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

“Well, good night,” I said and hurried along to my room.

I fussed around a bit in my room before undressing. Washed out some handkerchiefs and a pair of wash-leather gloves and wrote up my diary. I just looked out of my door again before I really started to get ready for bed. The lights were still on in the drawing office and in the south building.

I suppose Dr. Leidner was still up and working in his office. I wondered whether I ought to go and say good night to him. I hesitated about it—I didn’t want to seem officious. He might be busy and not want to be disturbed. In the end, however, a sort of uneasiness drove me on. After all, it couldn’t do any harm. I’d just say goodnight, ask if there was anything I could do and come away.

But Dr. Leidner wasn’t there. The office itself was lit up but there was no one in it except Miss Johnson. She had her head down on the table and was crying as though her heart would break.

It gave me quite a turn. She was such a quiet, self-controlled woman. It was pitiful to see her.

“Whatever is it, my dear?” I cried. I put my arm round her and patted her. “Now, now, this won’t do at all . . . You mustn’t sit here crying all by yourself.”

She didn’t answer and I felt the dreadful shuddering sobs that were racking her.

“Don’t, my dear, don’t,” I said. “Take a hold on yourself. I’ll go and make you a cup of nice hot tea.”

She raised her head and said: “No, no, its all right, nurse. I’m being a fool.”

“What’s upset you, my dear?” I asked.

She didn’t answer at once, then she said: “It’s all too awful. . . .”

“Now don’t start thinking of it,” I told her. “What’s happened has happened and can’t be mended. It’s no use fretting.”

She sat up straight and began to pat her hair.

“I’m making rather a fool of myself,” she said in her gruff voice. “I’ve been clearing up and tidying the office. Thought it was best to do something. And then—it all came over me suddenly—”

“Yes, yes,” I said hastily. “I know. A nice strong cup of tea and a hot-water bottle in your bed is what you want,” I said.

And she had them too. I didn’t listen to any protests.

“Thank you, nurse,” she said when I’d settled her in bed, and she was sipping her tea and the hot-water bottle was in. “You’re a nice kind sensible woman. It’s not often I make such a fool of myself.”

“Oh, anybody’s liable to do that at a time like this,” I said. “What with one thing and another. The strain and the shock and the police here, there and everywhere. Why, I’m quite jumpy myself.”

She said slowly in rather a queer voice: “What you said in there is true. What’s happened has happened and can’t be mended. . . .”

She was silent for a minute or two and then said—rather oddly, I thought: “She was never a nice woman!”

Well, I didn’t argue the point. I’d always felt it was quite natural for Miss Johnson and Mrs. Leidner not to hit it off.

I wondered if, perhaps, Miss Johnson had secretly had a feeling that she was pleased Mrs. Leidner was dead, and had then been ashamed of herself for the thought.

I said: “Now you go to sleep and don’t worry about an

ything.”

I just picked up a few things and set the room to rights. Stockings over the back of the chair and coat and skirt on a hanger. There was a little ball of crumpled paper on the floor where it must have fallen out of a pocket.

I was just smoothing it out to see whether I could safely throw it away when she quite startled me.

“Give that to me!”

I did so—rather taken aback. She’d called out so peremptorily. She snatched it from me—fairly snatched it—and then held it in the candle flame till it was burnt to ashes.

As I say, I was startled—and I just stared at her.

I hadn’t had time to see what the paper was—she’d snatched it so quick. But funnily enough, as it burned it curled over towards me and I just saw that there were words written in ink on the paper.