Agatha Christie - Murder in Mesopotamia

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?

I don’t mind confessing that the idea came as a complete shock to me. I’d never thought of associating Miss Johnson with the letters. Mrs Mercado, perhaps. But Miss Johnson was a real lady, and so self-controlled and sensible.

But I reflected, remembering the conversation I had listened to that evening between M. Poirot and Dr Reilly, that that might be justwhy.

If it were Miss Johnson who had written the letters it explained a lot, mind you. I didn’t think for a minute Miss Johnson had had anything to do with the murder. But I did see that her dislike of Mrs Leidner might have made her succumb to the temptation of, well – putting the wind up her – to put it vulgarly.

She might have hoped to frighten away Mrs Leidner from the dig.

But then Mrs Leidner had been murdered and Miss Johnson had felt terrible pangs of remorse – first for her cruel trick and also, perhaps, because she realized that those letters were acting as a very good shield to the actual murderer. No wonder she had broken down so utterly. She was, I was sure, a decent soul at heart. And it explained, too, why she had caught so eagerly at my consolation of ‘what’s happened’s happened and can’t be mended.’

And then her cryptic remark – her vindication of herself – ‘she was never a nice woman!’

The question was, what was I to do about it?

I tossed and turned for a good while and in the end decided I’d let M. Poirot know about it at the first opportunity.

He came out next day, but I didn’t get a chance of speaking to him what you might call privately.

We had just a minute alone together and before I could collect myself to know how to begin, he had come close to me and was whispering instructions in my ear.

‘Me, I shall talk to Miss Johnson – and others, perhaps, in the living-room. You have the key of Mrs Leidner’s room still?’

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘Tres bien. Go there, shut the door behind you and give a cry – not a scream – a cry. You understand what I mean – it is alarm-surprise that I want you to express – not mad terror. As for the excuse if you are heard – I leave that to you – the stepped toe or what you will.’

At that moment Miss Johnson came out into the courtyard and there was no time for more.

I understood well enough what M. Poirot was after. As soon as he and Miss Johnson had gone into the living-room I went across to Mrs Leidner’s room and, unlocking the door, went in and pulled the door to behind me.

I can’t say I didn’t feel a bit of a fool standing up in an empty room and giving a yelp all for nothing at all. Besides, it wasn’t so easy to know just how loud to do it. I gave a pretty loud ‘Oh’ and then tried it a bit higher and a bit lower.

Then I came out again and prepared my excuse of a stepped (stubbed I suppose he meant!) toe.

But it soon appeared that no excuse would be needed. Poirot and Miss Johnson were talking together earnestly and there had clearly been no interruption.

‘Well,’ I thought, ‘that settles that. Either Miss Johnson imagined that cry she heard or else it was something quite different.’

I didn’t like to go in and interrupt them. There was a deck-chair on the porch so I sat down there. Their voices floated out to me.

‘The position is delicate, you understand,’ Poirot was saying. ‘Dr Leidner – obviously he adored his wife–’

‘He worshipped her,’ said Miss Johnson.

‘He tells me, naturally, how fond all his staff was of her! As for them, what can they say? Naturally they say the same thing. It is politeness. It is decency. It may also be the truth! But also it may not! And I am convinced, mademoiselle, that the key to this enigma lies in a complete understanding of Mrs Leidner’s character. If I could get the opinion – the honest opinion – of every member of the staff, I might, from the whole, build up a picture. Frankly, that is why I am here today. I knew Dr Leidner would be in Hassanieh. That makes it easy for me to have an interview with each of you here in turn, and beg your help.’

‘That’s all very well,’ began Miss Johnson and stopped.

‘Do not make me the British cliches,’ Poirot begged. ‘Do not say it is not the cricket or the football, that to speak anything but well of the dead is not done – that – enfin – there is loyalty! Loyalty it is a pestilential thing in crime. Again and again it obscures the truth.’

‘I’ve no particular loyalty to Mrs Leidner,’ said Miss Johnson dryly. There was indeed a sharp and acid tone in her voice. ‘Dr Leidner’s a different matter. And, after all, she was his wife.’

‘Precisely – precisely. I understand that you would not wish to speak against your chief ’s wife. But this is not a question of a testimonial. It is a question of sudden and mysterious death. If I am to believe that it is a martyred angel who has been killed it does not add to the easiness of my task.’

‘I certainly shouldn’t call her an angel,’ said Miss Johnson and the acid tone was even more in evidence.

‘Tell me your opinion, frankly, of Mrs Leidner – as a woman.’

‘H’m! To begin with, M. Poirot, I’ll give you this warning. I’m prejudiced. I am – we all were – devoted to Dr Leidner. And, I suppose, when Mrs Leidner came along, we were jealous. We resented the demands she made on his time and attention. The devotion he showed her irritated us. I’m being truthful, M. Poirot, and it isn’t very pleasant for me. I resented her presence here – yes, I did, though, of course, I tried never to show it. It made a difference to us, you see.’