Murder in Mesopotamia - Agatha Christie [74]
What riveted our attention on this particular specimen was a dull, dark stain and a fragment of something that looked like hair.
‘That’ll be your job, Reilly,’ said Captain Maitland. ‘But I shouldn’t say that there’s much doubt about this being the instrument with which Mrs Leidner was killed!’
Chapter 26
Next It Will Be Me!
It was rather horrible. Dr Leidner looked as though he were going to faint and I felt a bit sick myself.
Dr Reilly examined it with professional gusto.
‘No fingerprints, I presume?’ he threw out.
‘No fingerprints.’
Dr Reilly took out a pair of forceps and investigated delicately.
‘H’m—a fragment of human tissue—and hair—fair blonde hair. That’s the unofficial verdict. Of course, I’ll have to make a proper test, blood group, etc., but there’s not much doubt. Found under Miss Johnson’s bed? Well, well—so that’s the big idea. She did the murder, and then, God rest her, remorse came to her and she finished herself off. It’s a theory—a pretty theory.’
Dr Leidner could only shake his head helplessly.
‘Not Anne—not Anne,’ he murmured.
‘I don’t know where she hid this to begin with,’ said Captain Maitland. ‘Every room was searched after the first crime.’
Something jumped into my mind and I thought, ‘In the stationery cupboard,’ but I didn’t say anything.
‘Wherever it was, she became dissatisfied with its hiding-place and took it into her own room, which had been searched with all the rest. Or perhaps she did that after making up her mind to commit suicide.’
‘I don’t believe it,’ I said aloud.
And I couldn’t somehow believe that kind nice Miss Johnson had battered out Mrs Leidner’s brains. I just couldn’t see it happening! And yet it did fit in with some things—her fit of weeping that night, for instance. After all, I’d said ‘remorse’ myself—only I’d never thought it was remorse for anything but the smaller, more insignificant crime.
‘I don’t know what to believe,’ said Captain Maitland. ‘There’s the French Father’s disappearance to be cleared up too. My men are out hunting around in case he’s been knocked on the head and his body rolled into a convenient irrigation ditch.’
‘Oh! I remember now—’ I began.
Everyone looked towards me inquiringly.
‘It was yesterday afternoon,’ I said. ‘He’d been cross-questioning me about the man with a squint who was looking in at the window that day. He asked me just where he’d stood on the path and then he said he was going out to have a look round. He said in detective stories the criminal always dropped a convenient clue.’
‘Damned if any of my criminals ever do,’ said Captain Maitland. ‘So that’s what he was after, was it? By Jove, I wonder if he did find anything. A bit of a coincidence if both he and Miss Johnson discovered a clue to the identity of the murderer at practically the same time.’
He added irritably, ‘Man with a squint? Man with a squint? There’s more in this tale of that fellow with a squint than meets the eye. I don’t know why the devil my fellows can’t lay hold of him!’
‘Probably because he hasn’t got a squint,’ said Poirot quietly.
‘Do you mean he faked it? Didn’t know you could fake an actual squint.’
Poirot merely said: ‘A squint can be a very useful thing.’
‘The devil it can! I’d give a lot to know where that fellow is now, squint or no squint!’
‘At a guess,’ said Poirot, ‘he has already passed the Syrian frontier.’
‘We’ve warned Tell Kotchek and Abu Kemal—all the frontier posts, in fact.’
‘I should imagine that he took the route through the hills. The route lorries sometimes take when running contraband.’
Captain Maitland grunted.
‘Then we’d better telegraph Deir ez Zor?’
‘I did so yesterday—warning them to look out for a car with two men in it whose passports will be in the most impeccable order.’
Captain Maitland favoured him with a stare.
‘You did, did you? Two men—eh?’
Poirot nodded.
‘There are two men in this.’
‘It strikes me, M. Poirot, that you’ve been keeping quite a lot of things up your sleeve.’
Poirot shook his head.
‘No,’ he said. ‘Not really. The truth came to me only