Seventeen
THE STAIN BY THE WASHSTAND
Mrs. Leidner’s body had been taken to Hassanieh for the postmortem, but otherwise her room had been left exactly as it was. There was so little in it that it had not taken the police long to go over it.
To the right of the door as you entered was the bed. Opposite the door were the two barred windows giving on the countryside. Between them was a plain oak table with two drawers that served Mrs. Leidner as a dressing table. On the east wall there was a line of hooks with dresses hung up protected by cotton bags and a deal chest of drawers. Immediately to the left of the door was the washstand. In the middle of the room was a good-sized plain oak table with a blotter and inkstand and a small attaché case. It was in the latter that Mrs. Leidner had kept the anonymous letters. The curtains were short strips of native material—white striped with orange. The floor was of stone with some goatskin rugs on it, three narrow ones of brown striped with white in front of the two windows and the washstand, and a larger better quality one of white with brown stripes lying between the bed and the writing table.
There were no cupboards or alcoves or long curtains—nowhere, in fact, where anyone could have hidden. The bed was a plain iron one with a printed cotton quilt. The only trace of luxury in the room were three pillows all made of the best soft and billowy down. Nobody but Mrs. Leidner had pillows like these.
In a few brief words Dr. Reilly explained where Mrs. Leidner’s body had been found—in a heap on the rug beside the bed.
To illustrate his account, he beckoned me to come forward.
“If you don’t mind, nurse?” he said.
I’m not squeamish. I got down on the floor and arranged myself as far as possible in the attitude in which Mrs. Leidner’s body had been found.
“Leidner lifted her head when he found her,” said the doctor. “But I questioned him closely and it’s obvious that he didn’t actually change her position.”
“It seems quite straightforward,” said Poirot. “She was lying on the bed, asleep or resting—someone opens the door, she looks up, rises to her feet—”
“And he struck her down,” finished the doctor. “The blow would produce unconsciousness and death would follow very shortly. You see—”
He explained the injury in technical language.
“Not much blood, then?” said Poirot.
“No, the blood escaped internally into the brain.”
“Eh bien,” said Poirot, “that seems straightforward enough—except for one thing. If the man who entered was a stranger, why did not Mrs. Leidner cry out at once for help? If she had screamed she would have been heard. Nurse Leatheran here would have heard her, and Emmott and the boy.”
“That’s easily answered,” said Dr. Reilly dryly. “Because it wasn’t a stranger.”
Poirot nodded.
“Yes,” he said meditatively. “She may have been surprised to see the person—but she was not afraid. Then, as he struck, she may have uttered a half cry—too late.”
“The cry Miss Johnson heard?”
“Yes, if she did hear it. But on the whole I doubt it. These mud walls are thick and the windows were closed.”
He stepped up to the bed.
“You left her actually lying down?” he asked me.
I explained exactly what I had done.
“Did she mean to sleep or was she going to read?”
“I gave her two books—a light one and a volume of memoirs. She usually read for a while and then sometimes dropped off for a short sleep.”
“And she was—what shall I say—quite as usual?”
I considered.
“Yes. She seemed quite normal and in good spirits,” I said. “Just a shade off-hand, perhaps, but I put that down to her having confided in me the day before. It makes people a little uncomfortable sometimes.”
Poirot’s eyes twinkled.