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

“The stuff they use on the pots?”

“Yes. Miss Johnson probably drank it off before she was fully awake. That is—unless she took it on purpose.”

“Oh, M. Poirot, what an awful idea!”

“It is a possibility, after all. What do you think?”

I considered for a moment and then shook my head decisively.

“I don’t believe it. No, I don’t believe it for a moment.” I hesitated and then said, “I think she found out something yesterday afternoon.”

“What is that you say? She found out something?”

I repeated to him the curious conversation we had had together.

Poirot gave a low soft whistle.

“La pauvre femme!” he said. “She said she wanted to think it over—eh? That is what signed her death warrant. If she had only spoken out—then—at once.”

He said: “Tell me again her exact words.”

I repeated them.

“She saw how someone could have come in from outside without any of you knowing? Come, ma soeur, let us go up to the roof and you shall show me just where she was standing.”

We went up to the roof together and I showed Poirot the exact spot where Miss Johnson had stood.

“Like this?” said Poirot. “Now what do I see? I see half the courtyard—and the archway—and the doors of the drawing office and the photographic room and the laboratory. Was there anyone in the courtyard?”

“Father Lavigny was just going towards the archway and Mr. Reiter was standing in the door of the photographic room.”

“And still I do not see in the least how anyone could come in from outside and none of you know about it . . . But she saw. . . .”

He gave it up at last, shaking his head.

“Sacré nom d’un chien—va! What did she see?”

The sun was just rising. The whole eastern sky was a riot of rose and orange and pale, pearly grey.

“What a beautiful sunrise!” said Poirot gently.

The river wound away to our left and the Tell stood up outlined in gold colour. To the south were the blossoming trees and the peaceful cultivation. The waterwheel groaned in the distance—a faint unearthly sound. In the north were the slender minarets and the clustering fairy whiteness of Hassanieh.

It was incredibly beautiful.

And then, close at my elbow, I heard Poirot give a long deep sigh.

“Fool that I have been,” he murmured. “When the truth is so clear—so clear.”

Twenty-five

SUICIDE OR MURDER?

I hadn’t time to ask Poirot what he meant, for Captain Maitland was calling up to us and asking us to come down.

We hurried down the stairs.

“Look here, Poirot,” he said. “Here’s another complication. The monk fellow is missing.”