Murder in Mesopotamia: A Hercule Poirot Mystery

by Agatha Christie

  “Oh, come now—don’t go looking for trouble—that’s my motto! But you can’t fasten anything on me. I never went into the courtyard, and you can’t find anyone who’ll say I did.”

  “That, of course, has been the difficulty,” said Poirot. “The evidence of the servants that no one entered the courtyard from outside. But it occurred to me, upon reflection, that that was really not what they had said. They had sworn that no stranger had entered the premises. They had not been asked if a member of the expedition had done so.”

  “Well, you ask them,” said Coleman. “I’ll eat my hat if they saw me or Carey either.”

  “Ah! but that raises rather an interesting question. They would notice a stranger undoubtedly—but would they have even noticed a member of the expedition? The members of the staff are passing in and out all day. The servants would hardly notice their going and coming. It is possible, I think, that either Mr. Carey or Mr. Coleman might have entered and the servants’ minds would have no remembrance of such an event.”

  “Bunkum!” said Mr. Coleman.

  Poirot went on calmly: “Of the two, I think Mr. Carey was the least likely to be noticed going or coming. Mr. Coleman had started to Hassanieh in the car that morning and he would be expected to return in it. His arrival on foot would therefore be noticeable.”

  “Of course it would!” said Coleman.

  Richard Carey raised his head. His deep-blue eyes looked straight at Poirot.

  “Are you accusing me of murder, M. Poirot?” he asked.

  His manner was quite quiet but his voice had a dangerous undertone.

  Poirot bowed to him.

  “As yet I am only taking you all on a journey—my journey towards the truth. I had now established one fact—that all the members of the expedition staff, and also Nurse Leatheran, could in actual fact have committed the murder. That there was very little likelihood of some of them having committed it was a secondary matter.

  “I had examined means and opportunity. I next passed to motive. I discovered that one and all of you could be credited with a motive!”

  “Oh! M. Poirot,” I cried. “Not me! Why, I was a stranger. I’d only just come.”

  “Eh bien, ma soeur, and was not that just what Mrs. Leidner had been fearing? A stranger from outside?”

  “But—but—Why, Dr. Reilly knew all about me! He suggested my coming!”

  “How much did he really know about you? Mostly what you yourself had told him. Imposters have passed themselves off as hospital nurses before now.”

  “You can write to St. Christopher’s,” I began.

  “For the moment will you silence yourself. Impossible to proceed while you conduct this argument. I do not say I suspect you now. All I say is that, keeping the open mind, you might quite easily be someone other than you pretended to be. There are many successful female impersonators, you know. Young William Bosner might be something of that kind.”

  I was about to give him a further piece of my mind. Female impersonator indeed! But he raised his voice and hurried on with such an air of determination that I thought better of it.

  “I am going now to be frank—brutally so. It is necessary. I am going to lay bare the underlying structure of this place.

  “I examined and considered every single soul here. To begin with Dr. Leidner, I soon convinced myself that his love for his wife was the mainspring of his existence. He was a man torn and ravaged with grief. Nurse Leatheran I have already mentioned. If she were a female impersonator she was a most amazingly successful one, and I inclined to the belief that she was exactly what she said she was—a thoroughly competent hospital nurse.”

  “Thank you for nothing,” I interposed.

  “My attention was immediately attracted towards Mr. and Mrs. Mercado, who were both of them clearly in a state of great agitation and unrest. I considered first Mrs. Mercado. Was she capable of murder, and if so for what reasons?

  “Mrs. Mercado’s physique was frail. At first sight it did not seem possible that she could have had the physical strength to strike down a woman like Mrs. Leidner with a heavy stone implement. If, however, Mrs. Leidner had been on her knees at the time, the thing would at least be physically possible. There are ways in which one woman can induce another to go down on her knees. Oh! not emotional ways! For instance, a woman might be turning up the hem of a skirt and ask another woman to put in the pins for her. The second woman would kneel on the ground quite unsuspectingly.

  “But the motive? Nurse Leatheran had told me of the angry glances she had seen Mrs. Mercado direct at Mrs. Leidner. Mr. Mercado had evidently succumbed easily to Mrs. Leidner’s spell. But I did not think the solution was to be found in mere jealousy. I was sure Mrs. Leidner was not in the least interested really in Mr. Mercado—and doubtless Mrs. Mercado was aware of the fact. She might be furious with her for the moment, but for murder there would have to be greater provocation. But Mrs. Mercado was essentially a fiercely maternal type. From the way she looked at her husband I realized, not only that she loved him, but that she would fight for him tooth and nail—and more than that—that she envisaged the possibility of having to do so. She was constantly on her guard and uneasy. The uneasiness was for him—not for herself. And when I studied Mr. Mercado I could make a fairly easy guess at what the trouble was. I took means to assure myself of the truth of my guess. Mr. Mercado was a drug addict—in an advanced stage of the craving.

  “Now I need probably not tell you all that the taking of drugs over a long period has the result of considerably blunting the moral sense.

  “Under the influence of drugs a man commits actions that he would not have dreamed of committing a few years earlier before he began the practice. In some cases a man has committed murder—and it has been difficult to say whether he was wholly responsible for his actions or not. The law of different countries varies slightly on that point. The chief characteristic of the drug-fiend criminal is overweening confidence in his own cleverness.

  “I thought it possible that there was some discreditable incident, perhaps a criminal incident, in Mr. Mercado’s past which his wife had somehow or other succeeded in hushing up. Nevertheless his career hung on a thread. If anything of this past incident were bruited about, Mr. Mercado would be ruined. His wife was always on the watch. But there was Mrs. Leidner to be reckoned with. She had a sharp intelligence and a love of power. She might even induce the wretched man to confide in her. It would just have suited her peculiar temperament to feel she knew a secret which she could reveal at any minute with disastrous effects.

  “Here, then, was a possible motive for murder on the part of the Mercados. To protect her mate, Mrs. Mercado, I felt sure, would stick at nothing! Both she and her husband had had the opportunity—during that ten minutes when the courtyard was empty.”

  Mrs. Mercado cried out, “It’s not true!”

  Poirot paid no attention.

  “I next considered Miss Johnson. Was she capable of murder?

  “I thought she was. She was a person of strong will and iron self-control. Such people are constantly repressing themselves—and one day the dam bursts! But if Miss Johnson had committed the crime it could only be for some reason connected with Dr. Leidner. If in any way she felt convinced that Mrs. Leidner was spoiling her husband’s life, then the deep unacknowledged jealousy far down in her would leap at the chance of a plausible motive and give itself full rein.

  “Yes, Miss Johnson was distinctly a possibility.

  “Then there were the three young men.

  “First Carl Reiter. If, by any chance, one of the expedition staff was William Bosner, then Reiter was by far the most likely person. But if he was William Bosner, then he was certainly a most accomplished actor! If he were merely himself, had he any reason for murder?

  “Regarded from Mrs. Leidner’s point of view, Carl Reiter was far too easy a victim for good sport. He was prepared to fall on his face and worship immediately. Mrs. Leidner despised undiscriminating adoration—and
the doormat attitude nearly always brings out the worst side of a woman. In her treatment of Carl Reiter Mrs. Leidner displayed really deliberate cruelty. She inserted a gibe here—a prick there. She made the poor young man’s life a hell to him.”

  Poirot broke off suddenly and addressed the young man in a personal, highly confidential manner.

  “Mon ami, let this be a lesson to you. You are a man. Behave, then, like a man! It is against Nature for a man to grovel. Women and Nature have almost exactly the same reactions! Remember it is better to take the largest plate within reach and fling it at a woman’s head than it is to wriggle like a worm whenever she looks at you!”

  He dropped his private manner and reverted to his lecture style.

  “Could Carl Reiter have been goaded to such a pitch of torment that he turned on his tormentor and killed her? Suffering does queer things to a man. I could not be sure that it was not so!

  “Next William Coleman. His behaviour, as reported by Miss Reilly, is certainly suspicious. If he was the criminal it could only be because his cheerful personality concealed the hidden one of William Bosner. I do not think William Coleman, as William Coleman, has the temperament of a murderer. His faults might lie in another direction. Ah! perhaps Nurse Leatheran can guess what they would be?”

  How did the man do it? I’m sure I didn’t look as though I was thinking anything at all.

  “It’s nothing really,” I said, hesitating. “Only if it’s to be all truth, Mr. Coleman did say once himself that he would have made a good forger.”

  “A good point,” said Poirot. “Therefore if he had come across some of the old threatening letters, he could have copied them without difficulty.”

  “Oy, oy, oy!” called out Mr. Coleman. “This is what they call a frame-up.”

  Poirot swept on.

  “As to his being or not being William Bosner, such a matter is difficult of verification. But Mr. Coleman has spoken of a guardian—not of a father—and there is nothing definitely to veto the idea.”

  “Tommyrot,” said Mr. Coleman. “Why all of you listen to this chap beats me.”

  “Of the three young men there remains Mr. Emmott,” went on Poirot. “He again might be a possible shield for the identity of William Bosner. Whatever personal reasons he might have for the removal of Mrs. Leidner I soon realized that I should have no means of learning them from him. He could keep his own counsel remarkably well, and there was not the least chance of provoking him nor of tricking him into betraying himself on any point. Of all the expedition he seemed to be the best and most dispassionate judge of Mrs. Leidner’s personality. I think that he always knew her for exactly what she was—but what impression her personality made on him I was unable to discover. I fancy that Mrs. Leidner herself must have been provoked and angered by his attitude.

  “I may say that of all the expedition, as far as character and capacity were concerned, Mr. Emmott seemed to me the most fitted to bring a clever and well-timed crime off satisfactorily.”

  For the first time, Mr. Emmott raised his eyes from the toes of his boots.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  There seemed to be just a trace of amusement in his voice.

  “The last two people on my list were Richard Carey and Father Lavigny.

  “According to the testimony of Nurse Leatheran and others, Mr. Carey and Mrs. Leidner disliked each other. They were both civil with an effort. Another person, Miss Reilly, propounded a totally different theory to account for their attitude of frigid politeness.

  “I soon had very little doubt that Miss Reilly’s explanation was the correct one. I acquired my certitude by the simple expedient of provoking Mr. Carey into reckless and unguarded speech. It was not difficult. As I soon saw, he was in a state of high nervous tension. In fact he was—and is—very near a complete nervous breakdown. A man who is suffering up to the limit of his capacity can seldom put up much of a fight.

  “Mr. Carey’s barriers came down almost immediately. He told me, with a sincerity that I did not for a moment doubt, that he hated Mrs. Leidner.

  “And he was undoubtedly speaking the truth. He did hate Mrs. Leidner. But why did he hate her?

  “I have spoken of women who have a calamitous magic. But men have that magic too. There are men who are able without the least effort to attract women. What they call in these days le sex appeal! Mr. Carey had this quality very strongly. He was to begin with devoted to his friend and employer, and indifferent to his employer’s wife. That did not suit Mrs. Leidner. She must dominate—and she set herself out to capture Richard Carey. But here, I believe, something entirely unforeseen took place. She herself for perhaps the first time in her life, fell a victim to an overmastering passion. She fell in love—really in love—with Richard Carey.

  “And he—was unable to resist her. Here is the truth of the terrible state of nervous tension that he has been enduring. He has been a man torn by two opposing passions. He loved Louise Leidner—yes, but he also hated her. He hated her for undermining his loyalty to his friend. There is no hatred so great as that of a man who has been made to love a woman against his will.

  “I had here all the motive that I needed. I was convinced that at certain moments the most natural thing for Richard Carey to do would have been to strike with all the force of his arm at the beautiful face that had cast a spell over him.

  “All along I had felt sure that the murder of Louise Leidner was a crime passionnel. In Mr. Carey I had found an ideal murderer for that type of crime.

  “There remains one other candidate for the title of murderer—Father Lavigny. My attention was attracted to the good Father straightaway by a certain discrepancy between his description of the strange man who had been seen peering in at the window and the one given by Nurse Leatheran. In all accounts given by different witnesses there is usually some discrepancy, but this was absolutely glaring. Moreover, Father Lavigny insisted on a certain characteristic—a squint—which ought to make identification much easier.

  “But very soon it became apparent that while Nurse Leatheran’s description was substantially accurate, Father Lavigny’s was nothing of the kind. It looked almost as though Father Lavigny was deliberately misleading us—as though he did not want the man caught.

  “But in that case he must know something about this curious person. He had been seen talking to the man but we had only his word for what they had been talking about.

  “What had the Iraqi been doing when Nurse Leatheran and Mrs. Leidner saw him? Trying to peer through the window—Mrs. Leidner’s window, so they thought, but I realized when I went and stood where they had been, that it might equally have been the antika room window.

  “The night after that an alarm was given. Someone was in the antika room. Nothing proved to have been taken, however. The interesting point to me is that when Dr. Leidner got there he found Father Lavigny there before him. Father Lavigny tells his story of seeing a light. But again we have only his word for it.

  “I begin to get curious about Father Lavigny. The other day when I make the suggestion that Father Lavigny may be Frederick Bosner, Dr. Leidner pooh-poohs the suggestion. He says Father Lavigny is a well-known man. I advance the supposition that Frederick Bosner, who has had nearly twenty years to make a career for himself, under a new name, may very possibly be a well-known man by this time! All the same, I do not think that he has spent the intervening time in a religious community. A very much simpler solution presents itself.

  “Did anyone at the expedition know Father Lavigny by sight before he came? Apparently not. Why then should not it be someone impersonating the good Father? I found out that a telegram had been sent to Carthage on the sudden illness of Dr. Byrd, who was to have accompanied the expedition. To intercept a telegram, what could be easier? As to the work, there was no other epigraphist attached to the expedition. With a smattering of knowledge a clever man might bluff his way through. There had been very few tablets and inscriptions so far, and already I gathered that Father
Lavigny’s pronouncements had been felt to be somewhat unusual.

  “It looked very much as though Father Lavigny were an imposter.

  “But was he Frederick Bosner?

  “Somehow, affairs did not seem to be shaping themselves that way. The truth seemed likely to lie in quite a different direction.

  “I had a lengthy conversation with Father Lavigny. I am a practising Catholic and I know many priests and members of religious communities. Father Lavigny struck me as not ringing quite true to his role. But he struck me, on the other hand, as familiar in quite a different capacity. I had met men of his type quite frequently—but they were not members of a religious community. Far from it!

  “I began to send off telegrams.

  “And then, unwittingly, Nurse Leatheran gave me a valuable clue. We were examining the gold ornaments in the antika room and she mentioned a trace of wax having been found adhering to a gold cup. Me, I say, ‘Wax?’ and Father Lavigny, he said ‘Wax?’ and his tone was enough! I knew in a flash exactly what he was doing here.”

  Poirot paused and addressed himself directly to Dr. Leidner.

  “I regret to tell you, monsieur, that the gold cup in the antika room, the gold dagger, the hair ornaments and several other things are not the genuine articles found by you. They are very clever electrotypes. Father Lavigny, I have just learned by this last answer to my telegrams, is none other than Raoul Menier, one of the cleverest thieves known to the French police. He specializes in thefts from museums of objets d’art and such like. Associated with him is Ali Yusuf, a semi-Turk, who is a first-class working jeweller. Our first knowledge of Menier was when certain objects in the Louvre were found not to be genuine—in every case it was discovered that a distinguished archaeologist not known previously by sight to the director had recently had the handling of the spurious articles when paying a visit to the Louvre. On inquiry all these distinguished gentlemen denied having paid a visit to the Louvre at the times stated!

  “I have learned that Menier was in Tunis preparing the way for a theft from the Holy Fathers when your telegram arrived. Father Lavigny, who was in ill health, was forced to refuse, but Menier managed to get hold of the telegram and substitute one of acceptance. He was quite safe in doing so. Even if the monks should read in some paper (in itself an unlikely thing) that Father Lavigny was in Iraq they would only think that the newspapers had got hold of a half-truth as so often happens.