Murder in Mesopotamia

‘Better lock this door first, I suppose,’ he said.

He turned the key in the lock of Mrs Leidner’s door, then drew it out and handed it to me.

‘I guess you’d better keep this, nurse. Now then.’

Together we lifted Dr Leidner and carried him into his own room and laid him on his bed. Mr Emmott went off in search of brandy. He returned, accompanied by Miss Johnson.

Her face was drawn and anxious, but she was calm and capable, and I felt satisfied to leave Dr Leidner in her charge.

I hurried out into the courtyard. The station wagon was just coming in through the archway. I think it gave us all a shock to see Bill’s pink, cheerful face as he jumped out with his familiar ‘Hallo, ’allo, ’allo! Here’s the oof!’ He went on gaily, ‘No highway robberies–’

He came to a halt suddenly. ‘I say, is anything up? What’s the matter with you all? You look as though the cat had killed your canary.’

Mr Emmott said shortly: ‘Mrs Leidner’s dead – killed.’

‘What?’ Bill’s jolly face changed ludicrously. He stared, his eyes goggling. ‘Mother Leidner dead! You’re pulling my leg.’

‘Dead?’ It was a sharp cry. I turned to see Mrs Mercado behind me. ‘Did you say Mrs Leidner had been killed?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Murdered.’

‘No!’ she gasped. ‘Oh, no! I won’t believe it. Perhaps she’s committed suicide.’

‘Suicides don’t hit themselves on the head,’ I said dryly. ‘It’s murder all right, Mrs Mercado.’

She sat down suddenly on an upturned packing-case.

She said, ‘Oh, but this is horrible – horrible…’

Naturally it was horrible. We didn’t need her to tell us so! I wondered if perhaps she was feeling a bit remorseful for the harsh feelings she had harboured against the dead woman, and all the spiteful things she had said.

After a minute or two she asked rather breathlessly: ‘What are you going to do?’

Mr Emmott took charge in his quiet way.

‘Bill, you’d better get in again to Hassanieh as quick as you can. I don’t know much about the proper procedure. Better get hold of Captain Maitland, he’s in charge of the police here, I think. Get Dr Reilly first. He’ll know what to do.’

Mr Coleman nodded. All the facetiousness was knocked out of him. He just looked young and frightened. Without a word he jumped into the station wagon and drove off.

Mr Emmott said rather uncertainly, ‘I suppose we ought to have a hunt round.’ He raised his voice and called: ‘Ibrahim!’

‘Na’am.’

The house-boy came running. Mr Emmott spoke to him in Arabic. A vigorous colloquy passed between them. The boy seemed to be emphatically denying something.

At last Mr Emmott said in a perplexed voice, ‘He says there’s not been a soul here this afternoon. No stranger of any kind. I suppose the fellow must have slipped in without their seeing him.’

‘Of course he did,’ said Mrs Mercado. ‘He slunk in when the boys weren’t looking.’

‘Yes,’ said Mr Emmott.

The slight uncertainty in his voice made me look at him inquiringly.

He turned and spoke to the little pot-boy, Abdullah, asking him a question.

The boy replied vehemently at length.

The puzzled frown on Mr Emmott’s brow increased.

‘I don’t understand it,’ he murmured under his breath. ‘I don’t understand it at all.’

But he didn’t tell me what he didn’t understand.

Chapter 11. An Odd Business

I’m adhering as far as possible to telling only my personal part in the business. I pass over the events of the next two hours, the arrival of Captain Maitland and the police and Dr Reilly. There was a good deal of general confusion, questioning, all the routine business, I suppose.

In my opinion we began to get down to brass tacks about five o’clock when Dr Reilly asked me to come with him into the office. He shut the door, sat down in Dr Leidner’s chair, motioned me to sit down opposite him, and said briskly: ‘Now, then, nurse, let’s get down to it. There’s something damned odd here.’

I settled my cuffs and looked at him inquiringly.

He drew out a notebook.

‘This is for my own satisfaction. Now, what time was it exactly when Dr Leidner found his wife’s body?’ 

‘I should say it was almost exactly a quarter to three,’ I said.

‘And how do you know that?’

‘Well, I looked at my watch when I got up. It was twenty to three then.’

‘Let’s have a look at this watch of yours.’

I slipped it off my wrist and held it out to him.

‘Right to the minute. Excellent woman. Good, that’s that fixed. Now, did you form any opinion as to how long she’d been dead?’

‘Oh, really, doctor,’ I said, ‘I shouldn’t like to say.’

‘Don’t be so professional. I want to see if your estimate agrees with mine.’

‘Well, I should say she’d been dead at least an hour.’

‘Quite so. I examined the body at half-past four and I’m inclined to put the time of death between 1.15 and 1.45. We’ll say half-past one at a guess. That’s near enough.’

He stopped and drummed thoughtfully with his fingers on the table.

‘Damned odd, this business,’ he said. ‘Can you tell me about it – you were resting, you say? Did you hear anything?’