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 usto come down.

We hurried down the stairs.

“Look here, Poirot,” he said. “Here’s another complication. The monk¹ fellow is missing.”

“Father Lavigny?”

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

The whole thing was like a bad dream. First Miss?Johnson’s death and then the disappearanceof 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 outfor 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 musthave 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 athird 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 withMercado. 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 twitching². He lookeda wreck³ of a man.

“It’s never been the custom,” he stammered⁴. “You see—just now—we’re using it all thetime. 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 perfectly⁵ 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 positively⁶.

I felt a warning touch on my arm. Poirot was standing⁷ 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 thananything else.

A car drove into the courtyard and a little man jumped out. He was wearing a sun helmet anda short thick trench⁸ coat.

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

“Vous voilà, mon cher,” he cried. “Delighted to see you. I passed this way on Saturdayafternoon—en route to the Italians at Fugima. I went to the dig but there wasn’t a single Europeanabout and alas⁹! I cannot speak Arabic. I had not time to come to the house. This morning I leaveFugima at five—two hours here with you—and then I catch the convoy¹⁰ on. Eh bien, and how isthe season going?”

It was ghastly.

The cheery voice, the matter-of-fact manner, all the pleasant sanity¹¹ of an everyday world nowleft far behind. He just bustled¹² in, knowing nothing and noticing nothing — full of cheerfulbonhomie.

No wonder Dr.?Leidner gave an inarticulate gasp¹³ and looked in mute appeal at Dr.?Reilly.

The doctor rose to the occasion.

He took the little man (he was a French archaeologist called Verrier who dug in the Greekislands, I heard later) aside and explained to him what had occurred.

Verrier was horrified¹⁴. He himself had been staying at an Italian dig right away fromcivilization for the last few days and had heard nothing.

He was profuse¹⁵ in condolences and apologies, finally striding over to Dr.?Leidner andclasping him warmly by both hands.

“What a tragedy! My God, what a tragedy! I have no words. Mon pauvre collègue.”

And shaking his head in one last ineffectual effort to express his feelings, the little manclimbed into his car and left us.

As I say, that momentary¹⁶ introduction of comic relief into tragedy seemed really moregruesome than anything else that had happened.

“The next thing,” said Dr.?Reilly firmly, “is breakfast. Yes, I insist. Come, Leidner, you musteat.”

Poor Dr.?Leidner was almost a complete wreck. He came with us to the dining room andthere a funereal¹⁷ meal was served. I think the hot coffee and fried eggs did us all good, though noone actually felt they wanted to eat. Dr.?Leidner drank some coffee and sat twiddling his bread.

His face was grey, drawn¹⁸ with pain and bewilderment.

After breakfast, Captain Maitland got down to things.

I explained how I had woken up, heard a queer sound and had gone into Miss?Johnson’sroom.

“You say there was a glass on the floor?”

“Yes. She must have dropped it after drinking.”

“Was it broken?”

“No, it had fallen on the rug. (I’m afraid the acid’s ruined the rug, by the way.) I picked theglass up and put it back on the table.”

“I’m glad you’ve told us that. There are only two sets of fingerprints¹⁹ on it, and one set iscertainly Miss?Johnson’s own. The other must be yours.”

He was silent for a moment, then he said: “Please go on.”

I described carefully what I’d done and the methods I had tried, looking rather anxiously atDr.?Reilly for approval. He gave it with a nod.

“You tried everything that could possibly have done any good,” he said. And though I waspretty sure I had done so, it was a relief to have my belief confirmed.

“Did you know exactly what she had taken?” Captain Maitland asked.

“No—but I could see, of course, that it was a corrosive²⁰ acid.”

Captain Maitland asked gravely: “Is it your opinion, nurse, that Miss?Johnson deliberatelyadministered this stuff to herself?”

“Oh, no,” I exclaimed. “I never thought of such a thing!”

I don’t know why I was so sure. Partly, I think, because of M.?Poirot’s hints. His “murder is ahabit” had impressed itself on my mind. And then one doesn’t readily believe that anyone’s goingto commit suicide in such a terribly painful way.

I said as much and Captain Maitland nodded thoughtfully. “I agree that it isn’t what onewould choose,” he said. “But if anyone were in great distress²¹ of mind and this stuff were easilyobtainable it might be taken for that reason.”

“Was she in great distress of mind?” I asked doubtfully.

“Mrs.?Mercado says so. She says that Miss?Johnson was quite unlike herself at dinner lastnight—that she hardly replied to anything that was said to her. Mrs.?Mercado is quite sure thatMiss?Johnson was in terrible distress over something and that the idea of making away withherself had already occurred to her.”

“Well, I don’t believe it for a moment,” I said bluntly.

Mrs.?Mercado indeed! Nasty slinking little cat!

“Then what do you think?”

“I think she was murdered,” I said bluntly.

He rapped out his next question sharply. I felt rather that I was in the orderly room.

“Any reasons?”

“It seems to me by far and away the most possible solution.”

“That’s just your private opinion. There was no reason why the lady should be murdered?”

“Excuse me,” I said, “there was. She found out something.”

“Found out something? What did she find out?”

I repeated our conversation on the roof word for word.

“She refused to tell you what her discovery was?”

“Yes. She said she must have time to think it over.”

“But she was very excited by it?”

“Yes.”

“A way of getting in from outside.” Captain Maitland puzzled over it, his brows knit. “Hadyou no idea at all of what she was driving?at?”

“Not in the least. I puzzled and puzzled over it but I couldn’t even get a glimmering²².”

Captain Maitland said: “What do you think, M.?Poirot?”

Poirot said: “I think you have there a possible motive²³.”

“For murder?”

“For murder.”

Captain Maitland frowned.

“She wasn’t able to speak before she died?”

“Yes, she just managed to get out two words.”

“What were they?”

“The window . . . ”

“The window?” repeated Captain Maitland. “Did you understand to what she was referring?”

I shook my head.

“How many windows were there in her bedroom?”

“Just the one.”

“Giving on the courtyard?”

“Yes.”

“Was it open or shut? Open, I seem to remember. But perhaps one of you opened it?”

“No, it was open all the time. I wondered—”

I stopped.

“Go on, nurse.”

“I examined the window, of course, but I couldn’t see anything unusual about it. I wonderedwhether, perhaps, somebody changed the glasses that way.”

“Changed the glasses?”

“Yes. You see, Miss?Johnson always takes a glass of water to bed with her. I think that glassmust have been tampered²⁴ with and a glass of acid put in its place.”

“What do you say, Reilly?”

“If it’s murder, that was probably the way it was done,” said Dr.?Reilly promptly²⁵. “Noordinary moderately observant human being would drink a glass of acid in mistake for one ofwater—if they were in full possession of their waking faculties²⁶. But if anyone’s accustomed todrinking off a glass of water in the middle of the night, that person might easily stretch out an arm,find the glass in the accustomed place, and still half asleep, toss off enough of the stuff to be fatalbefore realizing what had happened.”

Captain Maitland reflected a minute.

“I’ll have to go back and look at that window. How far is it from the head of the bed?”

I thought.

“With a very long stretch you could just reach the little table that stands by the head of thebed.”

“The table on which the glass of water was?”

“Yes.”

“Was the door locked?”

“No.”

“So whoever it was could have come in that way and made the substitution?”

“Oh, yes.”

“There would be more risk that way,” said Dr.?Reilly. “A person who is sleeping quitesoundly will often wake up at the sound of a footfall. If the table could be reached from thewindow it would be the safer way.”

“I’m not only thinking of the glass,” said Captain Maitland absent-mindedly.

Rousing himself, he addressed me once again.

“It’s your opinion that when the poor lady felt she was dying she was anxious to let youknow that somebody had substituted acid for water through the open window? Surely the person’sname would have been more to the point?”

“She mayn’t have known the name,” I pointed²⁷ out.

“Or it would have been more to the point if she’d managed to hint what it was that she haddiscovered the day before?”

Dr.?Reilly said: “When you’re dying, Maitland, you haven’t always got a sense of proportion.

One particular fact very likely obsesses²⁸ your mind. That a murderous hand had come through thewindow may have been the principal fact obsessing²⁹ her at the minute. It may have seemed to herimportant that she should let people know that. In my opinion she wasn’t far wrong either. It wasimportant! She probably jumped to the fact that you’d think it was suicide. If she could have usedher tongue freely, she’d probably have said ‘It wasn’t suicide. I didn’t take it myself. Somebodyelse must have put it near my bed through the window.’ ”

Captain Maitland drummed with his fingers for a minute or two without replying. Then hesaid:

“There are certainly two ways of looking at it. It’s either suicide or murder. Which do youthink, Dr.?Leidner?”

Dr.?Leidner was silent for a minute or two, then he said quietly and decisively: “Murder.

Anne Johnson wasn’t the sort of woman to kill herself.”

“No,” allowed Captain Maitland. “Not in the normal run of things. But there might becircumstances in which it would be quite a natural thing to do.”

“Such as?”

Captain Maitland stooped to a bundle which I had previously³⁰ noticed him place by the side ofhis chair. He swung it on to the table with something of an effort.

“There’s something here that none of you know about,” he said. “We found it under her bed.”

He fumbled³¹ with the knot of the covering, then threw it back, revealing a heavy great quernor grinder.

That was nothing in itself—there were a dozen or so already found in the course of theexcavations.

What riveted³² our attention on this particular specimen³³ was a dull, dark stain and a fragmentof something that looked like hair.

“That’ll be your job, Reilly,” said Captain Maitland. “But I shouldn’t say that there’s muchdoubt about this being the instrument with which Mrs.?Leidner was killed!”

 

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