Murder in Mesopotamia: A Hercule Poirot Mystery (Hercule Poirot 14)

Again I exclaimed.

“Yes, it is beautiful, isn’t it? These came from a prince’s grave. We found other royal graves but most of them had been plundered. This cup is our best find. It is one of the most lovely ever found anywhere. Early Akkadian. Unique.”

Suddenly, with a frown, Mrs. Leidner brought the cup up close to her eyes and scratched at it delicately with her nail.

“How extraordinary! There’s actually wax on it. Someone must have been in here with a candle.” She detached the little flake and replaced the cup in its place.

After that she showed me some queer little terracotta figurines—but most of them were just rude. Nasty minds those old people had, I say.

When we went back to the porch Mrs. Mercado was sitting polishing her nails. She was holding them out in front of her admiring the effect. I thought myself that anything more hideous than that orange red could hardly have been imagined.

Mrs. Leidner had brought with her from the antika room a very delicate little saucer broken in several pieces, and this she now proceeded to join together. I watched her for a minute or two and then asked if I could help.

“Oh, yes, there are plenty more.” She fetched quite a supply of broken pottery and we set to work. I soon got into the hang of it and she praised my ability. I suppose most nurses are handy with their fingers.

“How busy everybody is!” said Mrs. Mercado. “It makes me feel dreadfully idle. Of course I am idle.”

“Why shouldn’t you be if you like?” said Mrs. Leidner.

Her voice was quite uninterested.

At twelve we had lunch. Afterwards Dr. Leidner and Mr. Mercado cleaned some pottery, pouring a solution of hydrochloric acid over it. One pot went a lovely plum colour and a pattern of bulls’ horns came out on another one. It was really quite magical. All the dried mud that no washing would remove sort of foamed and boiled away.

Mr. Carey and Mr. Coleman went out on the dig and Mr. Reiter went off to the photographic room.

“What will you do, Louise?” Dr. Leidner asked his wife. “I suppose you’ll rest for a bit?”

I gathered that Mrs. Leidner usually lay down every afternoon.

“I’ll rest for about an hour. Then perhaps I’ll go out for a short stroll.”

“Good. Nurse will go with you, won’t you?”

“Of course,” I said.

“No, no,” said Mrs. Leidner, “I like going alone. Nurse isn’t to feel so much on duty that I’m not allowed out of her sight.”

“Oh, but I’d like to come,” I said.

“No, really, I’d rather you didn’t.” She was quite firm—almost peremptory. “I must be by myself every now and then. It’s necessary to me.”

I didn’t insist, of course. But as I went off for a short sleep myself it struck me as odd that Mrs. Leidner, with her nervous terrors, should be quite content to walk by herself without any kind of protection.

When I came out of my room at half-past three the courtyard was deserted save for a little boy with a large copper bath who was washing pottery, and Mr. Emmott, who was sorting and arranging it. As I went towards them Mrs. Leidner came in through the archway. She looked more alive than I had seen her yet. Her eyes shone and she looked uplifted and almost gay.

Dr. Leidner came out from the laboratory and joined her. He was showing her a big dish with bulls’ horns on it.

“The prehistoric levels are being extraordinarily productive,” he said. “It’s been a good season so far. Finding that tomb right at the beginning was a real piece of luck. The only person who might complain is Father Lavigny. We’ve had hardly any tablets so far.”

“He doesn’t seem to have done very much with the few we have had,” said Mrs. Leidner dryly. “He may be a very fine epigraphist but he’s a remarkably lazy one. He spends all his afternoons sleeping.”

“We miss Byrd,” said Dr. Leidner. “This man strikes me as slightly unorthodox—though, of course, I’m not competent to judge. But one or two of his translations have been surprising, to say the least of it. I can hardly believe, for instance, that he’s right about that inscribed brick, and yet he must know.”

After tea Mrs. Leidner asked me if I would like to stroll down to the river. I thought that perhaps she feared that her refusal to let me accompany her earlier in the afternoon might have hurt my feelings.

I wanted her to know that I wasn’t the touchy kind, so I accepted at once.

It was a lovely evening. A path led between barley fields and then through some flowering fruit trees. Finally we came to the edge of the Tigris. Immediately on our left was the Tell with the workmen singing in their queer monotonous chant. A little to our right was a big waterwheel which made a queer groaning noise. It used to set my teeth on edge at first. But in the end I got fond of it and it had a queer soothing effect on me. Beyond the waterwheel was the village from which most of the workmen came.