Murder in Mesopotamia

Chapter 19. A New Suspicion

We couldn’t say any more just then because Dr Reilly came in, saying jokingly that he’d killed off the most tiresome of his patients.

He and M. Poirot settled down to a more or less medical discussion of the psychology and mental state of an anonymous letter-writer. The doctor cited cases that he had known professionally, and M. Poirot told various stories from his own experience.

‘It is not so simple as it seems,’ he ended. ‘There is the desire for power and very often a strong inferiority complex.’

Dr Reilly nodded.

‘That’s why you often find that the author of anonymous letters is the last person in the place to be suspected. Some quiet inoffensive little soul who apparently can’t say boo to a goose – all sweetness and Christian meekness on the outside – and seething with all the fury of hell underneath!’

Poirot said thoughtfully: ‘Should you say Mrs Leidner had any tendency to an inferiority complex?’

Dr Reilly scraped out his pipe with a chuckle.

‘Last woman on earth I’d describe that way. No repressions about her. Life, life and more life – that’s what she wanted – and got, too!’

‘Do you consider it a possibility, psychologically speaking, that she wrote those letters?’

‘Yes, I do. But if she did, the reason arose out of her instinct to dramatize herself. Mrs Leidner was a bit of a film star in private life! She had to be the centre of things – in the limelight. By the law of opposites she married Leidner, who’s about the most retiring and modest man I know. He adored her – but adoration by the fireside wasn’t enough for her. She had to be the persecuted heroine as well.’

‘In fact,’ said Poirot, smiling, ‘you don’t subscribe to his theory that she wrote them and retained no memory of her act?’

‘No, I don’t. I didn’t turn down the idea in front of him. You can’t very well say to a man who’s just lost a dearly loved wife that that same wife was a shameless exhibitionist, and that she drove him nearly crazy with anxiety to satisfy her sense of the dramatic. As a matter of fact it wouldn’t be safe to tell any man the truth about his wife! Funnily enough, I’d trust most women with the truth about their husbands. Women can accept the fact that a man is a rotter, a swindler, a drug-taker, a confirmed liar, and a general swine without batting an eyelash and without its impairing their affection for the brute in the least! Women are wonderful realists.’

‘Frankly, Dr Reilly, what was your exact opinion of Mrs Leidner?’

Dr Reilly lay back in his chair and puffed slowly at his pipe.

‘Frankly – it’s hard to say! I didn’t know her well enough. She’d got charm – any amount of it. Brains, sympathy… What else? She hadn’t any of the ordinary unpleasant vices. She wasn’t sensual or lazy or even particularly vain. She was, I’ve always thought (but I’ve no proofs of it), a most accomplished liar. What I don’t know (and what I’d like to know) is whether she lied to herself or only to other people. I’m rather partial to liars myself. A woman who doesn’t lie is a woman without imagination and without sympathy. I don’t think she was really a man-hunter – she just liked the sport of bringing them down “with my bow and arrow.” If you get my daughter on the subject–’

‘We have had that pleasure,’ said Poirot with a slight smile.

‘H’m,’ said Dr Reilly. ‘She hasn’t wasted much time! Shoved her knife into her pretty thoroughly, I should imagine! The younger generation has no sentiment towards the dead. It’s a pity all young people are prigs! They condemn the “old morality” and then proceed to set up a much more hard-and-fast code of their own. If Mrs Leidner had had half a dozen affairs Sheila would probably have approved of her as “living her life fully” – or “obeying her blood instincts”. What she doesn’t see is that Mrs Leidner was acting true to type – her type. The cat is obeying its blood instinct when it plays with the mouse! It’s made that way. Men aren’t little boys to be shielded and protected. They’ve got to meet cat women – and faithful spaniel, yours – till-death adoring women, and hen-pecking nagging bird women – and all the rest of it! Life’s a battlefield – not a picnic! I’d like to see Sheila honest enough to come off her high horse and admit that she hated Mrs Leidner for good old thorough – going personal reasons. Sheila’s about the only young girl in this place and she naturally assumes that she ought to have it all her own way with the young things in trousers. Naturally it annoys her when a woman, who in her view is middle-aged and who has already two husbands to her credit, comes along and licks her on her own ground. Sheila’s a nice child, healthy and reasonably good-looking and attractive to the other sex as she should be. But Mrs Leidner was something out of the ordinary in that line. She’d got just that sort of calamitous magic that plays the deuce with things – a kind of Belle Dame sans Merci.’

I jumped in my chair. What a coincidence his saying that!

‘Your daughter – I am not indiscreet – she has perhaps a tendresse for one of the young men out there?’

‘Oh, I don’t suppose so. She’s had Emmott and Coleman dancing attendance on her as a matter of course. I don’t know that she cares for one more than the other. There are a couple of young Air Force chaps too. I fancy all’s fish that comes to her net at present. No, I think it’s age daring to defeat youth that annoys her so much! She doesn’t know as much of the world as I do. It’s when you get to my age that you really appreciate a schoolgirl complexion and a clear eye and a firmly knit young body. But a woman over thirty can listen with rapt attention and throw in a word here and there to show the talker what a fine fellow he is – and few young men can resist that! Sheila’s a pretty girl – but Louise Leidner was beautiful. Glorious eyes and that amazing golden fairness. Yes, she was a beautiful woman.’

Yes, I thought to myself, he’s right. Beauty’s a wonderful thing. She had been beautiful. It wasn’t the kind of looks you were jealous of – you just sat back and admired. I felt that first day I met her that I’d do anything for Mrs Leidner!

All the same, that night as I was being driven back to Tell Yarimjah (Dr Reilly made me stay for an early dinner) one or two things came back to my mind and made me rather uncomfortable. At the time I hadn’t believed a word of all Sheila Reilly’s outpouring. I’d taken it for sheer spite and malice.

But now I suddenly remembered the way Mrs Leidner had insisted on going for a stroll by herself that afternoon and wouldn’t hear of me coming with her. I couldn’t help wondering if perhaps, after all, she had been going to meet Mr Carey… And of course, it was a little odd, really, the way he and she spoke to each other so formally. Most of the others she called by their Christian names.

He never seemed to look at her, I remembered. That might be because he disliked her – or it might be just the opposite…

I gave myself a little shake. Here I was fancying and imagining all sorts of things – all because of a girl’s spiteful outburst! It just showed how unkind and dangerous it was to go about saying that kind of thing.

Mrs Leidner hadn’t been like that at all…

Of course, she hadn’t liked Sheila Reilly. She’d really been – almost catty about her that day at lunch to Mr Emmott.

Funny, the way he’d looked at her. The sort of way that you couldn’t possibly tell what he was thinking. You never could tell what Mr Emmott was thinking. He was so quiet. But very nice. A nice dependable person.

Now Mr Coleman was a foolish young man if there ever was one!

I’d got to that point in my meditations when we arrived. It was just on nine o’clock and the big door was closed and barred.

Ibrahim came running with his great key to let me in.

We all went to bed early at Tell Yarimjah. There weren’t any lights showing in the living-room. There was a light in the drawing-office and one in Dr Leidner’s office, but nearly all the other windows were dark. Everyone must have gone to bed even earlier than usual.

As I passed the drawing-office to go to my room I looked in. Mr Carey was in his shirt sleeves working over his big plan.

Terribly ill, he looked, I thought. So strained and worn. It gave me quite a pang. I don’t know what there was about Mr Carey – it wasn’t what he said because he hardly said anything – and that of the most ordinary nature, and it wasn’t what he did, for that didn’t amount to much either – and yet you just couldn’t help noticing him, and everything about him seemed to matter more than it would have about anyone else. He just counted, if you know what I mean.

He turned his head and saw me. He removed his pipe from his mouth and said: ‘Well, nurse, back from Hassanieh?’

‘Yes, Mr Carey. You’re up working late. Everybody else seems to have gone to bed.’

‘I thought I might as well get on with things,’ he said.

‘I was a bit behind-hand. And I shall be out on the dig all tomorrow. We’re starting digging again.’

‘Already?’ I asked, shocked.

He looked at me rather queerly.

‘It’s the best thing, I think. I put it up to Leidner. He’ll be in Hassanieh most of tomorrow seeing to things. But the rest of us will carry on here. You know it’s not too easy all sitting round and looking at each other as things are.’

He was right there, of course. Especially in the nervy, jumpy state everyone was in.

‘Well, of course you’re right in a way,’ I said. ‘It takes one’s mind off if one’s got something to do.’

The funeral, I knew, was to be the day after tomorrow.

He had bent over his plan again. I don’t know why, but my heart just ached for him. I felt certain that he wasn’t going to get any sleep.

‘If you’d like a sleeping draught, Mr Carey?’ I said hesitatingly.

He shook his head with a smile.

‘I’ll carry on, nurse. Bad habit, sleeping draughts.’

‘Well, good night, Mr Carey,’ I said. ‘If there’s anything I can do–’

‘Don’t think so, thank you, nurse. Good night.’

‘I’m terribly sorry,’ I said, rather too impulsively I suppose.

‘Sorry?’ He looked surprised.

‘For – for everybody. It’s all so dreadful. But especially for you.’

‘For me? Why for me?’

‘Well, you’re such an old friend of them both.’

‘I’m an old friend of Leidner’s. I wasn’t a friend of hers particularly.’

He spoke as though he had actually disliked her. Really, I wished Miss Reilly could have heard him!

‘Well, good night,’ I said and hurried along to my room.

I fussed around a bit in my room before undressing. Washed out some handkerchiefs and a pair of wash-leather gloves and wrote up my diary. I just looked out of my door again before I really started to get ready for bed. The lights were still on in the drawing-office and in the south building.

I suppose Dr Leidner was still up and working in his office. I wondered whether I ought to go and say goodnight to him. I hesitated about it – I didn’t want to seem officious. He might be busy and not want to be disturbed. In the end, however, a sort of uneasiness drove me on. After all, it couldn’t do any harm. I’d just say goodnight, ask if there was anything I could do and come away.

But Dr Leidner wasn’t there. The office itself was lit up but there was no one in it except Miss Johnson. She had her head down on the table and was crying as though her heart would break.

It gave me quite a turn. She was such a quiet, self-controlled woman. It was pitiful to see her.

‘Whatever is it, my dear?’ I cried. I put my arm round her and patted her. ‘Now, now, this won’t do at all…You mustn’t sit here crying all by yourself.’

She didn’t answer and I felt the dreadful shuddering sobs that were racking her.

‘Don’t, my dear, don’t,’ I said. ‘Take a hold on yourself. I’ll go and make you a cup of nice hot tea.’

She raised her head and said: ‘No, no, its all right, nurse. I’m being a fool.’

‘What’s upset you, my dear?’ I asked.

She didn’t answer at once, then she said: ‘It’s all too awful…’

‘Now don’t start thinking of it,’ I told her. ‘What’s happened has happened and can’t be mended. It’s no use fretting.’

She sat up straight and began to pat her hair.

‘I’m making rather a fool of myself,’ she said in her gruff voice. ‘I’ve been clearing up and tidying the office. Thought it was best to do something. And then – it all came over me suddenly–’

‘Yes, yes,’ I said hastily. ‘I know. A nice strong cup of tea and a hot-water bottle in your bed is what you want,’ I said.

And she had them too. I didn’t listen to any protests.

‘Thank you, nurse,’ she said when I’d settled her in bed, and she was sipping her tea and the hot-water bottle was in. ‘You’re a nice kind sensible woman. It’s not often I make such a fool of myself.’

‘Oh, anybody’s liable to do that at a time like this,’ I said. ‘What with one thing and another. The strain and the shock and the police here, there and everywhere. Why, I’m quite jumpy myself.’

She said slowly in rather a queer voice: ‘What you said in there is true. What’s happened has happened and can’t be mended…’

She was silent for a minute or two and then said – rather oddly, I thought: ‘She was never a nice woman!’

Well, I didn’t argue the point. I’d always felt it was quite natural for Miss Johnson and Mrs Leidner not to hit it off.

I wondered if, perhaps, Miss Johnson had secretly had a feeling that she was pleased Mrs Leidner was dead, and had then been ashamed of herself for the thought.

I said: ‘Now you go to sleep and don’t worry about anything.’

I just picked up a few things and set the room to rights. Stockings over the back of the chair and coat and skirt on a hanger. There was a little ball of crumpled paper on the floor where it must have fallen out of a pocket.

I was just smoothing it out to see whether I could safely throw it away when she quite startled me.

‘Give that to me!’

I did so – rather taken aback. She’d called out so peremptorily. She snatched it from me – fairly snatched it – and then held it in the candle flame till it was burnt to ashes.

As I say, I was startled – and I just stared at her.

I hadn’t had time to see what the paper was – she’d snatched it so quick. But funnily enough, as it burned it curled over towards me and I just saw that there were words written in ink on the paper.

It wasn’t till I was getting into bed that I realized why they’d looked sort of familiar to me.

It was the same handwriting as that of the anonymous letters.

Was that why Miss Johnson had given way to a fit of remorse? Had it been her all along who had written those anonymous letters?