Murder in Mesopotamia

‘Why? Eh bien, I think I know. Because the threat underlying the letters was always a genuine threat. (That is why Mrs Leidner has always been frightened. She knew her Frederick’s gentle but ruthless nature.) If she belongs to any other man but him he would kill her. And she has given herself to Richard Carey.

‘And so, having discovered this, cold-bloodedly, calmly, Dr Leidner prepares the scene for murder.

‘You see now the important part played by Nurse Leatheran? Dr Leidner’s rather curious conduct (it puzzled me at the very first) in securing her services for his wife is explained. It was vital that a reliable professional witness should be able to state incontrovertibly that Mrs Leidner had been dead over an hour when her body was found – that is, that she had been killed at a time when everybody could swear her husband was on the roof. A suspicionmight have arisen that he had killed her when he entered the room and found the body – but that was out of the question when a trained hospital nurse would assert positively that she had already been dead an hour.

‘Another thing that is explained is the curious state of tension and strain that had come over the expedition this year. I never from the first thought that that could be attributed solely toMrs Leidner’s influence. For several years this particular expedition had had a reputation for happy good-fellowship. In my opinion, the state of mind of a community is always directly due to the influence of the man at the top. Dr Leidner, quiet though he was, was a man of great personality. It was due to his tact, to his judgment, to his sympathetic manipulation of human beings that the atmosphere had always been such a happy one.

‘If there was a change, therefore, the change must be due to the man at the top – in other words, to Dr Leidner. It was Dr Leidner, not Mrs Leidner, who was responsible for the tension and uneasiness. No wonder the staff felt the change without understanding it. The kindly, genial Dr Leidner, outwardly the same, was only playing the part of himself. The real man was an obsessed fanatic plotting to kill.

‘And now we will pass on to the second murder – that of Miss Johnson. In tidying up Dr Leidner’s papers in the office (a job she took on herself unasked, craving for something to do) she must have come on some unfinished draft of one of the anonymous letters.

‘It must have been both incomprehensible and extremely upsetting to her! Dr Leidner has been deliberately terrorizing his wife! She cannot understand it – but it upsets her badly. It is in this mood that Nurse Leatheran discovers her crying.

‘I do not think at the moment that she suspected Dr Leidner of being the murderer, but my experiments with sounds in Mrs Leidner’s and Father Lavigny’s rooms are not lost upon her. She realizes that if it was Mrs Leidner’s cry she heard,the window in her room must have been open, not shut. At the moment that conveys nothing vital to her,but she remembers it.

‘Her mind goes on working – ferreting its way towards the truth. Perhaps she makes some reference to the letters which Dr Leidner understands and his manner changes. She may see that he is, suddenly, afraid.

‘But Dr Leidner cannot have killed his wife! He was on the roof all the time.

‘And then, one evening, as she herself is on the roof puzzling about it, the truth comes to her in a flash. Mrs Leidner has been killed from up here, through the open window.

‘It was at that minute that Nurse Leatheran found her.

‘And immediately, her old affection reasserting itself, she puts up a quick camouflage. Nurse Leatheran must not guess the horrifying discovery she has just made.

‘She looks deliberately in the opposite direction (towards the courtyard) and makes a remark suggested to her by Father Lavigny’s appearance as he crosses the courtyard.

‘She refuses to say more. She has got to “think things out”.

‘And Dr Leidner, who has been watching her anxiously,realizes that she knows the truth. She is not the kind of woman to conceal her horror and distress from him.

‘It is true that as yet she has not given him away – but how long can he depend upon her?

‘Murder is a habit. That night he substitutes a glass of acid for her glass of water. There is just a chance she may be believed to have deliberately poisoned herself. There is even a chance she may be considered to have done the first murder and has now been overcome with remorse. To strengthen the latter idea he takes the quern from the roof and puts it under her bed.

‘No wonder that poor Miss Johnson, in her death agony, could only try desperately to impart her hard-won information. Through “the window,” that is how Mrs Leidner was killed, not through the door – through the window…

‘And so thus, everything is explained, everything falls into place…Psychologically perfect.

‘But there is no proof…No proof at all…’

None of us spoke. We were lost in a sea of horror…Yes, and not only horror. Pity, too.