Murder in Mesopotamia

‘It is always so! If you were of the police how well you would know it! The description of the same man by two different people – never does it agree. Every detail is contradicted.’

‘I’m fairly sure about the squint,’ said Father Lavigny. ‘Nurse Leatheran may be right about the other points. By the way, when I said fair, I only meant fair for an Iraqi. I expect nurse would call that dark.’

‘Very dark,’ I said obstinately. ‘A dirty dark-yellow colour.’

I saw Dr Reilly bite his lips and smile.

Poirot threw up his hands.

‘Passons!’ he said. ‘This stranger hanging about, he may be important – he may not. At any rate he must be found. Let us continue our inquiry.’

He hesitated for a minute, studying the faces turned towards him round the table, then, with a quick nod, he singled out Mr Reiter.

‘Come, my friend,’ he said. ‘Let us have your account of yesterday afternoon.’

Mr Reiter’s pink, plump face flushed scarlet.

‘Me?’ he said.

‘Yes, you. To begin with, your name and your age?’

‘Carl Reiter, twenty-eight.’

‘American – yes?’

‘Yes, I come from Chicago.’

‘This is your first season?’

‘Yes. I’m in charge of the photography.’

‘Ah, yes. And yesterday afternoon, how did you employ yourself?’

‘Well – I was in the dark-room most of the time.’

‘Most of the time – eh?’

‘Yes. I developed some plates first. Afterwards I was fixing up some objects to photograph.’

‘Outside?’

‘Oh no, in the photographic-room.’

‘The dark-room opens out of the photographic-room?’

‘Yes.’

‘And so you never came outside the photographic-room?’

‘No.’

‘Did you notice anything that went on in the courtyard?’

The young man shook his head.

‘I wasn’t noticing anything,’ he explained. ‘I was busy. I heard the car come back, and as soon as I could leave what I was doing I came out to see if there was any mail. It was then that I – heard.’

‘And you began to work in the photographic-room – when?’

‘At ten minutes to one.’

‘Were you acquainted with Mrs Leidner before you joined this expedition?’

The young man shook his head.

‘No, sir. I never saw her till I actually got here.’

‘Can you think of anything – any incident – however small – that might help us?’

Carl Reiter shook his head.

He said helplessly: ‘I guess I don’t know anything at all, sir.’

‘Mr Emmott?’

David Emmott spoke clearly and concisely in his pleasant soft American voice.

‘I was working with the pottery from a quarter to one till a quarter to three – overseeing the boy Abdullah, sorting it, and occasionally going up to the roof to help Dr Leidner.’

‘How often did you go up to the roof?’

‘Four times, I think.’

‘For how long?’

‘Usually a couple of minutes – not more. But on one occasion after I’d been working a little over half an hour I stayed as long as ten minutes – discussing what to keep and what to fling away.’

‘And I understand that when you came down you found the boy had left his place?’

‘Yes. I called him angrily and he reappeared from outside the archway. He had gone out to gossip with the others.’

‘That settles the only time he left his work?’

‘Well, I sent him up once or twice to the roof with pottery.’

Poirot said gravely: ‘It is hardly necessary to ask you, Mr Emmott, whether you saw anyone enter or leave Mrs Leidner’s room during that time?’

Mr Emmott replied promptly.

‘I saw no one at all. Nobody even came out into the courtyard during the two hours I was working.’

‘And to the best of your belief it was half-past one when both you and the boy were absent and the courtyard was empty?’

‘It couldn’t have been far off that time. Of course, I can’t say exactly.’

Poirot turned to Dr Reilly.

‘That agrees with your estimate of the time of death, doctor?’

‘It does,’ said Dr Reilly.

Mr Poirot stroked his great curled moustaches.

‘I think we can take it,’ he said gravely, ‘that Mrs Leidner met her death during that ten minutes.’

Chapter 14. One of Us?

There was a little pause – and in it a wave of horror seemed to float round the room.

I think it was at that moment that I first believed Dr Reilly’s theory to be right.

I felt that the murderer was in the room. Sitting with us – listening. One of us…

Perhaps Mrs Mercado felt it too. For she suddenly gave a short sharp cry.

‘I can’t help it,’ she sobbed. ‘I – it’s so terrible!’

‘Courage, Marie,’ said her husband.

He looked at us apologetically.

‘She is so sensitive. She feels things so much.’

‘I – I was so fond of Louise,’ sobbed Mrs Mercado.

I don’t know whether something of what I felt showed in my face, but I suddenly found that Mr Poirot was looking at me, and that a slight smile hovered on his lips.

I gave him a cold glance, and at once he resumed his inquiry.

‘Tell me, madame,’ he said, ‘of the way you spent yesterday afternoon?’

‘I was washing my hair,’ sobbed Mrs Mercado. ‘It seems awful not to have known anything about it. I was quite happy and busy.’

‘You were in your room?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you did not leave it?’

‘No. Not till I heard the car. Then I came out and I heard what had happened. Oh, it was awful!’

‘Did it surprise you?’

Mrs Mercado stopped crying. Her eyes opened resentfully.