Murder in Mesopotamia

Chapter 27. 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 water-wheel.

They were mostly things I’d seen and heard and thought nothing much of. But now, somehow they seemed different – like a piece of fusty old stuff you take into the light and suddenly see the rich colours of an old embroidery…

Then I looked round the room we were sitting in and I got a queer feeling that what M. Poirot said was true – we were all starting on a journey. We were here together now, but we were all going our different ways.

And I looked at everyone as though, in a sort of way, I were seeing them for the first time – and for the last time – which sounds stupid, but it was what I felt all the same.

Mr Mercado was twisting his fingers nervously – his queer light eyes with their dilated pupils were staring at Poirot. Mrs Mercado was looking at her husband. She had a strange watchful look like a tigress waiting to spring. Dr Leidner seemed to have shrunk in some curious fashion. This last blow had just crumpled him up. You might almost say he wasn’t in the room at all. He was somewhere far away in a place of his own. Mr Coleman was looking straight at Poirot. His mouth was slightly open and his eyes protruded. He looked almost idiotic. Mr Emmott was looking down at his feet and I couldn’t see his face properly. Mr Reiter looked bewildered. His mouth was pushed out in a pout and that made him look more like a nice clean pig than ever. Miss Reilly was looking steadily out of the window. I don’t know what she was thinking or feeling. Then I looked at Mr Carey, and somehow his face hurt me and I looked away. There we were, all of us. And somehow I felt that when M. Poirot had finished we’d all be somewhere quite different…

It was a queer feeling…

Poirot’s voice went quietly on. It was like a river running evenly between its banks…running to the sea…

‘From the very beginning I have felt that to understand this case one must seek not for external signs or clues, but for the truer clues of the clash of personalities and the secrets of the heart.

‘And I may say that though I have now arrived at what I believe to be the true solution of the case, I have no material proof of it. I know it is so, because it must be so, because in no other way can every single fact fit into its ordered and recognized place.

‘And that, to my mind, is the most satisfying solution there can be.’

He paused and then went on:

‘I will start my journey at the moment when I myself was brought into the case – when I had it presented to me as an accomplished happening. Now, every case, in my opinion, has a definite shape and form. The pattern of this case, to my mind, all revolved round the personality of Mrs Leidner. Until I knew exactly what kind of a woman Mrs Leidner was I should not be able to know why she was murdered and who murdered her.

‘That, then, was my starting point – the personality of Mrs Leidner.

‘There was also one other psychological point of interest – the curious state of tension described as existing amongst the members of the expedition. This was attested to by several different witnesses – some of them outsiders – and I made a note that although hardly a starting point, it should nevertheless be borne in mind during my investigations.

‘The accepted idea seemed to be that it was directly the result of Mrs Leidner’s influence on the members of the expedition, but for reasons which I will outline to you later this did not seem to me entirely acceptable.

‘To start with, as I say, I concentrated solely and entirely on the personality of Mrs Leidner. I had various means of assessing that personality. There were the reactions she produced in a number of people, all varying widely in character and temperament, and there was what I could glean by my own observation. The scope of the latter was naturally limited. But I did learn certain facts.

‘Mrs Leidner’s tastes were simple and even on the austere side. She was clearly not a luxurious woman. On the other hand, some embroidery she had been doing was of an extreme fineness and beauty. That indicated a woman of fastidious and artistic taste. From the observation of the books in her bedroom I formed a further estimate. She had brains, and I also fancied that she was, essentially, an egoist.

‘It had been suggested to me that Mrs Leidner was a woman whose main preoccupation was to attract the opposite sex – that she was, in fact, a sensual woman. This I did not believe to be the case.

‘In her bedroom I noticed the following books on a shelf: Who were the Greeks?, Introduction to Relativity, Life of Lady Hester Stanhope, Back to Methuselah, Linda Condon, Crewe Train.

‘She had, to begin with, an interest in culture and in modern science – that is, a distinct intellectual side. Of the novels, Linda Condon, and in a lesser degree Crewe Train, seemed to show that Mrs Leidner had a sympathy and interest in the independent woman – unencumbered or entrapped by man. She was also obviously interested by the personality of Lady Hester Stanhope. Linda Condon is an exquisite study of the worship of her own beauty by a woman. Crewe Train is a study of a passionate individualist, Back to Methuselah is in sympathy with the intellectual rather than the emotional attitude to life. I felt that I was beginning to understand the dead woman.

‘I next studied the reactions of those who had formed Mrs Leidner’s immediate circle – and my picture of the dead woman grew more and more complete.

‘It was quite clear to me from the accounts of Dr Reilly and others that Mrs Leidner was one of those women who are endowed by Nature not only with beauty but with the kind of calamitous magic which sometimes accompanies beauty and can, indeed, exist independently of it. Such women usually leave a trail of violent happenings behind them. They bring disaster – sometimes on others – sometimes on themselves.

‘I was convinced that Mrs Leidner was a woman who essentially worshipped herself and who enjoyed more than anything else the sense of power. Wherever she was, she must be the centre of the universe. And everyone round her, man or woman, had got to acknowledge her sway. With some people that was easy. Nurse Leatheran, for instance, a generous-natured woman with a romantic imagination, was captured instantly and gave in ungrudging manner full appreciation. But there was a second way in which Mrs Leidner exercised her sway – the way of fear. Where conquest was too easy she indulged a more cruel side to her nature – but I wish to reiterate emphatically that it was not what you might callconscious cruelty. It was as natural and unthinking as is the conduct of a cat with a mouse. Where consciousness came in, she was essentially kind and would often go out of her way to do kind and thoughtful actions for other people.

‘Now of course the first and most important problem to solve was the problem of the anonymous letters. Who had written them and why? I asked myself: Had Mrs Leidner written themherself?

‘To answer this problem it was necessary to go back a long way – to go back, in fact, to the date of Mrs Leidner’s first marriage. It is here we start on our journey proper. The journey of Mrs Leidner’s life.

‘First of all we must realize that the Louise Leidner of all those years ago is essentially the same Louise Leidner of the present time.

‘She was young then, of remarkable beauty – that same haunting beauty that affects a man’s spirit and senses as no mere material beauty can – and she was already essentially an egoist.

‘Such women naturally revolt from the idea of marriage. They may be attracted by men, but they prefer to belong to themselves. They are truly La Belle Dame sans Merci of the legend. Nevertheless Mrs Leidner did marry – and we can assume, I think, that her husband must have been a man of a certain force of character.

‘Then the revelation of his traitorous activities occurs and Mrs Leidner acts in the way she told Nurse Leidner. She gave information to the Government.

‘Now I submit that there was a psychological significance in her action. She told Nurse Leatheran that she was a very patriotic idealistic girl and that that feeling was the cause of her action. But it is a well-known fact that we all tend to deceive ourselves as to the motives for our own actions. Instinctively we select the best-sounding motive! Mrs Leidner may have believed herself that it was patriotism that inspired her action, but I believe myself that it was really the outcome of an unacknowledged desire to get rid of her husband! She disliked domination – she disliked the feeling of belonging to someone else – in fact she disliked playing second fiddle. She took a patriotic way of regaining her freedom.

‘But underneath her consciousness was a gnawing sense of guilt which was to play its part in her future destiny.

‘We now come directly to the question of the letters. Mrs Leidner was highly attractive to the male sex. On several occasions she was attracted by them – but in each case a threatening letter played its part and the affair came to nothing.

‘Who wrote those letters? Frederick Bosner or his brother William or Mrs Leidner herself?

‘There is a perfectly good case for either theory. It seems clear to me that Mrs Leidner was one of those women who do inspire devouring devotions in men, the type of devotion which can become an obsession. I find it quite possible to believe in a Frederick Bosner to whom Louise, his wife, mattered more than anything in the world! She had betrayed him once and he dared not approach her openly, but he was determined at least that she should be his or no one’s. He preferred her death to her belonging to another man.

‘On the other hand, if Mrs Leidner had, deep down, a dislike of entering into the marriage bond, it is possible that she took this way of extricating herself from difficult positions. She was a huntress who, the prey once attained, had no further use for it! Craving drama in her life, she invented a highly satisfactory drama – a resurrected husband forbidding the banns! It satisfied her deepest instincts. It made her a romantic figure, a tragic heroine, and it enabled her not to marry again.

‘This state of affairs continued over a number of years. Every time there was any likelihood of marriage – a threatening letter arrived.

‘But now we come to a really interesting point. Dr Leidner came upon the scene – and no forbidding letter arrived! Nothing stood in the way of her becoming Mrs Leidner. Not until after her marriage did a letter arrive.

‘At once we ask ourselves – why?

‘Let us take each theory in turn.

…‘If Mrs Leidner wrote the letters herself the problem is easily explained. Mrs Leidner really wanted to marry Dr Leidner. And so she did marry him. But in that case, why did she write herself a letter afterwards? Was her craving for drama too strong to be suppressed? And why only those two letters? After that no other letter was received until a year and a half later.

‘Now take the other theory, that the letters were written by her first husband, Frederick Bosner (or his brother). Why did the threatening letter arrive after the marriage? Presumably Frederick could not have wanted her to marry Leidner. Why, then, did he not stop the marriage? He had done so successfully on former occasions. And why, having waited till the marriage had taken place, did he then resume his threats?

‘The answer, an unsatisfactory one, is that he was somehow or other unable to protest sooner. He may have been in prison or he may have been abroad.

‘There is next the attempted gas poisoning to consider. It seems extremely unlikely that it was brought about by an outside agency. The likely persons to have staged it were Dr and Mrs Leidner themselves. There seems no conceivable reason why Dr Leidner should do such a thing, so we are brought to the conclusion that Mrs Leidner planned and carried it out herself.

‘Why? More drama?

‘After that Dr and Mrs Leidner go abroad and for eighteen months they lead a happy, peaceful life with no threats of death to disturb it. They put that down to having successfully covered their traces, but such an explanation is quite absurd. In these days going abroad is quite inadequate for that purpose. And especially was that so in the case of the Leidners. He was the director of a museum expedition. By inquiry at the museum, Frederick Bosner could at once have obtained his correct address. Even granting that he was in too reduced circumstances to pursue the couple himself there would be no bar to his continuing his threatening letters. And it seems to me that a man with his obsession would certainly have done so.

‘Instead nothing is heard of him until nearly two years later when the letters are resumed.

‘Why were the letters resumed?

‘A very difficult question – most easily answered by saying that Mrs Leidner was bored and wanted more drama. But I was not quite satisfied with that. This particular form of drama seemed to me a shade too vulgar and too crude to accord well with her fastidious personality.

‘The only thing to do was to keep an open mind on the question.

‘There were three definite possibilities: (1) the letters were written by Mrs Leidner herself; (2) they were written by Frederick Bosner (or young William Bosner); (3) they might have been written originally by either Mrs Leidner or her first husband, but they were now forgeries – that is, they were being written by a third person who was aware of the earlier letters.

‘I now come to direct consideration of Mrs Leidner’s entourage.

‘I examined first the actual opportunities that each member of the staff had had for committing the murder.

‘Roughly, on the face of it, anyone might have committed it (as far as opportunity went), with the exception of three persons.

‘Dr Leidner, by overwhelming testimony, had never left the roof. Mr Carey was on duty at the mound. Mr Coleman was in Hassanieh.

‘But those alibis, my friends, were not quite as good as they looked. I except Dr Leidner’s. There is absolutely no doubt that he was on the roof all the time and did not come down until quite an hour and a quarter after the murder had happened.

‘But was it quite certain that Mr Carey was on the mound all the time?

‘And had Mr Coleman actually been in Hassanieh at the time the murder took place?’

Bill Coleman reddened, opened his mouth, shut it and looked round uneasily.

Mr Carey’s expression did not change.

Poirot went on smoothly.

‘I also considered one other person who, I satisfied myself, would be perfectly capable of committing murder if she felt strongly enough. Miss Reilly has courage and brains and a certain quality of ruthlessness. When Miss Reilly was speaking to me on the subject of the dead woman, I said to her, jokingly, that I hoped she had an alibi. I think Miss Reilly was conscious then that she had had in her heart the desire, at least, to kill. At any rate she immediately uttered a very silly and purposeless lie. She said she had been playing tennis on that afternoon. The next day I learned from a casual conversation with Miss Johnson that far from playing tennis, Miss Reilly had actually been near this house at the time of the murder. It occurred to me that Miss Reilly, if not guilty of the crime, might be able to tell me something useful.’

He stopped and then said quietly: ‘Will you tell us, Miss Reilly, what you did see that afternoon?’

The girl did not answer at once. She still looked out of the window without turning her head, and when she spoke it was in a detached and measured voice.

‘I rode out to the dig after lunch. It must have been about a quarter to two when I got there.’

‘Did you find any of your friends on the dig?’

‘No, there seemed to be no one there but the Arab foreman.’

‘You did not see Mr Carey?’

‘No.’

‘Curious,’ said Poirot. ‘No more did M. Verrier when he went there that same afternoon.’

He looked invitingly at Carey, but the latter neither moved nor spoke.

‘Have you any explanation, Mr Carey?’

‘I went for a walk. There was nothing of interest turning up.’

‘In which direction did you go for a walk?’

‘Down by the river.’

‘Not back towards the house?’

‘No.’

‘I suppose,’ said Miss Reilly, ‘that you were waiting for someone who didn’t come.’

He looked at her but didn’t answer.

Poirot did not press the point. He spoke once more to the girl.

‘Did you see anything else, mademoiselle?’

‘Yes. I was not far from the expedition house when I noticed the expedition lorry drawn up in a wadi. I thought it was rather queer. Then I saw Mr Coleman. He was walking along with his head down as though he were searching for something.’

‘Look here,’ burst out Mr Coleman, ‘I–’

Poirot stopped him with an authoritative gesture.

‘Wait. Did you speak to him, Miss Reilly?’

‘No. I didn’t.’

‘Why?’

The girl said slowly: ‘Because, from time to time, he started and looked round with an extraordinary furtive look. It – gave me an unpleasant feeling. I turned my horse’s head and rode away. I don’t think he saw me. I was not very near and he was absorbed in what he was doing.’

‘Look here,’ Mr Coleman was not to be hushed any longer. ‘I’ve got a perfectly good explanation for what – I admit – looks a bit fishy. As a matter of fact, the day before I had slipped a jolly fine cylinder seal into my coat pocket instead of putting it in the antika-room – forgot all about it. And then I discovered I’d been and lost it out of my pocket – dropped it somewhere. I didn’t want to get into a row about it so I decided I’d have a jolly good search on the quiet. I was pretty sure I’d dropped it on the way to or from the dig. I rushed over my business in Hassanieh. Sent a walad to do some of the shopping and got back early. I stuck the bus where it wouldn’t show and had a jolly good hunt for over an hour. And didn’t find the damned thing at that! Then I got into the bus and drove on to the house. Naturally, everyone thought I’d just got back.’

‘And you did not undeceive them?’ asked Poirot sweetly.

‘Well, that was pretty natural under the circumstances, don’t you think?’

‘I hardly agree,’ said Poirot.

‘Oh, come now – don’t go looking for trouble – that’s my motto! But you can’t fasten anything on me. I never went into the courtyard, and you can’t find anyone who’ll say I did.’

‘That, of course, has been the difficulty,’ said Poirot. ‘The evidence of the servants that no one entered the courtyard from outside. But it occurred to me, upon reflection, that that was really not what they had said. They had sworn that no stranger had entered the premises. They had not been asked if a member of the expedition had done so.’

‘Well, you ask them,’ said Coleman. ‘I’ll eat my hat if they saw me or Carey either.’

‘Ah! but that raises rather an interesting question. They would notice a stranger undoubtedly – but would they have even noticed a member of the expedition? The members of the staff are passing in and out all day. The servants would hardly notice their going and coming. It is possible, I think, that either Mr Carey or Mr Coleman might have entered and the servants’ minds would have no remembrance of such an event.’

‘Bunkum!’ said Mr Coleman.

Poirot went on calmly: ‘Of the two, I think Mr Carey was the least likely to be noticed going or coming. Mr Coleman had started to Hassanieh in the car that morning and he would be expected to return in it. His arrival on foot would therefore be noticeable.’

‘Of course it would!’ said Coleman.

Richard Carey raised his head. His deep-blue eyes looked straight at Poirot.

‘Are you accusing me of murder, M. Poirot?’ he asked.

His manner was quite quiet but his voice had a dangerous undertone.

Poirot bowed to him.

‘As yet I am only taking you all on a journey – my journey towards the truth. I had now established one fact – that all the members of the expedition staff, and also Nurse Leatheran, could in actual fact have committed the murder. That there was very little likelihood of some of them having committed it was a secondary matter.

‘I had examined means and opportunity. I next passed to motive. I discovered that one and all of you could be credited with a motive!’

‘Oh! M. Poirot,’ I cried. ‘Not me! Why, I was a stranger. I’d only just come.’

‘Eh bien, ma soeur, and was not that just what Mrs Leidner had been fearing? A stranger from outside?’

‘But – but – Why, Dr Reilly knew all about me! He suggested my coming!’

‘How much did he really know about you? Mostly what you yourself had told him. Imposters have passed themselves off as hospital nurses before now.’

‘You can write to St. Christopher’s,’ I began.

‘For the moment will you silence yourself. Impossible to proceed while you conduct this argument. I do not say I suspect you now. All I say is that, keeping the open mind, you might quite easily be someone other than you pretended to be. There are many successful female impersonators, you know. Young William Bosner might be something of that kind.’

I was about to give him a further piece of my mind. Female impersonator indeed! But he raised his voice and hurried on with such an air of determination that I thought better of it.

‘I am going now to be frank – brutally so. It is necessary. I am going to lay bare the underlying structure of this place.

‘I examined and considered every single soul here. To begin with Dr Leidner, I soon convinced myself that his love for his wife was the mainspring of his existence. He was a man torn and ravaged with grief. Nurse Leatheran I have already mentioned. If she were a female impersonator she was a most amazingly successful one, and I inclined to the belief that she was exactly what she said she was – a thoroughly competent hospital nurse.’

‘Thank you for nothing,’ I interposed.

‘My attention was immediately attracted towards Mr and Mrs Mercado, who were both of them clearly in a state of great agitation and unrest. I considered first Mrs Mercado. Was she capable of murder, and if so for what reasons?

‘Mrs Mercado’s physique was frail. At first sight it did not seem possible that she could have had the physical strength to strike down a woman like Mrs Leidner with a heavy stone implement. If, however, Mrs Leidner had been on her knees at the time, the thing would at least be physically possible. There are ways in which one woman can induce another to go down on her knees. Oh! not emotional ways! For instance, a woman might be turning up the hem of a skirt and ask another woman to put in the pins for her. The second woman would kneel on the ground quite unsuspectingly.

‘But the motive? Nurse Leatheran had told me of the angry glances she had seen Mrs Mercado direct at Mrs Leidner. Mr Mercado had evidently succumbed easily to Mrs Leidner’s spell. But I did not think the solution was to be found in mere jealousy. I was sure Mrs Leidner was not in the least interested really in Mr Mercado – and doubtless Mrs Mercado was aware of the fact. She might be furious with her for the moment, but for murder there would have to be greater provocation. But Mrs Mercado was essentially a fiercely maternal type. From the way she looked at her husband I realized, not only that she loved him, but that she would fight for him tooth and nail – and more than that – that she envisaged the possibility of having to do so. She was constantly on her guard and uneasy. The uneasiness was for him – not for herself. And when I studied Mr Mercado I could make a fairly easy guess at what the trouble was. I took means to assure myself of the truth of my guess. Mr Mercado was a drug addict – in an advanced stage of the craving.

‘Now I need probably not tell you all that the taking of drugs over a long period has the result of considerably blunting the moral sense.

‘Under the influence of drugs a man commits actions that he would not have dreamed of committing a few years earlier before he began the practice. In some cases a man has committed murder – and it has been difficult to say whether he was wholly responsible for his actions or not. The law of different countries varies slightly on that point. The chief characteristic of the drug-fiend criminal is overweening confidence in his own cleverness.

‘I thought it possible that there was some discreditable incident, perhaps a criminal incident, in Mr Mercado’s past which his wife had somehow or other succeeded in hushing up. Nevertheless his career hung on a thread. If anything of this past incident were bruited about, Mr Mercado would be ruined. His wife was always on the watch. But there was Mrs Leidner to be reckoned with. She had a sharp intelligence and a love of power. She might even induce the wretched man to confide in her. It would just have suited her peculiar temperament to feel she knew a secret which she could reveal at any minute with disastrous effects.

‘Here, then, was a possible motive for murder on the part of the Mercados. To protect her mate, Mrs Mercado, I felt sure, would stick at nothing! Both she and her husband had had the opportunity – during that ten minutes when the courtyard was empty.’

Mrs Mercado cried out, ‘It’s not true!’

Poirot paid no attention.

‘I next considered Miss Johnson. Was she capable of murder?

‘I thought she was. She was a person of strong will and iron self-control. Such people are constantly repressing themselves – and one day the dam bursts! But if Miss Johnson had committed the crime it could only be for some reason connected with Dr Leidner. If in any way she felt convinced that Mrs Leidner was spoiling her husband’s life, then the deep unacknowledged jealousy far down in her would leap at the chance of a plausible motive and give itself full rein.

‘Yes, Miss Johnson was distinctly a possibility.

‘Then there were the three young men.

‘First Carl Reiter. If, by any chance, one of the expedition staff was William Bosner, then Reiter was by far the most likely person. But if he was William Bosner, then he was certainly a most accomplished actor! If he were merely himself, had he any reason for murder?

‘Regarded from Mrs Leidner’s point of view, Carl Reiter was far too easy a victim for good sport. He was prepared to fall on his face and worship immediately. Mrs Leidner despised undiscriminating adoration – and the door-mat attitude nearly always brings out the worst side of a woman. In her treatment of Carl Reiter Mrs Leidner displayed really deliberate cruelty. She inserted a gibe here – a prick there. She made the poor young man’s life a hell to him.’

Poirot broke off suddenly and addressed the young man in a personal, highly confidential manner.

‘Mon ami, let this be a lesson to you. You are a man. Behave, then, like a man! It is against Nature for a man to grovel. Women and Nature have almost exactly the same reactions! Remember it is better to take the largest plate within reach and fling it at a woman’s head than it is to wriggle like a worm whenever she looks at you!’

He dropped his private manner and reverted to his lecture style.

‘Could Carl Reiter have been goaded to such a pitch of torment that he turned on his tormentor and killed her? Suffering does queer things to a man. I could not besure that it was not so!

‘Next William Coleman. His behaviour, as reported by Miss Reilly, is certainly suspicious. If he was the criminal it could only be because his cheerful personality concealed the hidden one of William Bosner. I do not think William Coleman, as William Coleman, has the temperament of a murderer. His faults might lie in another direction. Ah! perhaps Nurse Leatheran can guess what they would be?’

How did the man do it? I’m sure I didn’t look as though I was thinking anything at all.

‘It’s nothing really,’ I said, hesitating. ‘Only if it’s to be all truth, Mr Coleman did say once himself that he would have made a good forger.’

‘A good point,’ said Poirot. ‘Therefore if he had come across some of the old threatening letters, he could have copied them without difficulty.’

‘Oy, oy, oy!’ called out Mr Coleman. ‘This is what they call a frame-up.’

Poirot swept on.

‘As to his being or not being William Bosner, such a matter is difficult of verification. But Mr Coleman has spoken of a guardian – not of a father – and there is nothing definitely to veto the idea.’

‘Tommyrot,’ said Mr Coleman. ‘Why all of you listen to this chap beats me.’

‘Of the three young men there remains Mr Emmott,’ went on Poirot. ‘He again might be a possible shield for the identity of William Bosner. Whatever personal reasons he might have for the removal of Mrs Leidner I soon realized that I should have no means of learning them from him. He could keep his own counsel remarkably well, and there was not the least chance of provoking him nor of tricking him into betraying himself on any point. Of all the expedition he seemed to be the best and most dispassionate judge of Mrs Leidner’s personality. I think that he always knew her for exactly what she was – but what impression her personality made on him I was unable to discover. I fancy that Mrs Leidner herself must have been provoked and angered by his attitude.

‘I may say that of all the expedition,as far as character and capacity were concerned, Mr Emmott seemed to me the most fitted to bring a clever and well-timed crime off satisfactorily.’

For the first time, Mr Emmott raised his eyes from the toes of his boots.

‘Thank you,’ he said.

There seemed to be just a trace of amusement in his voice.

‘The last two people on my list were Richard Carey and Father Lavigny.

‘According to the testimony of Nurse Leatheran and others, Mr Carey and Mrs Leidner disliked each other. They were both civil with an effort. Another person, Miss Reilly, propounded a totally different theory to account for their attitude of frigid politeness.

‘I soon had very little doubt that Miss Reilly’s explanation was the correct one. I acquired my certitude by the simple expedient of provoking Mr Carey into reckless and unguarded speech. It was not difficult. As I soon saw, he was in a state of high nervous tension. In fact he was – and is – very near a complete nervous breakdown. A man who is suffering up to the limit of his capacity can seldom put up much of a fight.

‘Mr Carey’s barriers came down almost immediately. He told me, with a sincerity that I did not for a moment doubt, that he hated Mrs Leidner.

‘And he was undoubtedly speaking the truth. He did hate Mrs Leidner. But why did he hate her?

‘I have spoken of women who have a calamitous magic. But men have that magic too. There are men who are able without the least effort to attract women. What they call in these days le sex appeal! Mr Carey had this quality very strongly. He was to begin with devoted to his friend and employer, and indifferent to his employer’s wife. That did not suit Mrs Leidner. She must dominate – and she set herself out to capture Richard Carey. But here, I believe, something entirely unforeseen took place. She herself for perhaps the first time in her life, fell a victim to an overmastering passion. She fell in love – really in love – with Richard Carey.

‘And he – was unable to resist her. Here is the truth of the terrible state of nervous tension that he has been enduring. He has been a man torn by two opposing passions. He loved Louise Leidner – yes, but he also hated her. He hated her for undermining his loyalty to his friend. There is no hatred so great as that of a man who has been made to love a woman against his will.

‘I had here all the motive that I needed. I was convinced thatat certain moments the most natural thing for Richard Carey to do would have been to strike with all the force of his arm at the beautiful face that had cast a spell over him.

‘All along I had felt sure that the murder of Louise Leidner was a crime passionnel. In Mr Carey I had found an ideal murderer for that type of crime.

‘There remains one other candidate for the title of murderer – Father Lavigny. My attention was attracted to the good Father straightaway by a certain discrepancy between his description of the strange man who had been seen peering in at the window and the one given by Nurse Leatheran. In all accounts given by different witnesses there is usually some discrepancy, but this was absolutely glaring. Moreover, Father Lavigny insisted on a certain characteristic – a squint – which ought to make identification much easier.

‘But very soon it became apparent that while Nurse Leatheran’s description was substantially accurate, Father Lavigny’s was nothing of the kind. It looked almost as though Father Lavigny was deliberately misleading us – as though he did not want the man caught.

‘But in that case he must know something about this curious person. He had been seen talking to the man but we had only his word for what they had been talking about.

‘What had the Iraqi been doing when Nurse Leatheran and Mrs Leidner saw him? Trying to peer through the window – Mrs Leidner’s window, so they thought, but I realized when I went and stood where they had been, that it might equally have been the antika-room window.

‘The night after that an alarm was given. Someone was in the antika-room. Nothing proved to have been taken, however. The interesting point to me is that when Dr Leidner got there he found Father Lavigny there before him. Father Lavigny tells his story of seeing a light. But again we have only his word for it.

‘I begin to get curious about Father Lavigny. The other day when I make the suggestion that Father Lavigny may be Frederick Bosner, Dr Leidner pooh-poohs the suggestion. He says Father Lavigny is a well-known man. I advance the supposition that Frederick Bosner, who has had nearly twenty years to make a career for himself, under a new name, may very possiblybe a well-known man by this time! All the same, I do not think that he has spent the intervening time in a religious community. A very much simpler solution presents itself.

‘Did anyone at the expedition know Father Lavigny by sight before he came? Apparently not. Why then should not it be someone impersonating the good Father? I found out that a telegram had been sent to Carthage on the sudden illness of Dr Byrd, who was to have accompanied the expedition. To intercept a telegram, what could be easier? As to the work, there was no other epigraphist attached to the expedition. With a smattering of knowledge a clever man might bluff his way through. There had been very few tablets and inscriptions so far, and already I gathered that Father Lavigny’s pronouncements had been felt to be somewhat unusual.

‘It looked very much as though Father Lavigny were an imposter.

‘But was he Frederick Bosner?

‘Somehow, affairs did not seem to be shaping themselves that way. The truth seemed likely to lie in quite a different direction.

‘I had a lengthy conversation with Father Lavigny. I am a practising Catholic and I know many priests and members of religious communities. Father Lavigny struck me as not ringing quite true to his role. But he struck me, on the other hand, as familiar in quite a different capacity. I had met men of his type quite frequently – but they were not members of a religious community. Far from it!

‘I began to send off telegrams.

‘And then, unwittingly, Nurse Leatheran gave me a valuable clue. We were examining the gold ornaments in the antika-room and she mentioned a trace of wax having been found adhering to a gold cup. Me, I say, “Wax?” and Father Lavigny, he said “Wax?” and his tone was enough! I knew in a flash exactly what he was doing here.’

Poirot paused and addressed himself directly to Dr Leidner.

‘I regret to tell you, monsieur, that the gold cup in the antika-room, the gold dagger, the hair ornaments and several other thingsare not the genuine articles found by you. They are very clever electrotypes. Father Lavigny, I have just learned by this last answer to my telegrams, is none other than Raoul Menier, one of the cleverest thieves known to the French police. He specializes in thefts from museums of objets d’art and such like. Associated with him is Ali Yusuf, a semi-Turk, who is a first-class working jeweller. Our first knowledge of Menier was when certain objects in the Louvre were found not to be genuine – in every case it was discovered that a distinguished archaeologist not known previously by sight to the director had recently had the handling of the spurious articles when paying a visit to the Louvre. On inquiry all these distinguished gentlemen denied having paid a visit to the Louvre at the times stated!

‘I have learned that Menier was in Tunis preparing the way for a theft from the Holy Fathers when your telegram arrived. Father Lavigny, who was in ill-health, was forced to refuse, but Menier managed to get hold of the telegram and substitute one of acceptance. He was quite safe in doing so. Even if the monks should read in some paper (in itself an unlikely thing) that Father Lavigny was in Iraq they would only think that the newspapers had got hold of a half-truth as so often happens.

‘Menier and his accomplice arrived. The latter is seen when he is reconnoitring the antika-room from outside. The plan is for Father Lavigny to take wax impressions. Ali then makes clever duplicates. There are always certain collectors who are willing to pay a good price for genuine antiques and will ask no embarrassing questions. Father Lavigny will effect the substitution of the fake for the genuine article – preferably at night.

‘And that is doubtless what he was doing when Mrs Leidner heard him and gave the alarm. What can he do? He hurriedly makes up a story of having seen a light in the antika-room.

‘That “went down”, as you say, very well. But Mrs Leidner was no fool. She may have remembered the trace of wax she had noticed and then put two and two together. And if she did, what will she do then? Would it not be dans son caractere to do nothing at once, but enjoy herself by letting hints slip to the discomfiture of Father Lavigny? She will let him see that she suspects – but not that she knows. It is, perhaps, a dangerous game, but she enjoys a dangerous game.

‘And perhaps she plays that game too long. Father Lavigny sees the truth, and strikes before she realizes what he means to do.

‘Father Lavigny is Raoul Menier – a thief. Is he also – a murderer?’

Poirot paced the room. He took out a handkerchief, wiped his forehead and went on: ‘That was my position this morning. There were eight distinct possibilities and I did not know which of these possibilities was the right one. I still did not know who was the murderer.

‘But murder is a habit. The man or woman who kills once will kill again.

‘And by the second murder, the murderer was delivered into my hands.

‘All along it was ever present in the back of my mind that some one of these people might have knowledge that they had kept back – knowledge incriminating the murderer.

‘If so, that person would be in danger.

‘My solicitude was mainly on account of Nurse Leatheran. She had an energetic personality and a brisk inquisitive mind. I was terrified of her finding out more than it was safe for her to know.

‘As you all know, a second murder did take place. But the victim was not Nurse Leatheran – it was Miss Johnson.

‘I like to think that I should have reached the correct solution anyway by pure reasoning, but it is certain that Miss Johnson’s murder helped me to it much quicker.

‘To begin with, one suspect was eliminated – Miss Johnson herself – for I did not for a moment entertain the theory of suicide.

‘Let us examine now the facts of this second murder.

‘Fact One: On Sunday evening Nurse Leatheran finds Miss Johnson in tears, and that same evening Miss Johnson burns a fragment of a letter which nurse believes to be in the same handwriting as that of the anonymous letters.

‘Fact Two: The evening before her death Miss Johnson is found by Nurse Leatheran standing on the roof in a state that nurse describes as one of incredulous horror. When nurse questions her she says, “I’ve seen how someone could come in from outside – and no one would ever guess.” She won’t say any more. Father Lavigny is crossing the courtyard and Mr Reiter is at the door of the photographic-room.

‘Fact Three: Miss Johnson is found dying. The only words she can manage to articulate are “the window – the window–”

‘Those are the facts, and these are the problems with which we are faced:

‘What is the truth of the letters?

‘What did Miss Johnson see from the roof?

‘What did she mean by “the window – the window”?

‘Eh bien, let us take the second problem first as the easiest of solution. I went up with Nurse Leatheran and I stood where Miss Johnson had stood. From there she could see the courtyard and the archway and the north side of the building and two members of the staff. Had her words anything to do with either Mr Reiter or Father Lavigny?

‘Almost at once a possible explanation leaped to my brain. If a stranger came in from outside he could only do so in disguise. And there was only one person whose general appearance lent itself to such an impersonation. Father Lavigny! With a sun helmet, sun glasses, black beard and a monk’s long woollen robe, a stranger could pass in without the servants realising that a stranger had entered.

‘Was that Miss Johnson’s meaning? Or had she gone further? Did she realize that Father Lavigny’s whole personality was a disguise? That he was someone other than he pretended to be?

‘Knowing what I did know about Father Lavigny, I was inclined to call the mystery solved. Raoul Menier was the murderer. He had killed Mrs Leidner to silence her before she could give him away. Now another person lets him see that she has penetrated his secret. She, too, must be removed.

‘And so everything is explained! The second murder. Father Lavigny’s flight – minus robe and beard. (He and his friend are doubtless careering through Syria with excellent passports as two commercial travellers.) His action in placing the blood-stained quern under Miss Johnson’s bed.

‘As I say, I was almost satisfied – but not quite. For the perfect solution must explain everything – and this does not do so.

‘It does not explain, for instance, why Miss Johnson should say “the window”, as she was dying. It does not explain her fit of weeping over the letter. It does not explain her mental attitude on the roof – her incredulous horror and her refusal to tell Nurse Leatheran what it was that she now suspected or knew.

‘It was a solution that fitted the outer facts, but it did not satisfy the psychological requirements.

‘And then, as I stood on the roof, going over in my mind those three points: the letters, the roof, the window, I saw – just as Miss Johnson had seen!

‘And this time what I saw explained everything!’