Agatha Christie - Murder in Mesopotamia

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.