Murder in Mesopotamia: A Hercule Poirot Mystery

  “Did you know exactly what she had taken?” Captain Maitland asked.

  “No—but I could see, of course, that it was a corrosive acid.”

  Captain Maitland asked gravely: “Is it your opinion, nurse, that Miss Johnson deliberately administered this stuff to herself?”

  “Oh, no,” I exclaimed. “I never thought of such a thing!”

  I don’t know why I was so sure. Partly, I think, because of M. Poirot’s hints. His “murder is a habit” had impressed itself on my mind. And then one doesn’t readily believe that anyone’s going to commit suicide in such a terribly painful way.

  I said as much and Captain Maitland nodded thoughtfully. “I agree that it isn’t what one would choose,” he said. “But if anyone were in great distress of mind and this stuff were easily obtainable it might be taken for that reason.”

  “Was she in great distress of mind?” I asked doubtfully.

  “Mrs. Mercado says so. She says that Miss Johnson was quite unlike herself at dinner last night—that she hardly replied to anything that was said to her. Mrs. Mercado is quite sure that Miss Johnson was in terrible distress over something and that the idea of making away with herself had already occurred to her.”

  “Well, I don’t believe it for a moment,” I said bluntly.

  Mrs. Mercado indeed! Nasty slinking little cat!

  “Then what do you think?”

  “I think she was murdered,” I said bluntly.

  He rapped out his next question sharply. I felt rather that I was in the orderly room.

  “Any reasons?”

  “It seems to me by far and away the most possible solution.”

  “That’s just your private opinion. There was no reason why the lady should be murdered?”

  “Excuse me,” I said, “there was. She found out something.”

  “Found out something? What did she find out?”

  I repeated our conversation on the roof word for word.

  “She refused to tell you what her discovery was?”

  “Yes. She said she must have time to think it over.”

  “But she was very excited by it?”

  “Yes.”

  “A way of getting in from outside.” Captain Maitland puzzled over it, his brows knit. “Had you no idea at all of what she was driving at?”

  “Not in the least. I puzzled and puzzled over it but I couldn’t even get a glimmering.”

  Captain Maitland said: “What do you think, M. Poirot?”

  Poirot said: “I think you have there a possible motive.”

  “For murder?”

  “For murder.”

  Captain Maitland frowned.

  “She wasn’t able to speak before she died?”

  “Yes, she just managed to get out two words.”

  “What were they?”

  “The window . . . ”

  “The window?” repeated Captain Maitland. “Did you understand to what she was referring?”

  I shook my head.

  “How many windows were there in her bedroom?”

  “Just the one.”

  “Giving on the courtyard?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was it open or shut? Open, I seem to remember. But perhaps one of you opened it?”

  “No, it was open all the time. I wondered—”

  I stopped.

  “Go on, nurse.”

  “I examined the window, of course, but I couldn’t see anything unusual about it. I wondered whether, perhaps, somebody changed the glasses that way.”

  “Changed the glasses?”

  “Yes. You see, Miss Johnson always takes a glass of water to bed with her. I think that glass must have been tampered with and a glass of acid put in its place.”

  “What do you say, Reilly?”

  “If it’s murder, that was probably the way it was done,” said Dr. Reilly promptly. “No ordinary moderately observant human being would drink a glass of acid in mistake for one of water—if they were in full possession of their waking faculties. But if anyone’s accustomed to drinking off a glass of water in the middle of the night, that person might easily stretch out an arm, find the glass in the accustomed place, and still half asleep, toss off enough of the stuff to be fatal before realizing what had happened.”

  Captain Maitland reflected a minute.

  “I’ll have to go back and look at that window. How far is it from the head of the bed?”

  I thought.

  “With a very long stretch you could just reach the little table that stands by the head of the bed.”

  “The table on which the glass of water was?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was the door locked?”

  “No.”

  “So whoever it was could have come in that way and made the substitution?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “There would be more risk that way,” said Dr. Reilly. “A person who is sleeping quite soundly will often wake up at the sound of a footfall. If the table could be reached from the window it would be the safer way.”

  “I’m not only thinking of the glass,” said Captain Maitland absent-mindedly.

  Rousing himself, he addressed me once again.

  “It’s your opinion that when the poor lady felt she was dying she was anxious to let you know that somebody had substituted acid for water through the open window? Surely the person’s name would have been more to the point?”

  “She mayn’t have known the name,” I pointed out.

  “Or it would have been more to the point if she’d managed to hint what it was that she had discovered the day before?”

  Dr. Reilly said: “When you’re dying, Maitland, you haven’t always got a sense of proportion. One particular fact very likely obsesses your mind. That a murderous hand had come through the window may have been the principal fact obsessing her at the minute. It may have seemed to her important that she should let people know that. In my opinion she wasn’t far wrong either. It was important! She probably jumped to the fact that you’d think it was suicide. If she could have used her tongue freely, she’d probably have said ‘It wasn’t suicide. I didn’t take it myself. Somebody else must have put it near my bed through the window.’ ”

  Captain Maitland drummed with his fingers for a minute or two without replying. Then he said:

  “There are certainly two ways of looking at it. It’s either suicide or murder. Which do you think, Dr. Leidner?”

  Dr. Leidner was silent for a minute or two, then he said quietly and decisively: “Murder. Anne Johnson wasn’t the sort of woman to kill herself.”

  “No,” allowed Captain Maitland. “Not in the normal run of things. But there might be circumstances in which it would be quite a natural thing to do.”

  “Such as?”

  Captain Maitland stooped to a bundle which I had previously noticed him place by the side of his chair. He swung it on to the table with something of an effort.

  “There’s something here that none of you know about,” he said. “We found it under her bed.”

  He fumbled with the knot of the covering, then threw it back, revealing a heavy great quern or grinder.

  That was nothing in itself—there were a dozen or so already found in the course of the excavations.

  What riveted our attention on this particular specimen was a dull, dark stain and a fragment of something that looked like hair.

  “That’ll be your job, Reilly,” said Captain Maitland. “But I shouldn’t say that there’s much doubt about this being the instrument with which Mrs. Leidner was killed!”

  Twenty-six

  NEXT IT WILL BE ME!

  It was rather horrible. Dr. Leidner looked as though he were going to faint and I felt a bit sick myself.

  Dr. Reilly examined it with professional gusto.

  “No fingerprints, I presume?” he threw out.

  “No fingerprints.”

  Dr. Reilly took out a pair of forceps and investigated delicately.

  “H
’m—a fragment of human tissue—and hair—fair blonde hair. That’s the unofficial verdict. Of course, I’ll have to make a proper test, blood group, etc., but there’s not much doubt. Found under Miss Johnson’s bed? Well, well—so that’s the big idea. She did the murder, and then, God rest her, remorse came to her and she finished herself off. It’s a theory—a pretty theory.”

  Dr. Leidner could only shake his head helplessly.

  “Not Anne—not Anne,” he murmured.

  “I don’t know where she hid this to begin with,” said Captain Maitland. “Every room was searched after the first crime.”

  Something jumped into my mind and I thought, “In the stationery cupboard,” but I didn’t say anything.

  “Wherever it was, she became dissatisfied with its hiding place and took it into her own room, which had been searched with all the rest. Or perhaps she did that after making up her mind to commit suicide.”

  “I don’t believe it,” I said aloud.

  And I couldn’t somehow believe that kind nice Miss Johnson had battered out Mrs. Leidner’s brains. I just couldn’t see it happening! And yet it did fit in with some things—her fit of weeping that night, for instance. After all, I’d said “remorse” myself—only I’d never thought it was remorse for anything but the smaller, more insignificant crime.

  “I don’t know what to believe,” said Captain Maitland. “There’s the French Father’s disappearance to be cleared up too. My men are out hunting around in case he’s been knocked on the head and his body rolled into a convenient irrigation ditch.”

  “Oh! I remember now—” I began.

  Everyone looked towards me inquiringly.

  “It was yesterday afternoon,” I said. “He’d been cross-questioning me about the man with a squint who was looking in at the window that day. He asked me just where he’d stood on the path and then he said he was going out to have a look round. He said in detective stories the criminal always dropped a convenient clue.”

  “Damned if any of my criminals ever do,” said Captain Maitland. “So that’s what he was after, was it? By Jove, I wonder if he did find anything. A bit of a coincidence if both he and Miss Johnson discovered a clue to the identity of the murderer at practically the same time.”

  He added irritably, “Man with a squint? Man with a squint? There’s more in this tale of that fellow with a squint than meets the eye. I don’t know why the devil my fellows can’t lay hold of him!”

  “Probably because he hasn’t got a squint,” said Poirot quietly.

  “Do you mean he faked it? Didn’t know you could fake an actual squint.”

  Poirot merely said: “A squint can be a very useful thing.”

  “The devil it can! I’d give a lot to know where that fellow is now, squint or no squint!”

  “At a guess,” said Poirot, “he has already passed the Syrian frontier.”

  “We’ve warned Tell Kotchek and Abu Kemal—all the frontier posts, in fact.”

  “I should imagine that he took the route through the hills. The route lorries sometimes take when running contraband.”

  Captain Maitland grunted.

  “Then we’d better telegraph Deir ez Zor?”

  “I did so yesterday—warning them to look out for a car with two men in it whose passports will be in the most impeccable order.”

  Captain Maitland favoured him with a stare.

  “You did, did you? Two men—eh?”

  Poirot nodded.

  “There are two men in this.”

  “It strikes me, M. Poirot, that you’ve been keeping quite a lot of things up your sleeve.”

  Poirot shook his head.

  “No,” he said. “Not really. The truth came to me only this morning when I was watching the sunrise. A very beautiful sunrise.”

  I don’t think that any of us had noticed that Mrs. Mercado was in the room. She must have crept in when we were all taken aback by the production of that horrible great bloodstained stone.

  But now, without the least warning, she set up a noise like a pig having its throat cut.

  “Oh, my God!” she cried. “I see it all. I see it all now. It was Father Lavigny. He’s mad—religious mania. He thinks women are sinful. He’s killing them all. First Mrs. Leidner—then Miss Johnson. And next it will be me. . . .”

  With a scream of frenzy she flung herself across the room and clutched Dr. Reilly’s coat.

  “I won’t stay here, I tell you! I won’t stay here a day longer. There’s danger. There’s danger all round. He’s hiding somewhere—waiting his time. He’ll spring out on me!”

  Her mouth opened and she began screaming again.

  I hurried over to Dr. Reilly, who had caught her by the wrists. I gave her a sharp slap on each cheek and with Dr. Reilly’s help I sat her down in a chair.

  “Nobody’s going to kill you,” I said. “We’ll see to that. Sit down and behave yourself.”

  She didn’t scream any more. Her mouth closed and she sat looking at me with startled, stupid eyes.

  Then there was another interruption. The door opened and Sheila Reilly came in.

  Her face was pale and serious. She came straight to Poirot.

  “I was at the post office early, M. Poirot,” she said, “and there was a telegram there for you—so I brought it along.”

  “Thank you, mademoiselle.”

  He took it from her and tore it open while she watched his face.

  It did not change, that face. He read the telegram, smoothed it out, folded it up neatly and put it in his pocket.

  Mrs. Mercado was watching him. She said in a choked voice: “Is that—from America?”

  “No, madame,” he said. “It is from Tunis.”

  She stared at him for a moment as though she did not understand, then with a long sigh, she leant back in her seat.

  “Father Lavigny,” she said. “I was right. I’ve always thought there was something queer about him. He said things to me once—I suppose he’s mad . . .” She paused and then said, “I’ll be quiet. But I must leave this place. Joseph and I can go in and sleep at the Rest House.”

  “Patience, madame,” said Poirot. “I will explain everything.”

  Captain Maitland was looking at him curiously.

  “Do you consider you’ve definitely got the hang of this business?” he demanded.

  Poirot bowed.

  It was a most theatrical bow. I think it rather annoyed Captain Maitland.

  “Well,” he barked. “Out with it, man.”

  But that wasn’t the way Hercule Poirot did things. I saw perfectly well that he meant to make a song and dance of it. I wondered if he really did know the truth, or if he was just showing off.

  He turned to Dr. Reilly.

  “Will you be so good, Dr. Reilly, as to summon the others?”

  Dr. Reilly jumped up and went off obligingly. In a minute or two the other members of the expedition began to file into the room. First Reiter and Emmott. Then Bill Coleman. Then Richard Carey and finally Mr. Mercado.

  Poor man, he really looked like death. I suppose he was mortally afraid that he’d get hauled over the coals for carelessness in leaving dangerous chemicals about.

  Everyone seated themselves round the table very much as we had done on the day M. Poirot arrived. Both Bill Coleman and David Emmott hesitated before they sat down, glancing towards Sheila Reilly. She had her back to them and was standing looking out of the window.

  “Chair, Sheila?” said Bill.

  David Emmott said in his low pleasant drawl, “Won’t you sit down?”

  She turned then and stood for a minute looking at them. Each was indicating a chair, pushing it forward. I wondered whose chair she would accept.

  In the end she accepted neither.

  “I’ll sit here,” she said brusquely. And she sat down on the edge of a table quite close to the window.

  “That is,” she added, “if Captain Maitland doesn’t mind my staying?”

  I’m not quite sure what
Captain Maitland would have said. Poirot forestalled him.

  “Stay by all means, mademoiselle,” he said. “It is, indeed, necessary that you should.”

  She raised her eyebrows.

  “Necessary?”

  “That is the word I used, mademoiselle. There are some questions I shall have to ask you.”

  Again her eyebrows went up but she said nothing further. She turned her face to the window as though determined to ignore what went on in the room behind her.

  “And now,” said Captain Maitland, “perhaps we shall get at the truth!”

  He spoke rather impatiently. He was essentially a man of action. At this very moment I felt sure that he was fretting to be out and doing things—directing the search for Father Lavigny’s body, or alternatively sending out parties for his capture and arrest.

  He looked at Poirot with something akin to dislike.

  “If the beggar’s got anything to say, why doesn’t he say it?”

  I could see the words on the tip of his tongue.

  Poirot gave a slow appraising glance at us all, then rose to his feet.

  I don’t know what I expected him to say—something dramatic certainly. He was that kind of person.

  But I certainly didn’t expect him to start off with a phrase in Arabic.

  Yet that is what happened. He said the words slowly and solemnly—and really quite religiously, if you know what I mean.

  “Bismillahi ar rahman ar rahim.”

  And then he gave the translation in English.

  “In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate.”

  Twenty-seven

  BEGINNING OF A JOURNEY

  “Bismillahi ar rahman ar rahim. That is the Arab phrase used before starting out on a journey. Eh bien, we too start on a journey. A journey into the past. A journey into the strange places of the human soul.”

  I don’t think that up till that moment I’d ever felt any of the so-called “glamour of the East.” Frankly, what had struck me was the mess everywhere. But suddenly, with M. Poirot’s words, a queer sort of vision seemed to grow up before my eyes. I thought of words like Samarkand and Ispahan—and of merchants with long beards—and kneeling camels—and staggering porters carrying great bales on their backs held by a rope round the forehead—and women with henna-stained hair and tattooed faces kneeling by the Tigris and washing clothes, and I heard their queer wailing chants and the far-off groaning of the waterwheel.