Murder in Mesopotamia

Chapter 16. The Suspects

Dr Leidner sprang to his feet.

‘Impossible! Absolutely impossible! The idea is absurd!’

Mr Poirot looked at him quite calmly but said nothing.

‘You mean to suggest that my wife’s former husband is one of the expedition and that she didn’t recognize him?’

‘Exactly. Reflect a little on the facts. Some fifteen years ago your wife lived with this man for a few months. Would she know him if she came across him after that lapse of time? I think not. His face will have changed, his build will have changed – his voice may not have changed so much, but that is a detail he can attend to himself. And remember, she is not looking for him amongst her own household. She visualizes him as somewhere outside – a stranger. No, I do not think she would recognize him. And there is a second possibility. The young brother – the child of those days who was so passionately devoted to his elder brother. He is now a man. Will she recognize a child of ten or twelve years old in a man nearing thirty? Yes, there is young William Bosner to be reckoned with. Remember, his brother in his eyes may not loom as a traitor but as a patriot, a martyr for his own country – Germany. In his eyes Mrs Leidner is the traitor – the monster who sent his beloved brother to death! A susceptible child is capable of great hero worship, and a young mind can easily be obsessed by an idea which persists into adult life.’

‘Quite true,’ said Dr Reilly. ‘The popular view that a child forgets easily is not an accurate one. Many people go right through life in the grip of an idea which has been impressed on them in very tender years.’

‘Bien. You have these two possibilities. Frederick Bosner, a man by now of fifty odd, and William Bosner, whose age would be something short of thirty. Let us examine the members of your staff from these two points of view.’

‘This is fantastic,’ murmured Dr Leidner. ‘My staff! The members of my own expedition.’

‘And consequently considered above suspicion,’ said Poirot dryly. ‘A very useful point of view. Commencons! Who could emphatically not be Frederick or William?’

‘The women.’

‘Naturally. Miss Johnson and Mrs Mercado are crossed off. Who else?’

‘Carey. He and I have worked together for years before I even met Louise–’

‘And also he is the wrong age. He is, I should judge, thirty-eight or nine, too young for Frederick, too old for William. Now for the rest. There is Father Lavigny and Mr Mercado. Either of them might be Frederick Bosner.’

‘But, my dear sir,’ cried Dr Leidner in a voice of mingled irritation and amusement, ‘Father Lavigny is known all over the world as an epigraphist and Mercado has worked for years in a well-known museum in New York. It is impossible that either of them should be the man you think!’

Poirot waved an airy hand.

‘Impossible – impossible – I take no account of the word! The impossible, always I examine it very closely! But we will pass on for the moment. Who else have you? Carl Reiter, a young man with a German name, David Emmott–’

‘He has been with me two seasons, remember.’

‘He is a young man with the gift of patience. If he committed a crime, it would not be in a hurry. All would be very well prepared.’

Dr Leidner made a gesture of despair.

‘And lastly, William Coleman,’ continued Poirot.

‘He is an Englishman.’

‘Pourquoi pas? Did not Mrs Leidner say that the boy left America and could not be traced? He might easily have been brought up in England.’

‘You have an answer to everything,’ said Dr Leidner.

I was thinking hard. Right from the beginning I had thought Mr Coleman’s manner rather more like a P.G. Wodehouse book than like a real live young man. Had he really been playing a part all the time?

Poirot was writing in a little book.

‘Let us proceed with order and method,’ he said. ‘On the first count we have two names. Father Lavigny and Mr Mercado. On the second we have Coleman, Emmott and Reiter.

‘Now let us pass to the opposite aspect of the matter – means and opportunity.Who amongst the expedition had the means and the opportunity of committing the crime? Carey was on the dig, Coleman was in Hassanieh, you yourself were on the roof. That leaves us Father Lavigny, Mr Mercado, Mrs Mercado, David Emmott, Carl Reiter, Miss Johnson and Nurse Leatheran.’

‘Oh!’ I exclaimed, and I bounded in my chair.

Mr Poirot looked at me with twinkling eyes.

‘Yes, I’m afraid, ma soeur, that you have got to be included. It would have been quite easy for you to have gone along and killed Mrs Leidner while the courtyard was empty. You have plenty of muscle and strength, and she would have been quite unsuspicious until the moment the blow was struck.’

I was so upset that I couldn’t get a word out. Dr Reilly, I noticed, was looking highly amused.

‘Interesting case of a nurse who murdered her patients one by one,’ he murmured.

Such a look as I gave him!

Dr Leidner’s mind had been running on a different tack.

‘Not Emmott, M. Poirot,’ he objected. ‘You can’t include him. He was on the roof with me, remember, during that ten minutes.’

‘Nevertheless we cannot exclude him. He could have come down, gone straight to Mrs Leidner’s room, killed her, and then called the boy back. Or he might have killed her on one of the occasions when he had sent the boy up to you.’

Dr Leidner shook his head, murmuring: ‘What a nightmare! It’s all so – fantastic.’

To my surprise Poirot agreed.

‘Yes, that’s true. This is a fantastic crime. One does not often come across them. Usually murder is very sordid – very simple. But this is unusual murder… I suspect, Dr Leidner, that your wife was an unusual woman.’

He had hit the nail on the head with such accuracy that I jumped.

‘Is that true, nurse?’ he asked.

Dr Leidner said quietly: ‘Tell him what Louise was like, nurse. You are unprejudiced.’

I spoke quite frankly.

‘She was very lovely,’ I said. ‘You couldn’t help admiring her and wanting to do things for her. I’ve never met anyone like her before.’

‘Thank you,’ said Dr Leidner and smiled at me.

‘That is valuable testimony coming from an outsider,’ said Poirot politely. ‘Well, let us proceed. Under the heading of means and opportunity we have seven names. Nurse Leatheran, Miss Johnson, Mrs Mercado, Mr Mercado, Mr Reiter, Mr Emmott and Father Lavigny.’

Once more he cleared his throat. I’ve always noticed that foreigners can make the oddest noises.

‘Let us for the moment assume that our third theory is correct. That is that the murderer is Frederick or William Bosner, and that Frederick or William Bosner is a member of the expedition staff. By comparing both lists we can narrow down our suspects on this count to four. Father Lavigny, Mr Mercado, Carl Reiter and David Emmott.’

‘Father Lavigny is out of the question,’ said Dr Leidner with decision. ‘He is one of the Peres Blancs in Carthage.’

‘And his beard’s quite real,’ I put in.

‘Ma soeur,’ said Poirot, ‘a murderer of the first class never wears a false beard!’

‘How do you know the murderer is of the first class?’ I asked rebelliously.

‘Because if he were not, the whole truth would be plain to me at this instant – and it is not.’

That’s pure conceit, I thought to myself.

‘Anyway,’ I said, reverting to the beard, ‘it must have taken quite a time to grow.’

‘That is a practical observation,’ said Poirot.

Dr Leidner said irritably: ‘But it’s ridiculous – quite ridiculous. Both he and Mercado are well-known men. They’ve been known for years.’

Poirot turned to him.

‘You have not the true version. You do not appreciate an important point. If Frederick Bosner is not dead – what has he been doing all these years? He must have taken a different name. He must have built himself up a career.’

‘As a Pere Blanc?’ asked Dr Reilly sceptically.

‘It is a little fantastic that, yes,’ confessed Poirot. ‘But we cannot put it right out of court. Besides, these other possibilities.’

‘The young ’uns?’ said Reilly. ‘If you want my opinion, on the face of it there’s only one of your suspects that’s even plausible.’

‘And that is?’

‘Young Carl Reiter. There’s nothing actually against him, but come down to it and you’ve got to admit a few things – he’s the right age, he’s got a German name, he’s new this year and he had the opportunity all right. He’d only got to pop out of his photographic place, cross the courtyard to do his dirty work and hare back again while the coast was clear. If anyone were to have dropped into the photographic-room while he was out of it, he can always say later that he was in the dark-room. I don’t say he’s your man but if you are going to suspect someone I say he’s by far and away the most likely.’

M. Poirot didn’t seem very receptive. He nodded gravely but doubtfully.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘He is the most plausible, but it may not be so simple as all that.’

Then he said: ‘Let us say no more at present. I would like now, if I may, to examine the room where the crime took place.’

‘Certainly.’ Dr Leidner fumbled in his pockets, then looked at Dr Reilly.

‘Captain Maitland took it,’ he said.

‘Maitland gave it to me,’ said Reilly. ‘He had to go off on that Kurdish business.’

He produced the key.

Dr Leidner said hesitatingly: ‘Do you mind – if I don’t – Perhaps, nurse–’

‘Of course. Of course,’ said Poirot. ‘I quite understand. Never do I wish to cause you unnecessary pain. If you will be good enough to accompany me, ma soeur.’

‘Certainly,’ I said.