“I will.”
Dr. Leidner made a gesture of thanks.
“Even now,” he said slowly, “I can’t realize it—that Louise is really dead.”
I could bear it no longer.
“Oh! Doctor Leidner,” I burst out, “I—I can’t tell you how badly I feel about this. I’ve failed so badly in my duty. It was my job to watch over Mrs. Leidner—to keep her from harm.”
Dr. Leidner shook his head gravely.
“No, no, nurse, you’ve nothing to reproach yourself with,” he said slowly. “It’s I, God forgive me, who am to blame . . . I didn’t believe—all along I didn’t believe . . . I didn’t dream for one moment that there was any real danger. . . .”
He got up. His face twitched.
“I let her go to her death . . . Yes, I let her go to her death—not believing—”
He staggered out of the room.
Dr. Reilly looked at me.
“I feel pretty culpable too,” he said. “I thought the good lady was playing on his nerves.”
“I didn’t take it really seriously either,” I confessed.
“We were all three wrong,” said Dr. Reilly gravely.
“So it seems,” said Captain Maitland.
Thirteen
HERCULE POIROT ARRIVES
I don’t think I shall ever forget my first sight of Hercule Poirot. Of course, I got used to him later on, but to begin with it was a shock, and I think everyone else must have felt the same!
I don’t know what I’d imagined—something rather like Sherlock Holmes—long and lean with a keen, clever face. Of course, I knew he was a foreigner, but I hadn’t expected him to be quite as foreign as he was, if you know what I mean.
When you saw him you just wanted to laugh! He was like something on the stage or at the pictures. To begin with, he wasn’t above five-foot five, I should think—an odd, plump little man, quite old, with an enormous moustache, and a head like an egg. He looked like a hairdresser in a comic play!
And this was the man who was going to find out who killed Mrs. Leidner!
I suppose something of my disgust must have shown in my face, for almost straightaway he said to me with a queer kind of twinkle:
“You disapprove of me, ma soeur? Remember, the pudding proves itself only when you eat it.”
The proof of the pudding’s in the eating, I suppose he meant.
Well, that’s a true enough saying, but I couldn’t say I felt much confidence myself!
Dr. Reilly brought him out in his car soon after lunch on Sunday, and his first procedure was to ask us all to assemble together.
We did so in the dining room, all sitting round the table. Mr. Poirot sat at the head of it with Dr. Leidner one side and Dr. Reilly the other.
When we were all assembled, Dr. Leidner cleared his throat and spoke in his gentle, hesitating voice.
“I dare say you have all heard of M. Hercule Poirot. He was passing through Hassanieh today, and has very kindly agreed to break his journey to help us. The Iraqi police and Captain Maitland are, I am sure, doing their very best, but—but there are circumstances in the case”—he floundered and shot an appealing glance at Dr. Reilly—“there may, it seems, be difficulties. . . .”
“It is not all the square and overboard—no?” said the little man at the top of the table. Why, he couldn’t even speak English properly!