Murder in Mesopotamia

I nodded and ran out and knocked on his door. In a minute he was with us. Mrs Leidner was sitting on my bed, her breath coming in great gasps.

‘I heard him,’ she said. ‘I heard him – scratching on the wall.’

‘Someone in the antika-room?’ cried Dr Leidner.

He ran out quickly – and it just flashed across my mind how differently these two had reacted. Mrs Leidner’s fear was entirely personal, but Dr Leidner’s mind leaped at once to his precious treasures.

‘The antika-room!’ breathed Mrs Leidner. ‘Of course! How stupid of me!’

And rising and pulling her gown round her, she bade me come with her. All traces of her panic-stricken fear had vanished.

We arrived in the antika-room to find Dr Leidner and Father Lavigny. The latter had also heard a noise, had risen to investigate, and had fancied he saw a light in the antika-room. He had delayed to put on slippers and snatch up a torch and had found no one by the time he got there. The door, moreover, was duly locked, as it was supposed to be at night.

Whilst he was assuring himself that nothing had been taken, Dr Leidner had joined him.

Nothing more was to be learned. The outside archway door was locked. The guard swore nobody could have got in from outside, but as they had probably been fast asleep this was not conclusive. There were no marks or traces of an intruder and nothing had been taken.

It was possible that what had alarmed Mrs Leidner was the noise made by Father Lavigny taking down boxes from the shelves to assure himself that all was in order.

On the other hand, Father Lavigny himself was positive that he had (a) heard footsteps passing his window and (b) seen the flicker of a light, possibly a torch, in the antika-room.

Nobody else had heard or seen anything.

The incident is of value in my narrative because it led to Mrs Leidner’s unburdening herself to me on the following day.

Chapter 9. Mrs Leidner’s Story

 We had just finished lunch. Mrs Leidner went to her room to rest as usual. I settled her on her bed with plenty of pillows and her book, and was leaving the room when she called me back.

‘Don’t go, nurse, there’s something I want to say to you.’

I came back into the room.

‘Shut the door.’

I obeyed.

She got up from the bed and began to walk up and down the room. I could see that she was making up her mind to something and I didn’t like to interrupt her. She was clearly in great indecision of mind.

At last she seemed to have nerved herself to the required point. She turned to me and said abruptly: ‘Sit down.’

I sat down by the table very quietly. She began nervously: ‘You must have wondered what all this is about?’

I just nodded without saying anything.

‘I’ve made up my mind to tell you – everything! I must tell someone or I shall go mad.’

‘Well,’ I said, ‘I think really it would be just as well. It’s not easy to know the best thing to do when one’s kept in the dark.’

She stopped in her uneasy walk and faced me.

‘Do you know what I’m frightened of?’

‘Some man,’ I said.

‘Yes – but I didn’t say whom – I said what.’

I waited.

She said: ‘I’m afraid of being killed!’

Well, it was out now. I wasn’t going to show any particular concern. She was near enough to hysterics as it was.

‘Dear me,’ I said. ‘So that’s it, is it?’

Then she began to laugh. She laughed and she laughed – and the tears ran down her face.

‘The way you said that!’ she gasped. ‘The way you said it…’

‘Now, now,’ I said. ‘This won’t do.’ I spoke sharply. I pushed her into a chair, went over to the washstand and got a cold sponge and bathed her forehead and wrists.

‘No more nonsense,’ I said. ‘Tell me calmly and sensibly all about it.’

That stopped her. She sat up and spoke in her natural voice.

‘You’re a treasure, nurse,’ she said. ‘You make me feel as though I’m six. I’m going to tell you.’

‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘Take your time and don’t hurry.’

She began to speak, slowly and deliberately.

‘When I was a girl of twenty I married. A young man in one of our State departments. It was in 1918.’

‘I know,’ I said. ‘Mrs Mercado told me. He was killed in the war.’

But Mrs Leidner shook her head.

‘That’s what she thinks. That’s what everybody thinks. The truth is something different. I was a queer patriotic, enthusiastic girl, nurse, full of idealism. When I’d been married a few months I discovered – by a quite unforeseeable accident – that my husband was a spy in German pay. I learned that the information supplied by him had led directly to the sinking of an American transport and the loss of hundreds of lives. I don’t know what most people would have done…But I’ll tell you what I did. I went straight to my father, who was in the War Department, and told him the truth. Frederick was killed in the war – but he was killed in America – shot as a spy.’

‘Oh dear, dear!’ I ejaculated. ‘How terrible!’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘It was terrible. He was so kind, too – so gentle… And all the time… But I never hesitated. Perhaps I was wrong.’

‘It’s difficult to say,’ I said. ‘I’m sure I don’t know what one would do.’