Murder in Mesopotamia

Chapter 14. One of Us?

There was a little pause – and in it a wave of horror seemed to float round the room.

I think it was at that moment that I first believed Dr Reilly’s theory to be right.

I felt that the murderer was in the room. Sitting with us – listening. One of us…

Perhaps Mrs Mercado felt it too. For she suddenly gave a short sharp cry.

‘I can’t help it,’ she sobbed. ‘I – it’s so terrible!’

‘Courage, Marie,’ said her husband.

He looked at us apologetically.

‘She is so sensitive. She feels things so much.’

‘I – I was so fond of Louise,’ sobbed Mrs Mercado.

I don’t know whether something of what I felt showed in my face, but I suddenly found that Mr Poirot was looking at me, and that a slight smile hovered on his lips.

I gave him a cold glance, and at once he resumed his inquiry.

‘Tell me, madame,’ he said, ‘of the way you spent yesterday afternoon?’

‘I was washing my hair,’ sobbed Mrs Mercado. ‘It seems awful not to have known anything about it. I was quite happy and busy.’

‘You were in your room?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you did not leave it?’

‘No. Not till I heard the car. Then I came out and I heard what had happened. Oh, it was awful!’

‘Did it surprise you?’

Mrs Mercado stopped crying. Her eyes opened resentfully.

‘What do you mean, M. Poirot? Are you suggesting–?’

‘What should I mean, madame? You have just told us how fond you were of Mrs Leidner. She might, perhaps, have confided in you.’

‘Oh, I see… No – no, dear Louise never told me anything – anything definite, that is. Of course, I could see she was terribly worried and nervous. And there were those strange occurrences – hands tapping on the windows and all that.’

‘Fancies, I remember you said,’ I put in, unable to keep silent.

I was glad to see that she looked momentarily disconcerted.

Once again I was conscious of Mr Poirot’s amused eye glancing in my direction.

He summed up in a businesslike way.

‘It comes to this, madame, you were washing your hair – you heard nothing and you saw nothing. Is there anything at all you can think of that would be a help to us in any way?’

Mrs Mercado took no time to think.

‘No, indeed there isn’t. It’s the deepest mystery! But I should say there is no doubt – no doubt at all that the murderer came from outside. Why, it stands to reason.’

Poirot turned to her husband.

‘And you, monsieur, what have you to say?’

Mr Mercado started nervously. He pulled at his beard in an aimless fashion.

‘Must have been. Must have been,’ he said. ‘Yet how could anyone wish to harm her? She was so gentle – so kind–’ He shook his head. ‘Whoever killed her must have been a fiend – yes, a fiend!’

‘And you yourself, monsieur, how did you pass yesterday afternoon?’

‘I?’ he stared vaguely.

‘You were in the laboratory, Joseph,’ his wife prompted him.

‘Ah, yes, so I was – so I was. My usual tasks.’

‘At what time did you go there?’

Again he looked helplessly and inquiringly at Mrs Mercado.

‘At ten minutes to one, Joseph.’

‘Ah, yes, at ten minutes to one.’

‘Did you come out in the courtyard at all?’

‘No – I don’t think so.’ He considered. ‘No, I am sure I didn’t.’

‘When did you hear of the tragedy?’

‘My wife came and told me. It was terrible – shocking. I could hardly believe it. Even now, I can hardly believe it is true.’

Suddenly he began to tremble.

‘It is horrible – horrible…’

Mrs Mercado came quickly to his side.

‘Yes, yes, Joseph, we feel that. But we mustn’t give way. It makes it so much more difficult for poor Dr Leidner.’

I saw a spasm of pain pass across Dr Leidner’s face, and I guessed that this emotional atmosphere was not easy for him. He gave a half-glance at Poirot as though in appeal. Poirot responded quickly.

‘Miss Johnson?’ he said.

‘I’m afraid I can tell you very little,’ said Miss Johnson. Her cultured well-bred voice was soothing after Mrs Mercado’s shrill treble. She went on: ‘I was working in the living-room – taking impressions of some cylinder seals on plasticine.’

‘And you saw or noticed nothing?’

‘No.’

Poirot gave her a quick glance. His ear had caught what mine had – a faint note of indecision.

‘Are you quite sure, mademoiselle? Is there something that comes back to you vaguely?’

‘No – not really–’

‘Something you saw, shall we say, out of the corner of your eye hardly knowing you saw it.’

‘No, certainly not,’ she replied positively.

‘Something you heard then. Ah, yes, something you are not quite sure whether you heard or not?’

Miss Johnson gave a short, vexed laugh.

‘You press me very closely, M. Poirot. I’m afraid you are encouraging me to tell you what I am, perhaps, only imagining.’

‘Then there was something you – shall we say – imagined?’

Miss Johnson said slowly, weighing her words in a detached way: ‘I have imagined – since – that at some time during the afternoon I heard a very faint cry… What I mean is that I dare say I did hear a cry. All the windows in the living-room were open and one hears all sorts of sounds from people working in the barley fields. But you see – since – I’ve got the idea into my head that it was – that it was Mrs Leidner I heard. And that’s made me rather unhappy. Because if I’d jumped up and run along to her room – well, who knows? I might have been in time…’

Dr Reilly interposed authoritatively.

‘Now, don’t start getting that into your head,’ he said. ‘I’ve no doubt but that Mrs Leidner (forgive me, Leidner) was struck down almost as soon as the man entered the room, and it was that blow that killed her. No second blow was struck. Otherwise she would have had time to call for help and make a real outcry.’

‘Still, I might have caught the murderer,’ said Miss Johnson.

‘What time was this, mademoiselle?’ asked Poirot. ‘In the neighbourhood of half-past one?’

‘It must have been about that time – yes.’ She reflected a minute.

‘That would fit in,’ said Poirot thoughtfully. ‘You heard nothing else – the opening or shutting of a door, for instance?’

Miss Johnson shook her head.

‘No, I do not remember anything of that kind.’

‘You were sitting at a table, I presume. Which way were you facing? The courtyard? The antika-room? The verandah? Or the open countryside?’

‘I was facing the courtyard.’

‘Could you see the boy Abdullah washing pots from where you were?’

‘Oh, yes, if I looked up, but of course I was very intent on what I was doing. All my attention was on that.’

‘If anyone had passed the courtyard window, though, you would have noticed it?’

‘Oh, yes, I am almost sure of that.’

‘And nobody did so?’

‘No.’

‘But if anyone had walked, say, across the middle of the courtyard, would you have noticed that?’

‘I think – probably not – unless, as I said before, I had happened to look up and out of the window.’

‘You did not notice the boy Abdullah leave his work and go out to join the other servants?’

‘No.’

‘Ten minutes,’ mused Poirot. ‘That fatal ten minutes.’

There was a momentary silence.

Miss Johnson lifted her head suddenly and said: ‘You know, M. Poirot, I think I have unintentionally misled you. On thinking it over, I do not believe that I could possibly have heard any cry uttered in Mrs Leidner’s room from where I was. The antika-room lay between me and her – and I understand her windows were found closed.’

‘In any case, do not distress yourself, mademoiselle,’ said Poirot kindly. ‘It is not really of much importance.’

‘No, of course not. I understand that. But you see, it is of importance to me, because I feel I might have done something.’

‘Don’t distress yourself, dear Anne,’ said Dr Leidner with affection. ‘You must be sensible. What you heard was probably one Arab bawling to another some distance away in the fields.’

Miss Johnson flushed a little at the kindliness of his tone. I even saw tears spring to her eyes. She turned her head away and spoke even more gruffly than usual.

‘Probably was. Usual thing after a tragedy – start imagining things that aren’t so at all.’

Poirot was once more consulting his notebook.

‘I do not suppose there is much more to be said. Mr Carey?’

Richard Carey spoke slowly – in a wooden mechanical manner.

‘I’m afraid I can add nothing helpful. I was on duty at the dig. The news was brought to me there.’

‘And you know or can think of nothing helpful that occurred in the days immediately preceding the murder?’

‘Nothing at all.’

‘Mr Coleman?’

‘I was right out of the whole thing,’ said Mr Coleman with – was it just a shade of regret – in his tone. ‘I went into Hassanieh yesterday morning to get the money for the men’s wages. When I came back Emmott told me what had happened and I went back in the bus to get the police and Dr Reilly.’

‘And beforehand?’

‘Well, sir, things were a bit jumpy – but you know that already. There was the antika-room scare and one or two before that – hands and faces at the window – you remember, sir,’ he appealed to Dr Leidner, who bent his head in assent. ‘I think, you know, that you’ll find some Johnny did get in from outside. Must have been an artful sort of beggar.’

Poirot considered him for a minute or two in silence.

‘You are an Englishman, Mr Coleman?’ he asked at last.

‘That’s right, sir. All British. See the trade-mark. Guaranteed genuine.’

‘This is your first season?’

‘Quite right.’

‘And you are passionately keen on archaeology?’

This description of himself seemed to cause Mr Coleman some embarrassment. He got rather pink and shot the side look of a guilty schoolboy at Dr Leidner.

‘Of course – it’s all very interesting,’ he stammered. ‘I mean – I’m not exactly a brainy chap…’

He broke off rather lamely. Poirot did not insist.

He tapped thoughtfully on the table with the end of his pencil and carefully straightened an inkpot that stood in front of him.

‘It seems then,’ he said, ‘that that is as near as we can get for the moment. If any one of you thinks of something that has for the time being slipped his or her memory, do not hesitate to come to me with it. It will be well now, I think, for me to have a few words alone with Dr Leidner and Dr Reilly.’

It was the signal for a breaking up of the party. We all rose and filed out of the door. When I was half-way out, however, a voice recalled me.

‘Perhaps,’ said M. Poirot, ‘Nurse Leatheran will be so kind as to remain. I think her assistance will be valuable to us.’

I came back and resumed my seat at the table.