Murder in Mesopotamia - Agatha Christie [79]
‘But now we come to a really interesting point. Dr Leidner came upon the scene—and no forbidding letter arrived! Nothing stood in the way of her becoming Mrs Leidner. Not until after her marriage did a letter arrive.
‘At once we ask ourselves—why?
‘Let us take each theory in turn.
…‘If Mrs Leidner wrote the letters herself the problem is easily explained. Mrs Leidner really wanted to marry Dr Leidner. And so she did marry him. But in that case, why did she write herself a letter afterwards? Was her craving for drama too strong to be suppressed? And why only those two letters? After that no other letter was received until a year and a half later.
‘Now take the other theory, that the letters were written by her first husband, Frederick Bosner (or his brother). Why did the threatening letter arrive after the marriage? Presumably Frederick could not have wanted her to marry Leidner. Why, then, did he not stop the marriage? He had done so successfully on former occasions. And why, having waited till the marriage had taken place, did he then resume his threats?
‘The answer, an unsatisfactory one, is that he was somehow or other unable to protest sooner. He may have been in prison or he may have been abroad.
‘There is next the attempted gas poisoning to consider. It seems extremely unlikely that it was brought about by an outside agency. The likely persons to have staged it were Dr and Mrs Leidner themselves. There seems no conceivable reason why Dr Leidner should do such a thing, so we are brought to the conclusion that Mrs Leidner planned and carried it out herself.
‘Why? More drama?
‘After that Dr and Mrs Leidner go abroad and for eighteen months they lead a happy, peaceful life with no threats of death to disturb it. They put that down to having successfully covered their traces, but such an explanation is quite absurd. In these days going abroad is quite inadequate for that purpose. And especially was that so in the case of the Leidners. He was the director of a museum expedition. By inquiry at the museum, Frederick Bosner could at once have obtained his correct address. Even granting that he was in too reduced circumstances to pursue the couple himself there would be no bar to his continuing his threatening letters. And it seems to me that a man with his obsession would certainly have done so.
‘Instead nothing is heard of him until nearly two years later when the letters are resumed.
‘Why were the letters resumed?
‘A very difficult question—most easily answered by saying that Mrs Leidner was bored and wanted more drama. But I was not quite satisfied with that. This particular form of drama seemed to me a shade too vulgar and too crude to accord well with her fastidious personality.
‘The only thing to do was to keep an open mind on the question.
‘There were three definite possibilities: (1) the letters were written by Mrs Leidner herself; (2) they were written by Frederick Bosner (or young William Bosner); (3) they might have been written originally by either Mrs Leidner or her first husband, but they were now forgeries—that is, they were being written by a third person who was aware of the earlier letters.
‘I now come to direct consideration of Mrs Leidner’s entourage.
‘I examined first the actual opportunities that each member of the staff had had for committing the murder.
‘Roughly, on the face of it, anyone might have committed it (as far as opportunity went), with the exception of three persons.
‘Dr Leidner, by overwhelming testimony, had never left the roof. Mr Carey was on duty at the mound. Mr Coleman was in Hassanieh.
‘But those alibis, my friends, were not quite as good as they looked. I except Dr Leidner’s. There is absolutely no doubt that he was on the roof all the time and did not come down until quite an hour and a quarter after the murder had happened.
‘But was it quite certain that Mr Carey was on the mound all the time?
‘And had Mr Coleman actually been in Hassanieh at the time the murder took place?’
Bill