protes
ted.

  “Nasty germs are my daily diet, nurse,” he said gravely. “Germs can’t do anything to an archaeologist—they just get naturally discouraged trying.”

  He scraped a little more away round the thigh bone. Then he spoke to the foreman at his side, directing him exactly what he wanted done.

  “There,” he said, rising to his feet. “That’s ready for Reiter to photograph after lunch. Rather nice stuff she had in with her.”

  He showed us a little verdigris copper bowl and some pins. And a lot of gold and blue things that had been her necklace of beads.

  The bones and all the objects were brushed and cleaned with a knife and kept in position ready to be photographed.

  “Who is she?” asked Poirot.

  “First millennium. A lady of some consequence perhaps. Skull looks rather odd—I must get Mercado to look at it. It suggests death by foul play.”

  “A Mrs. Leidner of two thousand odd years ago?” said Poirot.

  “Perhaps,” said Mr. Emmott.

  Bill Coleman was doing something with a pick to a wall face.

  David Emmott called something to him which I didn’t catch and then started showing M. Poirot round.

  When the short explanatory tour was over, Emmott looked at his watch.

  “We knock off in ten minutes,” he said. “Shall we walk back to the house?”

  “That will suit me excellently,” said Poirot.

  We walked slowly along the well-worn path.

  “I expect you are all glad to get back to work again,” said Poirot.

  Emmott replied gravely: “Yes, it’s much the best thing. It’s not been any too easy loafing about the house and making conversation.”

  “Knowing all the time that one of you was a murderer.”

  Emmott did not answer. He made no gesture of dissent. I knew now that he had had a suspicion of the truth from the very first when he had questioned the houseboys.

  After a few minutes he asked quietly: “Are you getting anywhere, M. Poirot?”

  Poirot said gravely: “Will you help me to get somewhere?”

  “Why, naturally.”

  Watching him closely, Poirot said: “The hub of the case is Mrs. Leidner. I want to know about Mrs. Leidner.”

  David Emmott said slowly: “What do you mean by know about her?”

  “I do not mean where she came from and what her maiden name was. I do not mean the shape of her face and the colour of her eyes. I mean her—herself.”

  “You think that counts in the case?”

  “I am quite sure of it.”

  Emmott was silent for a moment or two, then he said: “Maybe you’re right.”

  “And that is where you can help me. You can tell me what sort of a woman she was.”

  “Can I? I’ve often wondered about it myself.”

  “Didn’t you make up your mind on the subject?”

  “I think I did in the end.”

  “Eh bien?”

  But Mr. Emmott was silent for some minutes, then he said: “What did nurse think of her? Women are said to sum up other women quickly enough, and a nurse has a wide experience of types.”

  Poirot didn’t give me any chance of speaking even if I had wanted to. He said quickly: “What I want to know is what a man thought of her?”

  Emmott smiled a little.

  “I expect they’d all be much the same.” He paused and said, “She wasn’t young, but I think she was about the most beautiful woman I’ve ever come across.”

  “That’s hardly an answer, Mr. Emmott.”

  “It’s not so far off one, M. Poirot.”

  He was silent a minute or two and then he went on: “There used to be a fairy story I read when I was a kid. A Northern fairy tale about the Snow Queen and Little Kay. I guess Mrs. Leidner was rather like that—always taking Little Kay for a ride.”

  “Ah yes, a tale of Hans Andersen, is it not? And there was a girl in it. Little Gerda, was that her name?”

  “Maybe. I don’t remember much of it.”

  “Can’t you go a little further, Mr. Emmott?”

  David Emmott shook his head.

  “I don’t even know if I’ve summed her up correctly. She wasn’t easy to read. She’d do a devilish thing one day, and a really fine one the next. But I think you’re about right when you say that she’s the hub of the case. That’s what she always wanted to be—at the centre of things. And she liked to get at other people—I mean, she wasn’t just satisfied with being passed the toast and the peanut butter, she wanted you to turn your mind and soul inside out for her to look at it.”

  “And if one did not give her that satisfaction?” asked Poirot.

  “Then she could turn ugly!”

  I saw his lips close resolutely and his jaw set.

  “I suppose, Mr. Emmott, you would not care to express a plain unofficial opinion as to who murdered her?”

  “I don’t know,” said Emmott. “I really haven’t the slightest idea. I rather think that, if I’d been Carl—Carl Reiter, I mean—I would have had a shot at murdering her. She was a pretty fair devil to him. But, of course, he asks for it by being so darned sensitive. Just invites you to give him a kick in the pants.”

  “And did Mrs. Leidner give him—a kick in the pants?” inquired Poirot.

  Emmott gave a sudden grin.

  “No. Pretty little jabs with an embroidery needle—that was her method. He was irritating, of course. Just like some blubbering, poor-spirited kid. But a needle’s a painful weapon.”

  I stole a glance at Poirot and thought I detected a slight quiver of his lips.

  “But you don’t really believe that Carl Reiter killed her?” he asked.

  “No. I don’t believe you’d kill a woman because she persistently made you look a fool at every meal.”

  Poirot shook his head thoughtfully.

  Of course, Mr. Emmott made Mrs. Leidner sound quite inhuman. There was something to be said on the other side too.

  There had been something terribly irritating about Mr. Reiter’s attitude. He jumped when she spoke to him, and did idiotic things like passing her the marmalade again and again when he knew she never ate it. I’d have felt inclined to snap at him a bit myself.

  Men don’t understand how their mannerisms can get on women’s nerves so that you feel you just have to snap.

  I thought I’d just mention that to Mr. Poirot some time.

  We had arrived back now and Mr. Emmott offered Poirot a wash and took him into his room.

  I hurried across the courtyard to mine.

  I came out again about the same time they did and we were all making for the dining room when Father Lavigny appeared in the doorway of his room and invited Poirot in.

  Mr. Emmott came on round and he and I went into the dining room together. Miss Johnson and Mrs. Mercado were there already, and after a few minutes Mr. Mercado, Mr. Reiter and Bill Coleman joined us.

  We were just sitting down and Mercado had told the Arab boy to tell Father Lavigny lunch was ready when we were all startled by a faint, muffled cry.

  I suppose our nerves weren’t very good yet, for we all jumped, and Miss Johnson got quite pale and said: “What was that? What’s happened?”

  Mrs. Mercado stared at her and said: “My dear, what is the matter with you? It’s some noise outside in the fields.”

  But at that minute Poirot and Father Lavigny came in.

  “We thought someone was hurt,” Miss Johnson said.

  “A thousand pardons, mademoiselle,” cried Poirot. “The fault is mine. Father Lavigny, he explains to me some tablets, and I take one to the window to see better—and, ma foi, not looking where I was going, I steb the toe, and the pain is sharp for the moment and I cry out.”

  “We thought it was another murder,” said Mrs. Mercado, laughing.

  “Marie!” said her husband.

  His tone was reproachful and she flushed and bit her lip.

  Miss Johnson hastily turned the conversation to the dig and what
objects of interest had turned up that morning. Conversation all through lunch was sternly archaeological.

  I think we all felt it was the safest thing.

  After we had had coffee we adjourned to the living room. Then the men, with the exception of Father Lavigny, went off to the dig again.

  Father Lavigny took Poirot through into the antika room and I went with them. I was getting to know the things pretty well by now and I felt a thrill of pride—almost as though it were my own property—when Father Lavigny took down the gold cup and I heard Poirot’s exclamation of admiration and pleasure.

  “How beautiful! What a work of art!”

  Father Lavigny agreed eagerly and began to point out its beauties with real enthusiasm and knowledge.

  “No wax on it today,” I said.

  “Wax?” Poirot stared at me.

  “Wax?” So did Father Lavigny.

  I explained my remark.

  “Ah, je comprends,” said Father Lavigny. “Yes, yes, candle grease.”

  That led direct to the subject of the midnight visitor. Forgetting my presence they both dropped into French, and I left them together and went back into the living room.

  Mrs. Mercado was darning her husband’s socks and Miss Johnson was reading a book. Rather an unusual thing for her. She usually seemed to have something to work at.

  After a while Father Lavigny and Poirot came out, and the former excused himself on the score of work. Poirot sat down with us.

  “A most interesting man,” he said, and asked how much work there had been for Father Lavigny to do so far.

  Miss Johnson explained that tablets had been scarce and that there had been very few inscribed bricks or cylinder seals. Father Lavigny, however, had done his share of work on the dig and was picking up colloquial Arabic very fast.

  That led the talk to cylinder seals, and presently Miss Johnson fetched from a cupboard a sheet of impressions made by rolling them out on plasticine.

  I realized as we bent over them, admiring the spirited designs, that these must be what she had been working at on that fatal afternoon.