Murder in Mesopotamia

‘What I’m telling you was never generally known outside the State department. Ostensibly my husband had gone to the Front and had been killed. I had a lot of sympathy and kindness shown me as a war widow.’

Her voice was bitter and I nodded comprehendingly.

‘Lots of people wanted to marry me, but I always refused. I’d had too bad a shock. I didn’t feel I could ever trust anyone again.’

‘Yes, I can imagine feeling like that.’

‘And then I became very fond of a certain young man. I wavered. An amazing thing happened! I got an anonymous letter – from Frederick – saying that if I ever married another man, he’d kill me!’

‘From Frederick? From your dead husband?’

‘Yes. Of course, I thought at first I was mad or dreaming…At last I went to my father. He told me the truth. My husband hadn’t been shot after all. He’d escaped – but his escape did him no good. He was involved in a train wreck a few weeks later and his dead body was found amongst others. My father had kept the fact of his escape from me, and since the man had died anyway he had seen no reason to tell me anything until now.

‘But the letter I received opened up entirely new possibilities. Was it perhaps a fact that my husband was still alive?

‘My father went into the matter as carefully as possible. And he declared that as far as one could humanly be sure the body that was buried as Frederick’s was Frederick’s. There had been a certain amount of disfiguration, so that he could not speak with absolute cast-iron certainty, but he reiterated his solemn belief that Frederick was dead and that this letter was a cruel and malicious hoax.

‘The same thing happened more than once. If I seemed to be on intimate terms with any man, I would receive a threatening letter.’

‘In your husband’s handwriting?’

She said slowly: ‘That is difficult to say. I had no letters of his. I had only my memory to go by.’

‘There was no allusion or special form of words used that could make you sure?’

‘No. There were certain terms – nicknames, for instance – private between us – if one of those had been used or quoted, then I should have been quite sure.’

‘Yes,’ I said thoughtfully. ‘That is odd. It looks as though it wasn’t your husband. But is there anyone else it could be?’

‘There is a possibility. Frederick had a younger brother – a boy of ten or twelve at the time of our marriage. He worshipped Frederick and Frederick was devoted to him. What happened to this boy, William his name was, I don’t know. It seems to me possible that, adoring his brother as fanatically as he did, he may have grown up regarding me as directly responsible for his death. He had always been jealous of me and may have invented this scheme by way of punishment.’

‘It’s possible,’ I said. ‘It’s amazing the way children do remember if they’ve had a shock.’

‘I know. This boy may have dedicated his life to revenge.’

‘Please go on.’

‘There isn’t much more to tell. I met Eric three years ago. I meant never to marry. Eric made me change my mind. Right up to our wedding day I waited for another threatening letter. None came. I decided that whoever the writer might be, he was either dead, or tired of his cruel sport. Two days after our marriage I got this.’

Drawing a small attache-case which was on the table towards her, she unlocked it, took out a letter and handed it to me.

The ink was slightly faded. It was written in a rather womanish hand with a forward slant.

You have disobeyed. Now you cannot escape. You must be Frederick Bosner’s wife only! You have got to die.

‘I was frightened – but not so much as I might have been to begin with. Being with Eric made me feel safe. Then, a month later, I got a second letter.’

I have not forgotten. I am making my plans. You have got to die. Why did you disobey?

‘Does your husband know about this?’

Mrs Leidner answered slowly.

‘He knows that I am threatened. I showed him both letters when the second one came. He was inclined to think the whole thing a hoax. He thought also that it might be someone who wanted to blackmail me by pretending my first husband was alive.’

She paused and then went on.

‘A few days after I received the second letter we had a narrow escape from death by gas poisoning. Somebody entered our apartment after we were asleep and turned on the gas. Luckily I woke and smelled the gas in time. Then I lost my nerve. I told Eric how I had been persecuted for years, and I told him that I was sure this madman, whoever he might be, did really mean to kill me. I think that for the first time I really did think it was Frederick. There was always something a little ruthless behind his gentleness.

‘Eric was still, I think, less alarmed than I was. He wanted to go to the police. Naturally I wouldn’t hear of that. In the end we agreed that I should accompany him here, and that it might be wise if I didn’t return to America in the summer but stayed in London and Paris.