Murder in Mesopotamia

Chapter 23. I Go Psychic

The funeral was, I thought, a very affecting affair. As well as ourselves, all the English people in Hassanieh attended it. Even Sheila Reilly was there, looking quiet and subdued in a dark coat and skirt. I hoped that she was feeling a little remorseful for all the unkind things she had said.

When we got back to the house I followed Dr Leidner into the office and broached the subject of my departure. He was very nice about it, thanked me for what I had done (Done! I had been worse than useless) and insisted on my accepting an extra week’s salary.

I protested because really I felt I’d done nothing to earn it.

‘Indeed, Dr Leidner, I’d rather not have any salary at all. If you’ll just refund me my travelling expenses, that’s all I want.’

But he wouldn’t hear of that.

‘You see,’ I said, ‘I don’t feel I deserve it, Dr Leidner. I mean, I’ve – well, I’ve failed. She – my coming didn’t save her.’

‘Now don’t get that idea into your head, nurse,’ he said earnestly. ‘After all, I didn’t engage you as a female detective. I never dreamt my wife’s life was in danger. I was convinced it was all nerves and that she’d worked herself up into a rather curious mental state. You did all anyone could do. She liked and trusted you. And I think in her last days she felt happier and safer because of your being here. There’s nothing for you to reproach yourself with.’

His voice quivered a little and I knew what he was thinking. He was the one to blame for not having taken Mrs Leidner’s fears seriously.

‘Dr Leidner,’ I said curiously. ‘Have you ever come to any conclusion about those anonymous letters?’

He said with a sigh: ‘I don’t know what to believe. Has M. Poirot come to any definite conclusion?’

‘He hadn’t yesterday,’ I said, steering rather neatly, I thought, between truth and fiction. After all, he hadn’t until I told him about Miss Johnson.

It was on my mind that I’d like to give Dr Leidner a hint and see if he reacted. In the pleasure of seeing him and Miss Johnson together the day before, and his affection and reliance on her, I’d forgotten all about the letters. Even now I felt it was perhaps rather mean of me to bring it up. Even if she had written them, she had had a bad time after Mrs Leidner’s death. Yet I did want to see whether that particular possibility had ever entered Dr Leidner’s head.

‘Anonymous letters are usually the work of a woman,’ I said. I wanted to see how he’d take it.

‘I suppose they are,’ he said with a sigh. ‘But you seem to forget, nurse, that these may be genuine. They may actually be written by Frederick Bosner.’

‘No, I haven’t forgotten,’ I said. ‘But I can’t believe somehow that that’s the real explanation.’

‘I do,’ he said. ‘It’s all nonsense, his being one of the expedition staff. That is just an ingenious theory of M. Poirot’s. I believe that the truth is much simpler. The man is a madman, of course. He’s been hanging round the place – perhaps in disguise of some kind. And somehow or other he got in on that fatal afternoon. The servants may be lying – they may have been bribed.’

‘I suppose it’s possible,’ I said doubtfully.

Dr Leidner went on with a trace of irritability.

‘It is all very well for M. Poirot to suspect the members of my expedition. I am perfectly certain none of them have anything to do with it! I have worked with them. I know them!’

He stopped suddenly, then he said: ‘Is that your experience, nurse? That anonymous letters are usually written by women?’

‘It isn’t always the case,’ I said. ‘But there’s a certain type of feminine spitefulness that finds relief that way.’

‘I suppose you are thinking of Mrs Mercado?’ he said.

Then he shook his head.

‘Even if she were malicious enough to wish to hurt Louise she would hardly have the necessary knowledge,’ he said.

I remembered the earlier letters in the attache-case.

If Mrs Leidner had left that unlocked and Mrs Mercado had been alone in the house one day pottering about, she might easily have found them and read them. Men never seem to think of the simplest possibilities!

‘And apart from her there is only Miss Johnson,’ I said, watching him.

‘That would be quite ridiculous!’

The little smile with which he said it was quite conclusive. The idea of Miss Johnson being the author of the letters had never entered his head! I hesitated just for a minute – but I didn’t say anything. One doesn’t like giving away a fellow woman, and besides, I had been a witness of Miss Johnson’s genuine and moving remorse. What was done was done. Why expose Dr Leidner to a fresh disillusion on top of all his other troubles?

It was arranged that I should leave on the following day, and I had arranged through Dr Reilly to stay for a day or two with the matron of the hospital whilst I made arrangements for returning to England either via Baghdad or direct via Nissibin by car and train.

Dr Leidner was kind enough to say that he would like me to choose a memento from amongst his wife’s things.

‘Oh, no, really, Dr Leidner,’ I said. ‘I couldn’t. It’s much too kind of you.’

He insisted.

‘But I should like you to have something. And Louise, I am sure, would have wished it.’

Then he went on to suggest that I should have her tortoiseshell toilet set!

‘Oh, no, Dr Leidner! Why, that’s a most expensive set. I couldn’t, really.’

‘She had no sisters, you know – no one who wants these things. There is no one else to have them.’

I could quite imagine that he wouldn’t want them to fall into Mrs Mercado’s greedy little hands. And I didn’t think he’d want to offer them to Miss Johnson.

He went on kindly: ‘You just think it over. By the way, here is the key of Louise’s jewel case. Perhaps you will find something there you would rather have. And I should be very grateful if you would pack up – all her clothes. I dare say Reilly can find a use for them amongst some of the poor Christian families in Hassanieh.’

I was very glad to be able to do that for him, and I expressed my willingness.

I set about it at once.

Mrs Leidner had only had a very simple wardrobe with her and it was soon sorted and packed up into a couple of suitcases. All her papers had been in the small attache-case. The jewel case contained a few simple trinkets – a pearl ring, a diamond brooch, a small string of pearls, and one or two plain gold bar brooches of the safety-pin type, and a string of large amber beads.

Naturally I wasn’t going to take the pearls or the diamonds, but I hesitated a bit between the amber beads and the toilet set. In the end, however, I didn’t see why I shouldn’t take the latter. It was a kindly thought on Dr Leidner’s part, and I was sure there wasn’t any patronage about it. I’d take it in the spirit it had been offered, without any false pride. After all, I had been fond of her.

Well, that was all done and finished with. The suitcases packed, the jewel case locked up again and put separate to give to Dr Leidner with the photograph of Mrs Leidner’s father and one or two other personal little odds and ends.

The room looked bare and forlorn emptied of all its accoutrements, when I’d finished. There was nothing more for me to do – and yet somehow or other I shrank from leaving the room. It seemed as though there was something still to do there – something I ought to see – or something I ought to have known. I’m not superstitious, but the idea did pop into my head that perhaps Mrs Leidner’s spirit was hanging about the room and trying to get in touch with me.

I remember once at the hospital some of us girls got a planchette and really it wrote some very remarkable things.

Perhaps, although I’d never thought of such a thing, I might be mediumistic.

As I say, one gets all worked up to imagine all sorts of foolishness sometimes.

I prowled round the room uneasily, touching this and that. But, of course, there wasn’t anything in the room but bare furniture. There was nothing slipped behind drawers or tucked away. I couldn’t hope for anything of that kind.

In the end (it sounds rather batty, but as I say, one gets worked up) I did rather a queer thing.

I went and lay down in the bed and closed my eyes.

I deliberately tried to forget who and what I was. I tried to think myself back to that fatal afternoon. I was Mrs Leidner lying here resting, peaceful and unsuspicious.

It’s extraordinary how you can work yourself up.

I’m a perfectly normal matter-of-fact individual – not the least bit spooky, but I tell you that after I’d lain there about five minutes I began to feel spooky.

I didn’t try to resist. I deliberately encouraged the feeling.

I said to myself: ‘I’m Mrs Leidner. I’m Mrs Leidner. I’m lying here – half asleep. Presently – very soon now – the door’s going to open.’

I kept on saying that – as though I were hypnotizing myself.

‘It’s just about half-past one… it’s just about the time… The door is going to open… the door is going to open…I shall see who comes in…’

I kept my eyes glued on that door. Presently it was going to open. I should see it open. And I should seethe person who opened it.

I must have been a little over-wrought that afternoon to imagine I could solve the mystery that way.

But I did believe it. A sort of chill passed down my back and settled in my legs. They felt numb-paralysed.

‘You’re going into a trance,’ I said. ‘And in that trance you’ll see…’

And once again I repeated monotonously again and again:

‘The door is going to open – the door is going to open…’

The cold numbed feeling grew more intense.

And then, slowly, I saw the door just beginning to open.

It was horrible.

I’ve never known anything so horrible before or since.

I was paralysed – chilled through and through. I couldn’t move. For the life of me I couldn’t have moved.

And I was terrified. Sick and blind and dumb with terror.

That slowly opening door.

So noiseless.

In a minute I should see…

Slowly – slowly – wider and wider.

Bill Coleman came quietly in.

He must have had the shock of his life!

I bounded off the bed with a scream of terror and hurled myself across the room.

He stood stock – still, his blunt pink face pinker and his mouth opened wide with surprise.

‘Hallo-allo-allo,’ he said. ‘What’s up, nurse?’

I came back to reality with a crash.

‘Goodness, Mr Coleman,’ I said. ‘How you startled me!’

‘Sorry,’ he said with a momentary grin.

I saw then that he was holding a little bunch of scarlet ranunculus in his hand. They were pretty little flowers and they grew wild on the sides of the Tell. Mrs Leidner had been fond of them.

He blushed and got rather red as he said: ‘One can’t get any flowers or things in Hassanieh. Seemed rather rotten not to have any flowers for the grave. I thought I’d just nip in here and put a little posy in that little pot thing she always had flowers in on her table. Sort of show she wasn’t forgotten – eh? A bit asinine, I know, but – well – I mean to say.’

I thought it was very nice of him. He was all pink with embarrassment like Englishmen are when they’ve done anything sentimental. I thought it was a very sweet thought.

‘Why, I think that’s a very nice idea, Mr Coleman,’ I said.

And I picked up the little pot and went and got some water in it and we put the flowers in.

I really thought much more of Mr Coleman for this idea of his. It showed he had a heart and nice feelings about things.

He didn’t ask me again what made me let out such a squeal and I’m thankful he didn’t. I should have felt a fool explaining.

‘Stick to common sense in future, woman,’ I said to myself as I settled my cuffs and smoothed my apron. ‘You’re not cut out for this psychic stuff.’

I bustled about doing my own packing and kept myself busy for the rest of the day.

Father Lavigny was kind enough to express great distress at my leaving. He said my cheerfulness and common sense had been such a help to everybody. Common sense! I’m glad he didn’t know about my idiotic behaviour in Mrs Leidner’s room.

‘We have not seen M. Poirot today,’ he remarked.

I told him that Poirot had said he was going to be busy all day sending off telegrams.

Father Lavigny raised his eyebrows.

‘Telegrams? To America?’

‘I suppose so. He said, “All over the world!” but I think that was rather a foreign exaggeration.’

And then I got rather red, remembering that Father Lavigny was a foreigner himself.

He didn’t seem offended though, just laughed quite pleasantly and asked me if there were any news of the man with the squint.

I said I didn’t know but I hadn’t heard of any.

Father Lavigny asked me again about the time Mrs Leidner and I had noticed the man and how he had seemed to be standing on tiptoe and peering through the window.

‘It seems clear the man had some overwhelming interest in Mrs Leidner,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘I have wondered since whether the man could possibly have been a European got up to look like an Iraqi?’

That was a new idea to me and I considered it carefully. I had taken it for granted that the man was a native, but of course when I came to think of it, I was really going by the cut of his clothes and the yellowness of his skin.

Father Lavigny declared his intention of going round outside the house to the place where Mrs Leidner and I had seen the man standing.

‘You never know, he might have dropped something. In the detective stories the criminal always does.’

‘I expect in real life criminals are more careful,’ I said.

I fetched some socks I had just finished darning and put them on the table in the living-room for the men to sort out when they came in, and then, as there was nothing much more to do, I went up on the roof.

Miss Johnson was standing there but she didn’t hear me. I got right up to her before she noticed me.

But long before that I’d seen that there was something very wrong.

She was standing in the middle of the roof staring straight in front of her, and there was the most awful look on her face. As though she’d seen something she couldn’t possibly believe.

It gave me quite a shock.

Mind you, I’d seen her upset the other evening, but this was quite different.

‘My dear,’ I said, hurrying to her, ‘whatever’s the matter?’

She turned her head at that and stood looking at me – almost as if she didn’t see me.

‘What is it?’ I persisted.

She made a queer sort of grimace – as though she were trying to swallow but her throat were too dry. She said hoarsely: ‘I’ve just seen something.’

‘What have you seen? Tell me. Whatever can it be? You look all in.’

She gave an effort to pull herself together, but she still looked pretty dreadful.

She said, still in that same dreadful choked voice: ‘I’ve seen how someone could come in from outside – and no one would ever guess.’

I followed the direction of her eyes but I couldn’t see anything.

Mr Reiter was standing in the door of the photographic-room and Father Lavigny was just crossing the courtyard – but there was nothing else.

I turned back puzzled and found her eyes fixed on mine with the strangest expression in them.

‘Really,’ I said, ‘I don’t see what you mean. Won’t you explain?’

But she shook her head.

‘Not now. Later. We ought to have seen. Oh, we ought to have seen!’

‘If you’d only tell me–’

But she shook her head.

‘I’ve got to think it out first.’

And pushing past me, she went stumbling down the stairs.

I didn’t follow her as she obviously didn’t want me with her. Instead I sat down on the parapet and tried to puzzle things out. But I didn’t get anywhere. There was only the one way into the courtyard – through the big arch. Just outside it I could see the water-boy and his horse and the Indian cook talking to him. Nobody could have passed them and come in without their seeing him.

I shook my head in perplexity and went downstairs again.