Murder in Mesopotamia - Agatha Christie [66]
His voice quivered a little and I knew what he was thinking. He was the one to blame for not having taken Mrs Leidner’s fears seriously.
‘Dr Leidner,’ I said curiously. ‘Have you ever come to any conclusion about those anonymous letters?’
He said with a sigh: ‘I don’t know what to believe. Has M. Poirot come to any definite conclusion?’
‘He hadn’t yesterday,’ I said, steering rather neatly, I thought, between truth and fiction. After all, he hadn’t until I told him about Miss Johnson.
It was on my mind that I’d like to give Dr Leidner a hint and see if he reacted. In the pleasure of seeing him and Miss Johnson together the day before, and his affection and reliance on her, I’d forgotten all about the letters. Even now I felt it was perhaps rather mean of me to bring it up. Even if she had written them, she had had a bad time after Mrs Leidner’s death. Yet I did want to see whether that particular possibility had ever entered Dr Leidner’s head.
‘Anonymous letters are usually the work of a woman,’ I said. I wanted to see how he’d take it.
‘I suppose they are,’ he said with a sigh. ‘But you seem to forget, nurse, that these may be genuine. They may actually be written by Frederick Bosner.’
‘No, I haven’t forgotten,’ I said. ‘But I can’t believe somehow that that’s the real explanation.’
‘I do,’ he said. ‘It’s all nonsense, his being one of the expedition staff. That is just an ingenious theory of M. Poirot’s. I believe that the truth is much simpler. The man is a madman, of course. He’s been hanging round the place—perhaps in disguise of some kind. And somehow or other he got in on that fatal afternoon. The servants may be lying—they may have been bribed.’
‘I suppose it’s possible,’ I said doubtfully.
Dr Leidner went on with a trace of irritability.
‘It is all very well for M. Poirot to suspect the members of my expedition. I am perfectly certain none of them have anything to do with it! I have worked with them. I know them!’
He stopped suddenly, then he said: ‘Is that your experience, nurse? That anonymous letters are usually written by women?’
‘It isn’t always the case,’ I said. ‘But there’s a certain type of feminine spitefulness that finds relief that way.’
‘I suppose you are thinking of Mrs Mercado?’ he said.
Then he shook his head.
‘Even if she were malicious enough to wish to hurt Louise she would hardly have the necessary knowledge,’ he said.
I remembered the earlier letters in the attaché-case.
If Mrs Leidner had left that unlocked and Mrs Mercado had been alone in the house one day pottering about, she might easily have found them and read them. Men never seem to think of the simplest possibilities!
‘And apart from her there is only Miss Johnson,’ I said, watching him.
‘That would be quite ridiculous!’
The little smile with which he said it was quite conclusive. The idea of Miss Johnson being the author of the letters had never entered his head! I hesitated just for a minute—but I didn’t say anything. One doesn’t like giving away a fellow woman, and besides, I had been a witness of Miss Johnson’s genuine and moving remorse. What was done was done. Why expose Dr Leidner to a fresh disillusion on top of all his other troubles?
It was arranged that I should leave on the following day, and I had arranged through Dr Reilly to stay for a day or two with the matron of the hospital whilst I made arrangements for returning to England either via Baghdad or direct via Nissibin by car and train.
Dr Leidner was kind enough to say that he would like me to choose a memento from amongst his wife’s things.
‘Oh, no, really, Dr Leidner,’ I said. ‘I couldn’t. It’s much too kind of you.’
He insisted.
‘But I should like you to have something. And Louise, I am sure, would have wished it.’
Then he went on to suggest that I should have her tortoiseshell toilet set!
‘Oh, no, Dr Leidner! Why, that’s a most expensive set. I couldn’t, really.’
‘She had no sisters, you know—no one who wants these