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

Poirot didn’t condescend to explain. He just went on and I followed him.

Mr. Mercado seemed rather pleased to see us.

His long melancholy face lit up.

M. Poirot pretended to an interest in archaeology that I’m sure he couldn’t have really felt, but Mr. Mercado responded at once.

He explained that they had already cut down through twelve levels of house occupation.

“We are now definitely in the fourth millennium,” he said with enthusiasm.

I always thought a millennium was in the future—the time when everything comes right.

Mr. Mercado pointed out belts of ashes (how his hand did shake! I wondered if he might possibly have malaria) and he explained how the pottery changed in character, and about burials—and how they had had one level almost entirely composed of infant burials—poor little things—and about flexed position and orientation, which seemed to mean the way the bones were lying.

And then suddenly, just as he was stooping down to pick up a kind of flint knife that was lying with some pots in a corner, he leapt into the air with a wild yell.

He spun round to find me and Poirot staring at him in astonishment.

He clapped his hand to his left arm.

“Something stung me—like a red-hot needle.”

Immediately Poirot was galvanized into energy.

“Quick, mon cher, let us see. Nurse Leatheran!”

I came forward.

He seized Mr. Mercado’s arm and deftly rolled back the sleeve of his khaki shirt to the shoulder.

“There,” said Mr. Mercado pointing.

About three inches below the shoulder there was a minute prick from which the blood was oozing.

“Curious,” said Poirot. He peered into the rolled-up sleeve. “I can see nothing. It was an ant, perhaps?”

“Better put on a little iodine,” I said.

I always carry an iodine pencil with me, and I whipped it out and applied it. But I was a little absentminded as I did so, for my attention had been caught by something quite different. Mr. Mercado’s arm, all the way up the forearm to the elbow, was marked all over by tiny punctures. I knew well enough what they were—the marks of a hypodermic needle.

Mr. Mercado rolled down his sleeve again and recommenced his explanations. Mr. Poirot listened, but didn’t try to bring the conversation round to the Leidners. In fact, he didn’t ask Mr. Mercado anything at all.

Presently we said goodbye to Mr. Mercado and climbed up the path again.

“It was neat that, did you not think so?” my companion asked.

“Neat?” I asked.

M. Poirot took something from behind the lapel of his coat and surveyed it affectionately. To my surprise I saw that it was a long sharp darning needle with a blob of sealing wax making it into a pin.

“M. Poirot,” I cried, “did you do that?”

“I was the stinging insect—yes. And very neatly I did it, too, do you not think so? You did not see me.”

That was true enough. I never saw him do it. And I’m sure Mr. Mercado hadn’t suspected. He must have been quick as lightning.

“But, M. Poirot, why?” I asked.