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

“Father Lavigny?”

“Yes. Nobody noticed it till just now. Then it dawned on somebody that he was the only one of the party not around, and we went to his room. His bed’s not been slept in and there’s no sign of him.”

The whole thing was like a bad dream. First Miss Johnson’s death and then the disappearance of Father Lavigny.

The servants were called and questioned, but they couldn’t throw any light on the mystery. He had last been seen at about eight o’clock the night before. Then he had said he was going out for a stroll before going to bed.

Nobody had seen him come back from that stroll.

The big doors had been closed and barred at nine o’clock as usual. Nobody, however, remembered unbarring them in the morning. The two houseboys each thought the other one must have done the unfastening.

Had Father Lavigny ever returned the night before? Had he, in the course of his earlier walk, discovered anything of a suspicious nature, gone out to investigate it later, and perhaps fallen a third victim?

Captain Maitland swung round as Dr. Reilly came up with Mr. Mercado behind him.

“Hallo, Reilly. Got anything?”

“Yes. The stuff came from the laboratory here. I’ve just been checking up the quantities with Mercado. It’s H.C.L. from the lab.”

“The laboratory—eh? Was it locked up?”

Mr. Mercado shook his head. His hands were shaking and his face was twitching. He looked a wreck of a man.

“It’s never been the custom,” he stammered. “You see—just now—we’re using it all the time. I—nobody ever dreamt—”

“Is the place locked up at night?”

“Yes—all the rooms are locked. The keys are hung up just inside the living room.”

“So if anyone had a key to that they could get the lot.”

“Yes.”

“And it’s a perfectly ordinary key, I suppose?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Nothing to show whether she took it herself from the laboratory?” asked Captain Maitland.

“She didn’t,” I said loudly and positively.

I felt a warning touch on my arm. Poirot was standing close behind me.

And then something rather ghastly happened.

Not ghastly in itself—in fact it was just the incongruousness that made it seem worse than anything else.

A car drove into the courtyard and a little man jumped out. He was wearing a sun helmet and a short thick trench coat.

He came straight to Dr. Leidner, who was standing by Dr. Reilly, and shook him warmly by the hand.

“Vous voilà, mon cher,” he cried. “Delighted to see you. I passed this way on Saturday afternoon—en route to the Italians at Fugima. I went to the dig but there wasn’t a single European about and alas! I cannot speak Arabic. I had not time to come to the house. This morning I leave Fugima at five—two hours here with you—and then I catch the convoy on. Eh bien, and how is the season going?”

It was ghastly.

The cheery voice, the matter-of-fact manner, all the pleasant sanity of an everyday world now left far behind. He just bustled in, knowing nothing and noticing nothing—full of cheerful bonhomie.

No wonder Dr. Leidner gave an inarticulate gasp and looked in mute appeal at Dr. Reilly.