Murder in Mesopotamia - Agatha Christie [68]
And then, slowly, I saw the door just beginning to open.
It was horrible.
I’ve never known anything so horrible before or since.
I was paralysed—chilled through and through. I couldn’t move. For the life of me I couldn’t have moved.
And I was terrified. Sick and blind and dumb with terror.
That slowly opening door.
So noiseless.
In a minute I should see…
Slowly—slowly—wider and wider.
Bill Coleman came quietly in.
He must have had the shock of his life!
I bounded off the bed with a scream of terror and hurled myself across the room.
He stood stock-still, his blunt pink face pinker and his mouth opened wide with surprise.
‘Hallo-allo-allo,’ he said. ‘What’s up, nurse?’
I came back to reality with a crash.
‘Goodness, Mr Coleman,’ I said. ‘How you startled me!’
‘Sorry,’ he said with a momentary grin.
I saw then that he was holding a little bunch of scarlet ran unculus in his hand. They were pretty little flowers and they grew wild on the sides of the Tell. Mrs Leidner had been fond of them.
He blushed and got rather red as he said: ‘One can’t get any flowers or things in Hassanieh. Seemed rather rotten not to have any flowers for the grave. I thought I’d just nip in here and put a little posy in that little pot thing she always had flowers in on her table. Sort of show she wasn’t forgotten—eh? A bit asinine, I know, but—well—I mean to say.’
I thought it was very nice of him. He was all pink with embarrassment like Englishmen are when they’ve done anything sentimental. I thought it was a very sweet thought.
‘Why, I think that’s a very nice idea, Mr Coleman,’ I said.
And I picked up the little pot and went and got some water in it and we put the flowers in.
I really thought much more of Mr Coleman for this idea of his. It showed he had a heart and nice feelings about things.
He didn’t ask me again what made me let out such a squeal and I’m thankful he didn’t. I should have felt a fool explaining.
‘Stick to common sense in future, woman,’ I said to myself as I settled my cuffs and smoothed my apron. ‘You’re not cut out for this psychic stuff.’
I bustled about doing my own packing and kept myself busy for the rest of the day.
Father Lavigny was kind enough to express great distress at my leaving. He said my cheerfulness and common sense had been such a help to everybody. Common sense! I’m glad he didn’t know about my idiotic behaviour in Mrs Leidner’s room.
‘We have not seen M. Poirot today,’ he remarked.
I told him that Poirot had said he was going to be busy all day sending off telegrams.
Father Lavigny raised his eyebrows.
‘Telegrams? To America?’
‘I suppose so. He said, “All over the world!” but I think that was rather a foreign exaggeration.’
And then I got rather red, remembering that Father Lavigny was a foreigner himself.
He didn’t seem offended though, just laughed quite pleasantly and asked me if there were any news of the man with the squint.
I said I didn’t know but I hadn’t heard of any.
Father Lavigny asked me again about the time Mrs Leidner and I had noticed the man and how he had seemed to be standing on tiptoe and peering through the window.
‘It seems clear the man had some overwhelming interest in Mrs Leidner,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘I have wondered since whether the man could possibly have been a European got up to look like an Iraqi?’
That was a new idea to me and I considered it carefully. I had taken it for granted that the man was a native, but of course when I came to think of it, I was really going by the cut of his clothes and the yellowness of his skin.
Father Lavigny declared his intention of going round outside the house to the place where Mrs Leidner and I had seen the man standing.
‘You never know, he might have dropped something. In the detective stories the criminal always does.’
‘I expect in real life criminals are more careful,’ I said.
I fetched some socks I had just finished darning and put them on the table in the living-room for the men to sort out when they came in, and then, as there was nothing much more to do, I went up on the roof.
Miss Johnson