Murder in Mesopotamia

‘I don’t know what’s the matter with them this year. They’ve all got the jumps. Johnson goes about so glum she can’t open her mouth. David never speaks if he can help it. Bill, of course, never stops, and somehow his chatter seems to make the others worse. Carey goes about looking as though something would snap any minute. And they all watch each other as though – as though – Oh, I don’t know, but it’squeer.’

It was odd, I thought, that two such dissimilar people as Miss Reilly and Major Pennyman should have been struck in the same manner.

Just then Mr Coleman came bustling in. Bustling was just the word for it. If his tongue had hung out and he had suddenly produced a tail to wag you wouldn’t have been surprised.

‘Hallo-allo,’ he said. ‘Absolutely the world’s best shopper – that’s me. Have you shown nurse all the beauties of the town?’

‘She wasn’t impressed,’ said Miss Reilly dryly.

‘I don’t blame her,’ said Mr Coleman heartily. ‘Of all the one-horse tumble-down places!’

‘Not a lover of the picturesque or the antique, are you, Bill? I can’t think why you are an archaeologist.’

‘Don’t blame me for that. Blame my guardian. He’s a learned bird-fellow of his college – browses among books in bedroom slippers – that kind of man. Bit of a shock for him to have a ward like me.’

‘I think it’s frightfully stupid of you to be forced into a profession you don’t care for,’ said the girl sharply.

‘Not forced, Sheila, old girl, not forced. The old man asked if I had any special profession in mind, and I said I hadn’t, and so he wangled a season out here for me.’

‘But haven’t you any idea really what you’d like to do? You must have!’

‘Of course I have. My idea would be to give work a miss altogether. What I’d like to do is to have plenty of money and go in for motor-racing.’

‘You’re absurd!’ said Miss Reilly.

She sounded quite angry.

‘Oh, I realize that it’s quite out of the question,’ said Mr Coleman cheerfully. ‘So, if I’ve got to do something, I don’t much care what it is so long as it isn’t mugging in an office all day long. I was quite agreeable to seeing a bit of the world. Here goes, I said, and along I came.’

‘And a fat lot of use you must be, I expect!’

‘There you’re wrong. I can stand up on the dig and shout “Y’Allah” with anybody! And as a matter of fact I’m not so dusty at drawing. Imitating handwriting used to be my speciality at school. I’d have made a first-class forger. Oh, well, I may come to that yet. If my Rolls-Royce splashes you with mud as you’re waiting for a bus, you’ll know that I’ve taken to crime.’

Miss Reilly said coldly: ‘Don’t you think it’s about time you started instead of talking so much?’

‘Hospitable, aren’t we, nurse?’

‘I’m sure Nurse Leatheran is anxious to get settled in.’

‘You’re always sure of everything,’ retorted Mr Coleman with a grin.

That was true enough, I thought. Cocksure little minx.

I said dryly: ‘Perhaps we’d better start, Mr Coleman.’

‘Right you are, nurse.’

I shook hands with Miss Reilly and thanked her, and we set off.

‘Damned attractive girl, Sheila,’ said Mr Coleman.

‘But always ticking a fellow off.’

We drove out of the town and presently took a kind of track between green crops. It was very bumpy and full of ruts.

After about half an hour Mr Coleman pointed to a big mound by the river bank ahead of us and said: ‘Tell Yarimjah.’

I could see little black figures moving about it like ants.

As I was looking they suddenly began to run all together down the side of the mound.

‘Fidos,’ said Mr Coleman. ‘Knocking-off time. We knock off an hour before sunset.’

The expedition house lay a little way back from the river.

The driver rounded a corner, bumped through an extremely narrow arch and there we were.

The house was built round a courtyard. Originally it had occupied only the south side of the courtyard with a few unimportant out-buildings on the east. The expedition had continued the building on the other two sides. As the plan of the house was to prove of special interest later, I append a rough sketch of it here.

All the rooms opened on to the courtyard, and most of the windows – the exception being in the original south building where there were windows giving on the outside country as well. These windows, however, were barred on the outside. In the south-west corner a staircase ran up to a long flat roof with a parapet running the length of the south side of the building which was higher than the other three sides.

Mr Coleman led me along the east side of the courtyard and round to where a big open verandah occupied the centre of the south side. He pushed open a door at one side of it and we entered a room where several people were sitting round a tea-table.

‘Toodle-oodle-oo!’ said Mr Coleman. ‘Here’s Sairey Gamp.’

The lady who was sitting at the head of the table rose and came to greet me.

I had my first glimpse of Louise Leidner.

Chapter 5. Tell Yarimjah