Seventeen

THE STAIN BY THE WASHSTAND

Mrs.?Leidner’s body had been taken to Hassanieh for the postmortem, but otherwise her room hadbeen left exactly as it was. There was so little in it that it had not taken the police long to go overit.

To the right of the door as you entered was the bed. Opposite the door were the two barredwindows giving on the countryside. Between them was a plain oak table with two drawers thatserved Mrs.?Leidner as a dressing¹ table. On the east wall there was a line of hooks with dresseshung up protected by cotton bags and a deal chest of drawers. Immediately to the left of the doorwas the washstand. In the middle of the room was a good-sized plain oak table with a blotter andinkstand and a small attaché case. It was in the latter that Mrs.?Leidner had kept the anonymousletters. The curtains were short strips of native material—white striped with orange. The floor wasof stone with some goatskin rugs on it, three narrow ones of brown striped with white in front ofthe two windows and the washstand, and a larger better quality one of white with brown stripeslying between the bed and the writing table.

There were no cupboards or alcoves² or long curtains—nowhere, in fact, where anyone couldhave hidden. The bed was a plain iron one with a printed cotton quilt. The only trace of luxury inthe room were three pillows all made of the best soft and billowy down. Nobody but Mrs.?Leidnerhad pillows like these.

In a few brief words Dr.?Reilly explained where Mrs.?Leidner’s body had been found—in aheap on the rug beside the bed.

To illustrate³ his account, he beckoned⁴ me to come forward.

“If you don’t mind, nurse?” he said.

I’m not squeamish. I got down on the floor and arranged myself as far as possible in theattitude in which Mrs.?Leidner’s body had been found.

“Leidner lifted her head when he found her,” said the doctor. “But I questioned him closelyand it’s obvious that he didn’t actually change her position.”

“It seems quite straightforward⁵,” said Poirot. “She was lying on the bed, asleep or resting—someone opens the door, she looks up, rises to her feet—”

“And he struck her down,” finished the doctor. “The blow would produce unconsciousnessand death would follow very shortly. You see—”

He explained the injury in technical language.

“Not much blood, then?” said Poirot.

“No, the blood escaped internally into the brain.”

“Eh bien,” said Poirot, “that seems straightforward enough—except for one thing. If the manwho entered was a stranger, why did not Mrs.?Leidner cry out at once for help? If she hadscreamed she would have been heard. Nurse Leatheran here would have heard her, and Emmottand the boy.”

“That’s easily answered,” said Dr.?Reilly dryly. “Because it wasn’t a stranger.”

Poirot nodded.

“Yes,” he said meditatively⁶. “She may have been surprised to see the person—but she wasnot afraid. Then, as he struck, she may have uttered a half cry—too late.”

“The cry Miss?Johnson heard?”

“Yes, if she did hear it. But on the whole I doubt it. These mud walls are thick and thewindows were closed.”

He stepped up to the bed.

“You left her actually lying down?” he asked me.

I explained exactly what I had done.

“Did she mean to sleep or was she going to read?”

“I gave her two books—a light one and a volume of memoirs⁷. She usually read for a whileand then sometimes dropped off for a short sleep.”

“And she was—what shall I say—quite as usual?”

I considered.

“Yes. She seemed quite normal and in good spirits,” I said. “Just a shade off-hand, perhaps,but I put that down to her having confided⁸ in me the day before. It makes people a littleuncomfortable sometimes.”

Poirot’s eyes twinkled.

“Ah, yes, indeed, me, I know that well.”

He looked round the room.

“And when you came in here after the murder, was everything as you had seen it before?”

I looked round also.

“Yes, I think so. I don’t remember anything being different.”

“There was no sign of the weapon with which she was struck?”

“No.”

Poirot looked at Dr.?Reilly.

“What was it in your opinion?”

The doctor replied promptly⁹:

“Something pretty powerful, of a fair size and without any sharp corners or edges. Therounded base of a statue, say—something like that. Mind you, I’m not suggesting that that was it.

But that type of thing. The blow was delivered with great force.”

“Struck by a strong arm? A man’s arm?”

“Yes—unless—”

“Unless—what?”

Dr.?Reilly said slowly: “It is just possible that Mrs.?Leidner might have been on her knees—in which case, the blow being delivered from above with a heavy implement¹⁰, the force neededwould not have been so great.”

“On her knees,” mused¹¹ Poirot. “It is an idea—that.”

“It’s only an idea, mind,” the doctor hastened to point out. “There’s absolutely nothing toindicate it.”

“But it’s possible.”

“Yes. And after all, in view of the circumstances, it’s not fantastic. Her fear might have ledher to kneel in supplication¹² rather than to scream when her instinct would tell her it was too late—that nobody could get there in time.”

“Yes,” said Poirot thoughtfully. “It is an idea. .?.?.”

It was a very poor one, I thought. I couldn’t for one moment imagine Mrs.?Leidner on herknees to anyone.

Poirot made his way slowly round the room. He opened the windows, tested the bars, passedhis head through and satisfied himself that by no means could his shoulders be made to follow hishead.

“The windows were shut when you found her,” he said. “Were they also shut when you lefther at a quarter to one?”

“Yes, they were always shut in the afternoon. There is no gauze over these windows as thereis in the living room and dining room. They are kept shut to keep out the flies.”

“And in any case no one could get in that way,” mused Poirot. “And the walls are of the mostsolid—mud-brick—and there are no trapdoors and no skylights. No, there is only one way intothis room—through the door. And there is only one way to the door through the courtyard. Andthere is only one entrance to the courtyard—through the archway. And outside the archway therewere five people and they all tell the same story, and I do not think, me, that they are lying .?.?. No,they are not lying. They are not bribed¹³ to silence. The murderer was here. .?.?.”

I didn’t say anything. Hadn’t I felt the same thing just now when we were all cooped upround the table?

Slowly Poirot prowled round the room. He took up a photograph from the chest of drawers. Itwas of an elderly man with a white goatee beard. He looked inquiringly at me.

“Mrs.?Leidner’s father,” I said. “She told me so.”

He put it down again and glanced over the articles on the dressing- table — all of plaintortoiseshell—simple but good. He looked up at a row of books on a shelf, repeating the titlesaloud.

“Who were the Greeks? Introduction to Relativity. Life of Lady Hester Stanhope. CreweTraine. Back to Methuselah. Linda Condon. Yes, they tell us something, perhaps. She was not afool, your Mrs.?Leidner. She had a mind.”

“Oh! she was a very clever woman,” I said eagerly. “Very well read and up in everything.

She wasn’t a bit ordinary.”

He smiled as he looked over at me.

“No,” he said. “I’ve already realized that.”

He passed on. He stood for some moments at the washstand, where there was a big array ofbottles and toilet creams.

Then, suddenly, he dropped on his knees and examined the?rug.

Dr.?Reilly and I came quickly to join him. He was examining a small dark brown stain,almost invisible on the brown of the rug. In fact it was only just noticeable where it impinged onone of the white stripes.

“What do you say, doctor?” he said. “Is that blood?”

Dr.?Reilly knelt down.

“Might be,” he said. “I’ll make sure if you like?”

“If you would be so amiable¹⁴.”

Mr.?Poirot examined the jug¹⁵ and basin. The jug was standing¹⁶ on the side of the washstand.

The basin was empty, but beside the washstand there was an empty kerosene¹⁷ tin containing slopwater.

He turned to me.

“Do you remember, nurse? Was this jug out of the basin or in it when you left Mrs.?Leidnerat a quarter to one?”

“I can’t be sure,” I said after a minute or two. “I rather think it was standing in the basin.”

“Ah?”

“But you see,” I said hastily, “I only think so because it usually was. The boys leave it likethat after lunch. I just feel that if it hadn’t been in I should have noticed it.”

He nodded quite appreciatively.

“Yes. I understand that. It is your hospital training. If everything had not been just so in theroom, you would quite unconsciously have set it to rights hardly noticing what you were doing.

And after the murder? Was it like it is now?”

I shook my head.

“I didn’t notice then,” I said. “All I looked for was whether there was any place anyone couldbe hidden or if there was anything the murderer had left behind him.”

“It’s blood all right,” said Dr.?Reilly, rising from his knees. “Is it important?”

Poirot was frowning perplexedly. He flung out his hands with petulance¹⁸.

“I cannot tell. How can I tell? It may mean nothing at all. I can say, if I like, that the murderertouched her—that there was blood on his hands—very little blood, but still blood—and so hecame over here and washed them. Yes, it may have been like that. But I cannot jump toconclusions and say that it was so. That stain may be of no importance at all.”

“There would have been very little blood,” said Dr.?Reilly dubiously¹⁹. “None would havespurted out or anything like that. It would have just oozed²⁰ a little from the wound. Of course, ifhe’d probed it at all. .?.?.”

I gave a shiver. A nasty sort of picture came up in my mind. The vision of somebody—perhaps that nice pig-faced photographic boy, striking down that lovely woman and then bendingover her probing the wound with his finger in an awful gloating fashion and his face, perhaps,quite different .?.?. all fierce and mad. .?.?.

Dr.?Reilly noticed my shiver.

“What’s the matter, nurse?” he said.

“Nothing—just gooseflesh,” I said. “A goose walking over my grave.”

Mr.?Poirot turned round and looked at me.

“I know what you need,” he said. “Presently when we have finished here and I go back withthe doctor to Hassanieh we will take you with us. You will give Nurse Leatheran tea, will you not,doctor?”

“Delighted.”

“Oh, no doctor,” I protested. “I couldn’t think of such a thing.”

M.?Poirot gave me a little friendly tap on the shoulder. Quite an English tap, not a foreignone.

“You, ma soeur, will do as you are told,” he said. “Besides, it will be of advantage to me.

There is a good deal more that I want to discuss, and I cannot do it here where one must preservethe decencies. The good Dr.?Leidner he worshipped his wife and he is sure—oh, so sure—thateverybody else felt the same about her! But that, in my opinion, would not be human nature! No,we want to discuss Mrs.?Leidner with—how do you say?—the gloves removed. That is settledthen. When we have finished here, we take you with us to Hassanieh.”

“I suppose,” I said doubtfully, “that I ought to be leaving anyway. It’s rather awkward.”

“Do nothing for a day or two,” said Dr.?Reilly. “You can’t very well go until after thefuneral.”

“That’s all very well,” I said. “And supposing I get murdered too, doctor?”

I said it half jokingly and Dr.?Reilly took it in the same fashion and would, I think, have madesome jocular response.

But M.?Poirot, to my astonishment²¹, stood stock-still in the middle of the floor and clasped hishands to his head.

“Ah! if that were possible,” he murmured. “It is a danger—yes—a great danger—and whatcan one do? How can one guard against it?”

“Why, M.?Poirot,” I said, “I was only joking! Who’d want to murder me, I should like toknow?”

“You—or another,” he said, and I didn’t like the way he said it at all. Positively²² creepy.

“But why?” I persisted.

He looked at me very straight then.

“I joke, mademoiselle,” he said, “and I laugh. But there are some things that are no joke.

There are things that my profession has taught me. And one of these things, the most terrible thing,is this: Murder is a habit. .?.?.”

 

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