Murder in Mesopotamia

When we went back to the porch Mrs Mercado was sitting polishing her nails. She was holding them out in front of her admiring the effect. I thought myself that anything more hideous than that orange red could hardly have been imagined.

Mrs Leidner had brought with her from the antika-room a very delicate little saucer broken in several pieces, and this she now proceeded to join together. I watched her for a minute or two and then asked if I could help.

‘Oh, yes, there are plenty more.’ She fetched quite a supply of broken pottery and we set to work. I soon got into the hang of it and she praised my ability. I suppose most nurses are handy with their fingers.

‘How busy everybody is!’ said Mrs Mercado. ‘It makes me feel dreadfully idle. Of course I am idle.’

‘Why shouldn’t you be if you like?’ said Mrs Leidner.

Her voice was quite uninterested.

At twelve we had lunch. Afterwards Dr Leidner and Mr Mercado cleaned some pottery, pouring a solution of hydrochloric acid over it. One pot went a lovely plum colour and a pattern of bulls’ horns came out on another one. It was really quite magical. All the dried mud that no washing would remove sort of foamed and boiled away.

Mr Carey and Mr Coleman went out on the dig and Mr Reiter went off to the photographic-room.

‘What will you do, Louise?’ Dr Leidner asked his wife. ‘I suppose you’ll rest for a bit?’

I gathered that Mrs Leidner usually lay down every afternoon.

‘I’ll rest for about an hour. Then perhaps I’ll go out for a short stroll.’

‘Good. Nurse will go with you, won’t you?’

‘Of course,’ I said.

‘No, no,’ said Mrs Leidner, ‘I like going alone. Nurse isn’t to feel so much on duty that I’m not allowed out of her sight.’

‘Oh, but I’d like to come,’ I said.

‘No, really, I’d rather you didn’t.’ She was quite firm – almost peremptory. ‘I must be by myself every now and then. It’s necessary to me.’

I didn’t insist, of course. But as I went off for a short sleep myself it struck me as odd that Mrs Leidner, with her nervous terrors, should be quite content to walk by herself without any kind of protection.

When I came out of my room at half-past three the courtyard was deserted save for a little boy with a large copper bath who was washing pottery, and Mr Emmott, who was sorting and arranging it. As I went towards them Mrs Leidner came in through the archway. She looked more alive than I had seen her yet. Her eyes shone and she looked uplifted and almost gay.

Dr Leidner came out from the laboratory and joined her. He was showing her a big dish with bulls’ horns on it.

‘The prehistoric levels are being extraordinarily productive,’ he said. ‘It’s been a good season so far. Finding that tomb right at the beginning was a real piece of luck. The only person who might complain is Father Lavigny. We’ve had hardly any tablets so far.’

‘He doesn’t seem to have done very much with the few we have had,’ said Mrs Leidner dryly. ‘He may be a very fine epigraphist but he’s a remarkably lazy one. He spends all his afternoons sleeping.’

‘We miss Byrd,’ said Dr Leidner. ‘This man strikes me as slightly unorthodox – though, of course, I’m not competent to judge. But one or two of his translations have been surprising, to say the least of it. I can hardly believe, for instance, that he’s right about that inscribed brick, and yet he must know.’

After tea Mrs Leidner asked me if I would like to stroll down to the river. I thought that perhaps she feared that her refusal to let me accompany her earlier in the afternoon might have hurt my feelings.

I wanted her to know that I wasn’t the touchy kind, so I accepted at once.

It was a lovely evening. A path led between barley fields and then through some flowering fruit trees. Finally we came to the edge of the Tigris. Immediately on our left was the Tell with the workmen singing in their queer monotonous chant. A little to our right was a big water-wheel which made a queer groaning noise. It used to set my teeth on edge at first. But in the end I got fond of it and it had a queer soothing effect on me. Beyond the water-wheel was the village from which most of the workmen came.

‘It’s rather beautiful, isn’t it?’ said Mrs Leidner.

‘It’s very peaceful,’ I said. ‘It seems funny to me to be so far away from everywhere.’

‘Far from everywhere,’ repeated Mrs Leidner. ‘Yes. Here at least one might expect to be safe.’

I glanced at her sharply, but I think she was speaking more to herself than to me, and I don’t think she realized that her words had been revealing.

We began to walk back to the house.

Suddenly Mrs Leidner clutched my arm so violently that I nearly cried out.

‘Who’s that, nurse? What’s he doing?’

Some distance ahead of us, just where the path ran near the expedition house, a man was standing. He wore European clothes and he seemed to be standing on tiptoe and trying to look in at one of the windows.

As we watched he glanced round, caught sight of us, and immediately continued on the path towards us. I felt Mrs Leidner’s clutch tighten.

‘Nurse,’ she whispered. ‘Nurse…’