Murder in Mesopotamia - Agatha Christie [21]
I only remember two other incidents of any kind of significance.
One was when I went to the laboratory to fetch some acetone to get the stickiness off my fingers from mending the pottery. Mr Mercado was sitting in a corner, his head was laid down on his arms and I fancied he was asleep. I took the bottle I wanted and went off with it.
That evening, to my great surprise, Mrs Mercado tackled me.
‘Did you take a bottle of acetone from the lab?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I did.’
‘You know perfectly well that there’s a small bottle always kept in the antika-room.’
She spoke quite angrily.
‘Is there? I didn’t know.’
‘I think you did! You just wanted to come spying round. I know what hospital nurses are.’
I stared at her.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mrs Mercado,’ I said with dignity. ‘I’m sure I don’t want to spy on anyone.’
‘Oh, no! Of course not. Do you think I don’t know what you’re here for?’
Really, for a minute or two I thought she must have been drinking. I went away without saying any more. But I thought it was very odd.
The other thing was nothing very much. I was trying to entice a pi dog pup with a piece of bread. It was very timid, however, like all Arab dogs—and was convinced I meant no good. It slunk away and I followed it—out through the archway and round the corner of the house. I came round so sharply that before I knew I had cannoned into Father Lavigny and another man who were standing together—and in a minute I realized that the second man was the same one Mrs Leidner and I had noticed that day trying to peer through the window.
I apologized and Father Lavigny smiled, and with a word of farewell greeting to the other man he returned to the house with me.
‘You know,’ he said. ‘I am very ashamed. I am a student of Oriental languages and none of the men on the work can understand me! It is humiliating, do you not think? I was trying my Arabic on that man, who is a townsman, to see if I got on better—but it still wasn’t very successful. Leidner says my Arabic is too pure.’
That was all. But it just passed through my head that it was odd the same man should still be hanging round the house.
That night we had a scare.
It must have been about two in the morning. I’m a light sleeper, as most nurses have to be. I was awake and sitting up in bed by the time that my door opened.
‘Nurse, nurse!’
It was Mrs Leidner’s voice, low and urgent.
I struck a match and lighted the candle.
She was standing by the door in a long blue dressing-gown. She was looking petrified with terror.
‘There’s someone—someone—in the room next to mine…I heard him—scratching on the wall.’
I jumped out of bed and came to her.
‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘I’m here. Don’t be afraid, my dear.’
She whispered: ‘Get Eric.’
I nodded and ran out and knocked on his door. In a minute he was with us. Mrs Leidner was sitting on my bed, her breath coming in great gasps.
‘I heard him,’ she said. ‘I heard him—scratching on the wall.’
‘Someone in the antika-room?’ cried Dr Leidner.
He ran out quickly—and it just flashed across my mind how differently these two had reacted. Mrs Leidner’s fear was entirely personal, but Dr Leidner’s mind leaped at once to his precious treasures.
‘The antika-room!’ breathed Mrs Leidner. ‘Of course! How stupid of me!’
And rising and pulling her gown round her, she bade me come with her. All traces of her panic-stricken fear had vanished.
We arrived in the antika-room to find Dr Leidner and Father Lavigny. The latter had also heard a noise, had risen to investigate, and had fancied he saw a light in the antika-room. He had delayed to put on slippers and snatch up a torch and had found no one by the time he got there. The door, moreover,