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

“How beautiful! What a work of art!”

Father Lavigny agreed eagerly and began to point out its beauties with real enthusiasm and knowledge.

“No wax on it today,” I said.

“Wax?” Poirot stared at me.

“Wax?” So did Father Lavigny.

I explained my remark.

“Ah, je comprends,” said Father Lavigny. “Yes, yes, candle grease.”

That led direct to the subject of the midnight visitor. Forgetting my presence they both dropped into French, and I left them together and went back into the living room.

Mrs. Mercado was darning her husband’s socks and Miss Johnson was reading a book. Rather an unusual thing for her. She usually seemed to have something to work at.

After a while Father Lavigny and Poirot came out, and the former excused himself on the score of work. Poirot sat down with us.

“A most interesting man,” he said, and asked how much work there had been for Father Lavigny to do so far.

Miss Johnson explained that tablets had been scarce and that there had been very few inscribed bricks or cylinder seals. Father Lavigny, however, had done his share of work on the dig and was picking up colloquial Arabic very fast.

That led the talk to cylinder seals, and presently Miss Johnson fetched from a cupboard a sheet of impressions made by rolling them out on plasticine.

I realized as we bent over them, admiring the spirited designs, that these must be what she had been working at on that fatal afternoon.

As we talked I noticed that Poirot was rolling and kneading a little ball of plasticine between his fingers.

“You use a lot of plasticine, mademoiselle?” he asked.

“A fair amount. We seem to have got through a lot already this year—though I can’t imagine how. But half our supply seems to have gone.”

“Where is it kept, mademoiselle?”

“Here—in this cupboard.”

As she replaced the sheet of impressions she showed him the shelf with rolls of plasticine, Durofix, photographic paste and other stationery supplies.

Poirot stooped down.

“And this—what is this, mademoiselle?”

He had slipped his hand right to the back and had brought out a curious crumpled object.

As he straightened it out we could see that it was a kind of mask, with eyes and mouth crudely painted on it in Indian ink and the whole thing roughly smeared with plasticine.

“How perfectly extraordinary!” cried Miss Johnson. “I’ve never seen it before. How did it get there? And what is it?”

“As to how it got there, well, one hiding-place is as good as another, and I presume that this cupboard would not have been turned out till the end of the season. As to what it is—that, too, I think, is not difficult to say. We have here the face that Mrs. Leidner described. The ghostly face seen in the semi-dusk outside her window—without body attached.”

Mrs. Mercado gave a little shriek.

Miss Johnson was white to the lips. She murmured: “Then it was not fancy. It was a trick—a wicked trick! But who played it?”

“Yes,” cried Mrs. Mercado. “Who could have done such a wicked, wicked thing?”

Poirot did not attempt a reply. His face was very grim as he went into the next room, returned with an empty cardboard box in his hand and put the crumpled mask into it.