Murder in Mesopotamia - Agatha Christie [86]
‘As you all know, a second murder did take place. But the victim was not Nurse Leatheran—it was Miss Johnson.
‘I like to think that I should have reached the correct solution anyway by pure reasoning, but it is certain that Miss Johnson’s murder helped me to it much quicker.
‘To begin with, one suspect was eliminated—Miss Johnson herself—for I did not for a moment entertain the theory of suicide.
‘Let us examine now the facts of this second murder.
‘Fact One: On Sunday evening Nurse Leatheran finds Miss Johnson in tears, and that same evening Miss Johnson burns a fragment of a letter which nurse believes to be in the same handwriting as that of the anonymous letters.
‘Fact Two: The evening before her death Miss Johnson is found by Nurse Leatheran standing on the roof in a state that nurse describes as one of incredulous horror. When nurse questions her she says, “I’ve seen how someone could come in from outside—and no one would ever guess.” She won’t say any more. Father Lavigny is crossing the courtyard and Mr Reiter is at the door of the photographic-room.
‘Fact Three: Miss Johnson is found dying. The only words she can manage to articulate are “the window—the window—”
‘Those are the facts, and these are the problems with which we are faced:
‘What is the truth of the letters?
‘What did Miss Johnson see from the roof?
‘What did she mean by “the window—the window”?
‘Eh bien, let us take the second problem first as the easiest of solution. I went up with Nurse Leatheran and I stood where Miss Johnson had stood. From there she could see the courtyard and the archway and the north side of the building and two members of the staff. Had her words anything to do with either Mr Reiter or Father Lavigny?
‘Almost at once a possible explanation leaped to my brain. If a stranger came in from outside he could only do so in disguise. And there was only one person whose general appearance lent itself to such an impersonation. Father Lavigny! With a sun helmet, sun glasses, black beard and a monk’s long woollen robe, a stranger could pass in without the servants realising that a stranger had entered.
‘Was that Miss Johnson’s meaning? Or had she gone further? Did she realize that Father Lavigny’s whole personality was a disguise? That he was someone other than he pretended to be?
‘Knowing what I did know about Father Lavigny, I was inclined to call the mystery solved. Raoul Menier was the murderer. He had killed Mrs Leidner to silence her before she could give him away. Now another person lets him see that she has penetrated his secret. She, too, must be removed.
‘And so everything is explained! The second murder. Father Lavigny’s flight—minus robe and beard. (He and his friend are doubtless careering through Syria with excellent passports as two commercial travellers.) His action in placing the blood-stained quern under Miss Johnson’s bed.
‘As I say, I was almost satisfied—but not quite. For the perfect solution must explain everything—and this does not do so.
‘It does not explain, for instance, why Miss Johnson should say “the window”, as she was dying. It does not explain her fit of weeping over the letter. It does not explain her mental attitude on the roof—her incredulous horror and her refusal to tell Nurse Leatheran what it was that she now suspected or knew.
‘It was a solution that fitted the outer facts, but it did not satisfy the psychological requirements.
‘And then, as I stood on the roof, going over in my mind those three points: the letters, the roof, the window, I saw—just as Miss Johnson had seen!
‘And this time what I saw explained everything!’
Chapter 28
Journey’s End
Poirot looked round. Every eye was now fixed upon him. There had been a certain relaxation—a slackening of tension. Now the tension suddenly returned.
There was something coming…something…
Poirot’s voice, quiet and unimpassioned, went on: ‘The letters, the roof, “the window”