Agatha Christie - Murder in Mesopotamia

Nothing more was to be learned. The outside archway door was locked. The guard swore nobody could have got in from outside, but as they had probably been fast asleep this was not conclusive. There were no marks or traces of an intruder and nothing had been taken.

It was possible that what had alarmed Mrs Leidner was the noise made by Father Lavigny taking down boxes from the shelves to assure himself that all was in order.

On the other hand, Father Lavigny himself was positive that he had (a) heard footsteps passing his window and (b) seen the flicker of a light, possibly a torch, in the antika-room.

Nobody else had heard or seen anything.

The incident is of value in my narrative because it led to Mrs Leidner’s unburdening herself to me on the following day.

We had just finished lunch. Mrs Leidner went to her room to rest as usual. I settled her on her bed with plenty of pillows and her book, and was leaving the room when she called me back.

‘Don’t go, nurse, there’s something I want to say to you.’

I came back into the room.

‘Shut the door.’

I obeyed.

She got up from the bed and began to walk up and down the room. I could see that she was making up her mind to something and I didn’t like to interrupt her. She was clearly in great indecision of mind.

At last she seemed to have nerved herself to the required point. She turned to me and said abruptly: ‘Sit down.’

I sat down by the table very quietly. She began nervously: ‘You must have wondered what all this is about?’

I just nodded without saying anything.

‘I’ve made up my mind to tell you – everything! I must tell someone or I shall go mad.’

‘Well,’ I said, ‘I think really it would be just as well. It’s not easy to know the best thing to do when one’s kept in the dark.’

She stopped in her uneasy walk and faced me.

‘Do you know what I’m frightened of?’

‘Some man,’ I said.

‘Yes – but I didn’t say whom – I said what.’

I waited.

She said: ‘I’m afraid of being killed!’

Well, it was out now. I wasn’t going to show any particular concern. She was near enough to hysterics as it was.

‘Dear me,’ I said. ‘So that’s it, is it?’

Then she began to laugh. She laughed and she laughed – and the tears ran down her face.

‘The way you said that!’ she gasped. ‘The way you said it…’

‘Now, now,’ I said. ‘This won’t do.’ I spoke sharply. I pushed her into a chair, went over to the washstand and got a cold sponge and bathed her forehead and wrists.

‘No more nonsense,’ I said. ‘Tell me calmly and sensibly all about it.’

That stopped her. She sat up and spoke in her natural voice.

‘You’re a treasure, nurse,’ she said. ‘You make me feel as though I’m six. I’m going to tell you.’

‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘Take your time and don’t hurry.’

She began to speak, slowly and deliberately.

‘When I was a girl of twenty I married. A young man in one of our State departments. It was in 1918.’

‘I know,’ I said. ‘Mrs Mercado told me. He was killed in the war.’

But Mrs Leidner shook her head.

‘That’s what she thinks. That’s what everybody thinks. The truth is something different. I was a queer patriotic, enthusiastic girl, nurse, full of idealism. When I’d been married a few months I discovered – by a quite unforeseeable accident – that my husband was a spy in German pay. I learned that the information supplied by him had led directly to the sinking of an American transport and the loss of hundreds of lives. I don’t know what most people would have done…But I’ll tell you what I did. I went straight to my father, who was in the War Department, and told him the truth. Frederick was killed in the war – but he was killed in America – shot as a spy.’

‘Oh dear, dear!’ I ejaculated. ‘How terrible!’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It was terrible. He was so kind, too – so gentle… And all the time… But I never hesitated. Perhaps I was wrong.’

‘It’s difficult to say,’ I said. ‘I’m sure I don’t know what one would do.’

‘What I’m telling you was never generally known outside the State department. Ostensibly my husband had gone to the Front and had been killed. I had a lot of sympathy and kindness shown me as a war widow.’

Her voice was bitter and I nodded comprehendingly.

‘Lots of people wanted to marry me, but I always refused. I’d had too bad a shock. I didn’t feel I could ever trust anyone again.’

‘Yes, I can imagine feeling like that.’

‘And then I became very fond of a certain young man. I wavered. An amazing thing happened! I got an anonymous letter – from Frederick – saying that if I ever married another man, he’d kill me!’

‘From Frederick? From your dead husband?’

‘Yes. Of course, I thought at first I was mad or dreaming…At last I went to my father. He told me the truth. My husband hadn’t been shot after all. He’d escaped – but his escape did him no good. He was involved in a train wreck a few weeks later and his dead body was found amongst others. My father had kept the fact of his escape from me, and since the man had died anyway he had seen no reason to tell me anything until now.

‘But the letter I received opened up entirely new possibilities. Was it perhaps a fact that my husband was still alive?

‘My father went into the matter as carefully as possible. And he declared that as far as one could humanly be sure the body that was buried as Frederick’s was Frederick’s. There had been a certain amount of disfiguration, so that he could not speak with absolute cast-iron certainty, but he reiterated his solemn belief that Frederick was dead and that this letter was a cruel and malicious hoax.

‘The same thing happened more than once. If I seemed to be on intimate terms with any man, I would receive a threatening letter.’

‘In your husband’s handwriting?’

She said slowly: ‘That is difficult to say. I had no letters of his. I had only my memory to go by.’

‘There was no allusion or special form of words used that could make you sure?’

‘No. There were certain terms – nicknames, for instance – private between us – if one of those had been used or quoted, then I should have been quite sure.’

‘Yes,’ I said thoughtfully. ‘That is odd. It looks as though it wasn’t your husband. But is there anyone else it could be?’

‘There is a possibility. Frederick had a younger brother – a boy of ten or twelve at the time of our marriage. He worshipped Frederick and Frederick was devoted to him. What happened to this boy, William his name was, I don’t know. It seems to me possible that, adoring his brother as fanatically as he did, he may have grown up regarding me as directly responsible for his death. He had always been jealous of me and may have invented this scheme by way of punishment.’

‘It’s possible,’ I said. ‘It’s amazing the way children do remember if they’ve had a shock.’

‘I know. This boy may have dedicated his life to revenge.’

‘Please go on.’

‘There isn’t much more to tell. I met Eric three years ago. I meant never to marry. Eric made me change my mind. Right up to our wedding day I waited for another threatening letter. None came. I decided that whoever the writer might be, he was either dead, or tired of his cruel sport. Two days after our marriage I got this.’

Drawing a small attache-case which was on the table towards her, she unlocked it, took out a letter and handed it to me.

The ink was slightly faded. It was written in a rather womanish hand with a forward slant.