Agatha Christie - Murder in Mesopotamia

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.

Mrs Leidner’s body had been taken to Hassanieh for the postmortem, but otherwise her room had been left exactly as it was. There was so little in it that it had not taken the police long to go over it.

To the right of the door as you entered was the bed. Opposite the door were the two barred windows giving on the countryside. Between them was a plain oak table with two drawers that served Mrs Leidner as a dressing-table. On the east wall there was a line of hooks with dresses hung up protected by cotton bags and a deal chest of drawers. Immediately to the left of the door was the washstand. In the middle of the room was a good-sized plain oak table with a blotter and inkstand and a small attache-case. It was in the latter that Mrs Leidner had kept the anonymous letters. The curtains were short strips of native material – white striped with orange. The floor was of stone with some goatskin rugs on it, three narrow ones of brown striped with white in front of the two windows and the washstand, and a larger better quality one of white with brown stripes lying between the bed and the writing-table.

There were no cupboards or alcoves or long curtains – nowhere, in fact, where anyone could have hidden. The bed was a plain iron one with a printed cotton quilt. The only trace of luxury in the room were three pillows all made of the best soft and billowy down. Nobody but Mrs Leidner had pillows like these.

In a few brief words Dr Reilly explained where Mrs Leidner’s body had been found – in a heap on the rug beside the bed.

To illustrate his account, he beckoned me to come forward.

‘If you don’t mind, nurse?’ he said.

I’m not squeamish. I got down on the floor and arranged myself as far as possible in the attitude in which Mrs Leidner’s body had been found.

‘Leidner lifted her head when he found her,’ said the doctor. ‘But I questioned him closely and it’s obvious that he didn’t actually change her position.’

‘It seems quite straightforward,’ said Poirot. ‘She was lying on the bed, asleep or resting – someone opens the door, she looks up, rises to her feet–’

‘And he struck her down,’ finished the doctor. ‘The blow would produce unconsciousness and death would follow very shortly. You see–’

He explained the injury in technical language.

‘Not much blood, then?’ said Poirot.

‘No, the blood escaped internally into the brain.’

‘Eh bien,’ said Poirot, ‘that seems straightforward enough – except for one thing. If the man who entered was a stranger, why did not Mrs Leidner cry out at once for help? If she had screamed she would have been heard. Nurse Leatheran here would have heard her, and Emmott and the boy.’

‘That’s easily answered,’ said Dr Reilly dryly. ‘Because it wasn’t a stranger.’

Poirot nodded.

‘Yes,’ he said meditatively. ‘She may have been surprised to see the person – but she was not afraid. Then, as he struck, she may have uttered a half-cry – too late.’

‘The cry Miss Johnson heard?’

‘Yes, if she did hear it. But on the whole I doubt it. These mud walls are thick and the windows were closed.’

He stepped up to the bed.

‘You left her actually lying down?’ he asked me.

I explained exactly what I had done.

‘Did she mean to sleep or was she going to read?’

‘I gave her two books – a light one and a volume of memoirs. She usually read for a while and then sometimes dropped off for a short sleep.’

‘And she was – what shall I say – quite as usual?’

I considered.

‘Yes. She seemed quite normal and in good spirits,’ I said. ‘Just a shade off-hand, perhaps, but I put that down to her having confided in me the day before. It makes people a little uncomfortable sometimes.’

Poirot’s eyes twinkled.

‘Ah, yes, indeed, me, I know that well.’

He looked round the room.

‘And when you came in here after the murder, was everything as you had seen it before?’

I looked round also.

‘Yes, I think so. I don’t remember anything being different.’

‘There was no sign of the weapon with which she was struck?’

‘No.’

Poirot looked at Dr Reilly.

‘What was it in your opinion?’

The doctor replied promptly:

‘Something pretty powerful, of a fair size and without any sharp corners or edges. The rounded base of a statue, say – something like that. Mind you, I’m not suggesting that that was it. But that type of thing. The blow was delivered with great force.’

‘Struck by a strong arm? A man’s arm?’

‘Yes – unless–’

‘Unless – what?’

Dr Reilly said slowly: ‘It is just possible that Mrs Leidner might have been on her knees – in which case, the blow being delivered from above with a heavy implement, the force needed would not have been so great.’

‘On her knees,’ mused Poirot. ‘It is an idea – that.’

‘It’s only an idea, mind,’ the doctor hastened to point out. ‘There’s absolutely nothing to indicate it.’

‘But it’s possible.’

‘Yes. And after all, in view of the circumstances, it’s not fantastic. Her fear might have led her to kneel in supplication rather than to scream when her instinct would tell her it was too late – that nobody could get there in time.’

‘Yes,’ said Poirot thoughtfully. ‘It is an idea…’

It was a very poor one, I thought. I couldn’t for one moment imagine Mrs Leidner on her knees to anyone.

Poirot made his way slowly round the room. He opened the windows, tested the bars, passed his head through and satisfied himself that by no means could his shoulders be made to follow his head.