Then she looked quizzically at Poirot and said: ‘But has this any bearing on the crime, M. Poirot?’
M. Poirot threw up his hands in a very French fashion.
‘You make me blush, mademoiselle,’ he said. ‘You expose me as a mere gossip. But what will you, I am interested always in the love affairs of young people.’
‘Yes,’ said Miss Johnson with a little sigh. ‘It’s nice when the course of true love runs smooth.’
Poirot gave an answering sigh. I wondered if Miss Johnson was thinking of some love affair of her own when she was a girl. And I wondered if M. Poirot had a wife, and if he went on in the way you always hear foreigners do, with mistresses and things like that. He looked so comic I couldn’t imagine it.
‘Sheila Reilly has a lot of character,’ said Miss Johnson. ‘She’s young and she’s crude, but she’s the right sort.’
‘I take your word for it, mademoiselle,’ said Poirot.
He got up and said, ‘Are there any other members of the staff in the house?’
‘Marie Mercado is somewhere about. All the men are up on the dig today. I think they wanted to get out of the house. I don’t blame them. If you’d like to go up to the dig–’
She came out on the verandah and said, smiling to me: ‘Nurse Leatheran won’t mind taking you, I dare say.’
‘Oh, certainly, Miss Johnson,’ I said.
‘And you’ll come back to lunch, won’t you, M. Poirot?’
‘Enchanted, mademoiselle.’
Miss Johnson went back into the living-room where she was engaged in cataloguing.
‘Mrs Mercado’s on the roof,’ I said. ‘Do you want to see her first?’
‘It would be as well, I think. Let us go up.’
As we went up the stairs I said: ‘I did what you told me. Did you hear anything?’
‘Not a sound.’
‘That will be a weight off Miss Johnson’s mind at any rate,’ I said. ‘She’s been worrying that she might have done something about it.’
Mrs Mercado was sitting on the parapet, her head bent down, and she was so deep in thought that she never heard us till Poirot halted opposite her and bade her good morning.
Then she looked up with a start.
She looked ill this morning, I thought, her small face pinched and wizened and great dark circles under her eyes.
‘Encore moi,’ said Poirot. ‘I come today with a special object.’
And he went on much in the same way as he had done to Miss Johnson, explaining how necessary it was that he should get a true picture of Mrs Leidner.
Mrs Mercado, however, wasn’t as honest as Miss Johnson had been. She burst into fulsome praise which, I was pretty sure, was quite far removed from her real feelings.
‘Dear, dear Louise! It’s so hard to explain her to someone who didn’t know her. She was such an exotic creature. Quite different from anyone else. You felt that, I’m sure, nurse? A martyr to nerves, of course, and full of fancies, but one put up with things in her one wouldn’t from anyone else. And she was so sweet to us all, wasn’t she, nurse? And so humble about herself – I mean she didn’t know anything about archaeology, and she was so eager to learn. Always asking my husband about the chemical processes for treating the metal objects and helping Miss Johnson to mend pottery. Oh, we were all devoted to her.’
‘Then it is not true, madame, what I have heard, that there was a certain tenseness – an uncomfortable atmosphere – here?’
Mrs Mercado opened her opaque black eyes very wide.
‘Oh! who can have been telling you that? Nurse? Dr Leidner? I’m sure he would never notice anything, poor man.’
And she shot a thoroughly unfriendly glance at me.
Poirot smiled easily.
‘I have my spies, madame,’ he declared gaily. And just for a minute I saw her eyelids quiver and blink.
‘Don’t you think,’ asked Mrs Mercado with an air of great sweetness, ‘that after an event of this kind, everyone always pretends a lot of things that never were? You know – tension, atmosphere, a “feeling that something was going to happen”? I think people just make up these things afterwards.’
‘There is a lot in what you say, madame,’ said Poirot.
‘And it really wasn’t true! We were a thoroughly happy family here.’
‘That woman is one of the most utter liars I’ve ever known,’ I said indignantly, when M. Poirot and I were clear of the house and walking along the path to the dig. ‘I’m sure she simply hated Mrs Leidner really!’
‘She is hardly the type to whom one would go for the truth,’ Poirot agreed.
‘Waste of time talking to her,’ I snapped.
‘Hardly that – hardly that. If a person tells you lies with her lips she is sometimes telling you truth with her eyes. What is she afraid of, little Madame Mercado? I saw fear in her eyes. Yes – decidedly she is afraid of something. It is very interesting.’
‘I’ve got something to tell you, M. Poirot,’ I said.
Then I told him all about my return the night before and my strong belief that Miss Johnson was the writer of the anonymous letters.
‘So she’s a liar too!’ I said. ‘The cool way she answered you this morning about these same letters!’
‘Yes,’ said Poirot. ‘It was interesting, that. For she let out the fact she knew all about those letters. So far they have not been spoken of in the presence of the staff. Of course, it is quite possible that Dr Leidner told her about them yesterday. They are old friends, he and she. But if he did not – well – then it is curious and interesting, is it not?’
My respect for him went up. It was clever the way he had tricked her into mentioning the letters.
‘Are you going to tackle her about them?’ I asked. M. Poirot seemed quite shocked by the idea.
‘No, no, indeed. Always it is unwise to parade one’s knowledge. Until the last minute I keep everything here,’ he tapped his forehead. ‘At the right moment – I make the spring – like the panther – and, mon Dieu! the consternation!’
I couldn’t help laughing to myself at little M. Poirot in the role of a panther.
We had just reached the dig. The first person we saw was Mr Reiter, who was busy photographing some walling.
It’s my opinion that the men who were digging just hacked out walls wherever they wanted them. That’s what it looked like anyway. Mr Carey explained to me that you could feel the difference at once with a pick, and he tried to show me – but I never saw. When the man said ‘Libn’ – mud-brick – it was just ordinary dirt and mud as far as I could see.
Mr Reiter finished his photographs and handed over the camera and the plate to his boy and told him to take them back to the house.
Poirot asked him one or two questions about exposures and film packs and so on which he answered very readily. He seemed pleased to be asked about his work.
He was just tendering his excuses for leaving us when Poirot plunged once more into his set speech. As a matter of fact it wasn’t quite a set speech because he varied it a little each time to suit the person he was talking to. But I’m not going to write it all down every time. With sensible people like Miss Johnson he went straight to the point, and with some of the others he had to beat about the bush a bit more. But it came to the same in the end.
‘Yes, yes, I see what you mean,’ said Mr Reiter. ‘But indeed, I do not see that I can be much help to you. I am new here this season and I did not speak much with Mrs Leidner. I regret, but indeed I can tell you nothing.’
There was something a little stiff and foreign in the way he spoke, though, of course, he hadn’t got any accent – except an American one, I mean.
‘You can at least tell me whether you liked or disliked her?’ said Poirot with a smile.
Mr Reiter got quite red and stammered: ‘She was a charming person – most charming. And intellectual. She had a very fine brain – yes.’
‘Bien! You liked her. And she liked you?’
Mr Reiter go
t redder still.
‘Oh, I – I don’t know that she noticed me much. And I was unfortunate once or twice. I was always unlucky when I tried to do anything for her. I’m afraid I annoyed her by my clumsiness. It was quite unintentional…I would have done anything–’
Poirot took pity on his flounderings.
‘Perfectly – perfectly. Let us pass to another matter. Was it a happy atmosphere in the house?’
‘Please?’
‘Were you all happy together? Did you laugh and talk?’
‘No – no, not exactly that. There was a little – stiffness.’
He paused, struggling with himself, and then said: ‘You see, I am not very good in company. I am clumsy. I am shy. Dr Leidner always he has been most kind to me. But – it is stupid – I cannot overcome my shyness. I say always the wrong thing. I upset water jugs. I am unlucky.’
He really looked like a large awkward child.
‘We all do these things when we are young,’ said Poirot, smiling. ‘The poise, the savoir faire, it comes later.’
Then with a word of farewell we walked on.
He said: ‘That, ma soeur, is either an extremely simple young man or a very remarkable actor.’
I didn’t answer. I was caught up once more by the fantastic notion that one of these people was a dangerous and cold-blooded murderer. Somehow, on this beautiful still sunny morning it seemed impossible.
Chapter 21. Mr Mercado, Richard Carey
‘They work in two separate places, I see,’ said Poirot, halting.
Mr Reiter had been doing his photography on an outlying portion of the main excavation. A little distance away from us a second swarm of men were coming and going with baskets.
‘That’s what they call the deep cut,’ I explained. ‘They don’t find much there, nothing but rubbishy broken pottery, but Dr Leidner always says it’s very interesting, so I suppose it must be.’
‘Let us go there.’
We walked together slowly, for the sun was hot.
Mr Mercado was in command. We saw him below us talking to the foreman, an old man like a tortoise who wore a tweed coat over his long striped cotton gown.
It was a little difficult to get down to them as there was only a narrow path or stair and basket-boys were going up and down it constantly, and they always seemed to be as blind as bats and never to think of getting out of the way.
As I followed Poirot down he said suddenly over his shoulder: ‘Is Mr Mercado right-handed or left-handed?’
Now that was an extraordinary question if you like!
I thought a minute, then: ‘Right-handed,’ I said decisively.
Poirot didn’t condescend to explain. He just went on and I followed him.
Mr Mercado seemed rather pleased to see us.
His long melancholy face lit up.
M. Poirot pretended to an interest in archaeology that I’m sure he couldn’t have really felt, but Mr Mercado responded at once.
He explained that they had already cut down through twelve levels of house occupation.
‘We are now definitely in the fourth millennium,’ he said with enthusiasm.
I always thought a millennium was in the future – the time when everything comes right.
Mr Mercado pointed out belts of ashes (how his hand did shake! I wondered if he might possibly have malaria) and he explained how the pottery changed in character, and about burials – and how they had had one level almost entirely composed of infant burials – poor little things – and about flexed position and orientation, which seemed to mean the way the bones were lying.
And then suddenly, just as he was stooping down to pick up a kind of flint knife that was lying with some pots in a corner, he leapt into the air with a wild yell.
He spun round to find me and Poirot staring at him in astonishment.
He clapped his hand to his left arm.
‘Something stung me – like a red-hot needle.’
Immediately Poirot was galvanized into energy.
‘Quick, mon cher, let us see. Nurse Leatheran!’
I came forward.
He seized Mr Mercado’s arm and deftly rolled back the sleeve of his khaki shirt to the shoulder.
‘There,’ said Mr Mercado pointing.
About three inches below the shoulder there was a minute prick from which the blood was oozing.
‘Curious,’ said Poirot. He peered into the rolled-up sleeve. ‘I can see nothing. It was an ant, perhaps?’
‘Better put on a little iodine,’ I said.
I always carry an iodine pencil with me, and I whipped it out and applied it. But I was a little absentminded as I did so, for my attention had been caught by something quite different. Mr Mercado’s arm, all the way up the forearm to the elbow, was marked all over by tiny punctures. I knew well enough what they were – the marks of a hypodermic needle.
Mr Mercado rolled down his sleeve again and recommenced his explanations. Mr Poirot listened, but didn’t try to bring the conversation round to the Leidners. In fact, he didn’t ask Mr Mercado anything at all.
Presently we said goodbye to Mr Mercado and climbed up the path again.
‘It was neat that, did you not think so?’ my companion asked.
‘Neat?’ I asked.
M. Poirot took something from behind the lapel of his coat and surveyed it affectionately. To my surprise I saw that it was a long sharp darning needle with a blob of sealing wax making it into a pin.
‘M. Poirot,’ I cried, ‘did you do that?’
‘I was the stinging insect – yes. And very neatly I did it, too, do you not think so? You did not see me.’
That was true enough. I never saw him do it. And I’m sure Mr Mercado hadn’t suspected. He must have been quick as lightning.
‘But, M. Poirot, why?’ I asked.
He answered me by another question.
‘Did you notice anything, sister?’ he asked.
I nodded my head slowly.
‘Hypodermic marks,’ I said.
‘So now we know something about Mr Mercado,’ said Poirot. ‘I suspected – but I did not know. It is always necessary to know.’
‘And you don’t care how you set about it!’ I thought, but didn’t say.
Poirot suddenly clapped his hand to his pocket.
‘Alas, I have dropped my handkerchief down there. I concealed the pin in it.’
‘I’ll get it for you,’ I said and hurried back.
I’d got the feeling, you see, by this time, that M. Poirot and I were the doctor and nurse in charge of a case. At least, it was more like an operation and he was the surgeon. Perhaps I oughtn’t to say so, but in a queer way I was beginning to enjoy myself.
I remember just after I’d finished my training, I went to a case in a private house and the need for an immediate operation arose, and the patient’s husband was cranky about nursing homes. He just wouldn’t hear of his wife being taken to one. Said it had to be done in the house.
Well, of course it was just splendid for me! Nobody else to have a look in! I was in charge of everything. Of course, I was terribly nervous – I thought of everything conceivable that doctor could want, but even then I was afraid I might have forgotten something. You never know with doctors. They ask for absolutely anything sometimes! But everything went splendidly! I had each thing ready as he asked for it, and he actually told me I’d done first-rate after it was over – and that’s a thing most doctors wouldn’t bother to do! The G.P. was very nice too. And I ran the whole thing myself!
The patient recovered, too, so everybody was happy.
Well, I felt rather the same now. In a way M. Poirot reminded me of that surgeon. He was a little man, too. Ugly little man with a face like a monkey, but a wonderful surgeon. He knew instinctively just where to go. I’ve seen a lot of surgeons and I know what a lot of difference there is.
Gradually I’d been growing a kind of confidence M. Poirot. I felt that he, too, knew exactly what he was doing. And I was getting to
feel that it was my job to help him – as you might say – to have the forceps and the swabs and all handy just when he wanted them. That’s why it seemed just as natural for me to run off and look for his handkerchief as it would have been to pick up a towel that a doctor had thrown on the floor.
When I’d found it and got back I couldn’t see him at first. But at last I caught sight of him. He was sitting a little way from the mound talking to Mr Carey. Mr Carey’s boy was standing near with that great big rod thing with metres marked on it, but just at that moment he said something to the boy and the boy took it away. It seemed he had finished with it for the time being.
I’d like to get this next bit quite clear. You see, I wasn’t quite sure what M. Poirot did or didn’t want me to do. He might, I mean, have sent me back for that handkerchiefon purpose. To get me out of the way.
It was just like an operation over again. You’ve got to be careful to hand the doctor just what he wants and not what he doesn’t want. I mean, suppose you gave him the artery forceps at the wrong moment, and were late with them at the right moment! Thank goodness I know my work in the theatre well enough. I’m not likely to make mistakes there. But in this business I was really the rawest of raw little probationers. And so I had to be particularly careful not to make any silly mistakes.
Of course, I didn’t for one moment imagine that M. Poirot didn’t want me to hear what he and Mr Carey were saying. But he might have thought he’d get Mr Carey to talk better if I wasn’t there.
Now I don’t want anybody to get it in to their heads that I’m the kind of woman who goes about eavesdropping on private conversations. I wouldn’t do such a thing. Not for a moment. Not however much I wanted to.
And what I mean is if it had been a private conversation I wouldn’t for a moment have done what, as a matter of fact, I actually did do.
As I looked at it I was in a privileged position. After all, you hear many a thing when a patient’s coming round after an anaesthetic. The patient wouldn’t want you to hear it – and usually has no idea you have heard it – but the fact remains you do hear it. I just took it that Mr Carey was the patient. He’d be none the worse for what he didn’t know about. And if you think that I was just curious, well, I’ll admit that I was curious. I didn’t want to miss anything I could help.
Murder in Mesopotamia hp-14 Page 14