Agatha Christie - Murder in Mesopotamia

I shook my head in perplexity and went downstairs again.

We all went to bed early that night. Miss Johnson had appeared at dinner and had behaved more or less as usual. She had, however, a sort of dazed look, and once or twice quite failed to take in what other people said to her.

It wasn’t somehow a very comfortable sort of meal. You’d say, I suppose, that that was natural enough in a house where there’d been a funeral that day. But I know what I mean.

Lately our meals had been hushed and subdued, but for all that there had been a feeling of comradeship. There had been sympathy with Dr Leidner in his grief and a fellow feeling of being all in the same boat amongst the others.

But tonight I was reminded of my first meal there – when Mrs Mercado had watched me and there had been that curious feeling as though something might snap any minute.

I’d felt the same thing – only very much intensified – when we’d sat round the dining-room table with Poirot at the head of it.

Tonight it was particularly strong. Everyone was on edge – jumpy – on tenterhooks. If anyone had dropped something I’m sure somebody would have screamed.

As I say, we all separated early afterwards. I went to bed almost at once. The last thing I heard as I was dropping off to sleep was Mrs Mercado’s voice saying goodnight to Miss Johnson just outside my door.

I dropped off to sleep at once – tired by my exertions and even more by my silly experience in Mrs Leidner’s room. I slept heavily and dreamlessly for several hours.

I awoke when I did awake with a start and a feeling of impending catastrophe. Some sound had woken me, and as I sat up in bed listening I heard it again.

An awful sort of agonized choking groan.

I had lit my candle and was out of bed in a twinkling. I snatched up a torch, too, in case the candle should blow out. I came out of my door and stood listening. I knew the sound wasn’t far away. It came again – from the room immediately next to mine – Miss Johnson’s room.

I hurried in. Miss Johnson was lying in bed, her whole body contorted in agony. As I set down the candle and bent over her, her lips moved and she tried to speak – but only an awful hoarse whisper came. I saw that the corners of her mouth and the skin of her chin were burnt a kind of greyish white.

Her eyes went from me to a glass that lay on the floor evidently where it had dropped from her hand. The light rug was stained a bright red where it had fallen. I picked it up and ran a finger over the inside, drawing back my hand with a sharp exclamation. Then I examined the inside of the poor woman’s mouth.

There wasn’t the least doubt what was the matter. Somehow or other, intentionally or otherwise, she’d swallowed a quantity of corrosive acid – oxalic or hydrochloric, I suspected.

I ran out and called to Dr Leidner and he woke the others, and we worked over her for all we were worth, but all the time I had an awful feeling it was no good. We tried a strong solution of carbonate of soda – and followed it with olive oil. To ease the pain I gave her a hypodermic of morphine sulphate.

David Emmott had gone off to Hassanieh to fetch Dr Reilly, but before he came it was over.

I won’t dwell on the details. Poisoning by a strong solution of hydrochloric acid (which is what it proved to be) is one of the most painful deaths possible.

It was when I was bending over her to give her the morphia that she made one ghastly effort to speak. It was only a horrible strangled whisper when it came.

‘The window…’ she said. ‘Nurse…the window…’

But that was all – she couldn’t go on. She collapsed completely.

I shall never forget that night. The arrival of Dr Reilly. The arrival of Captain Maitland. And finally with the dawn, Hercule Poirot.

He it was who took me gently by the arm and steered me into the dining-room, where he made me sit down and have a cup of good strong tea.

‘There, mon enfant,’ he said, ‘that is better. You are worn out.’

Upon that, I burst into tears.

‘It’s too awful,’ I sobbed. ‘It’s been like a nightmare. Such awful suffering. And her eyes…Oh, M. Poirot – her eyes…’

He patted me on the shoulder. A woman couldn’t have been kinder.

‘Yes, yes – do not think of it. You did all you could.’

‘It was one of the corrosive acids.’

‘It was a strong solution of hydrochloric acid.’

‘The stuff they use on the pots?’

‘Yes. Miss Johnson probably drank it off before she was fully awake. That is – unless she took it on purpose.’

‘Oh, M. Poirot, what an awful idea!’

‘It is a possibility, after all. What do you think?’

I considered for a moment and then shook my head decisively.

‘I don’t believe it. No, I don’t believe it for a moment.’ I hesitated and then said, ‘I think she found out something yesterday afternoon.’

‘What is that you say? She found out something?’

I repeated to him the curious conversation we had had together.

Poirot gave a low soft whistle.

‘La pauvre femme!’ he said. ‘She said she wanted to think it over – eh? That is what signed her death warrant. If she had only spoken out – then – at once.’

He said: ‘Tell me again her exact words.’

I repeated them.

‘She saw how someone could have come in from outside without any of you knowing? Come, ma soeur, let us go up to the roof and you shall show me just where she was standing.’

We went up to the roof together and I showed Poirot the exact spot where Miss Johnson had stood.

‘Like this?’ said Poirot. ‘Now what do I see? I see half the courtyard – and the archway – and the doors of the drawing-office and the photographic-room and the laboratory. Was there anyone in the courtyard?’

‘Father Lavigny was just going towards the archway and Mr Reiter was standing in the door of the photographic-room.’

‘And still I do not see in the least how anyone could come in from outside and none of you know about it…But she saw…’

He gave it up at last, shaking his head.

‘Sacre nom d’un chien – va! What did she see?’

The sun was just rising. The whole eastern sky was a riot of rose and orange and pale, pearly grey.

‘What a beautiful sunrise!’ said Poirot gently.

The river wound away to our left and the Tell stood up outlined in gold colour. To the south were the blossoming trees and the peaceful cultivation. The water-wheel groaned in the distance – a faint unearthly sound. In the north were the slender minarets and the clustering fairy whiteness of Hassanieh.

It was incredibly beautiful.

And then, close at my elbow, I heard Poirot give a long deep sigh.

‘Fool that I have been,’ he murmured. ‘When the truth is so clear – so clear.’

I hadn’t time to ask Poirot what he meant, for Captain Maitland was calling up to us and asking us to come down.

We hurried down the stairs.

‘Look here, Poirot,’ he said. ‘Here’s another complication. The monk fellow is missing.’

‘Father Lavigny?’

‘Yes. Nobody noticed it till just now. Then it dawned on somebody that he was the only one of the party not around, and we went to his room. His bed’s not been slept in and there’s no sign of him.’

The whole thing was like a bad dream. First Miss Johnson’s death and then the disappearance of Father Lavigny.

The servants were called and questioned, but they couldn’t throw any light on the mystery. He had last been seen at about eight o’clock the night before. Then he had said he was going out for a stroll before going to bed.