Twenty-nine

L’ENVOI

There isn’t really any more to say about things.

They got “Father” Lavigny and the other man just as they were going to board a steamer¹ atBeyrouth.

Sheila Reilly married young Emmott. I think that will be good for her. He’s no door-mat—he’ll keep her in her place. She’d have ridden roughshod over poor Bill Coleman.

I nursed him, by the way, when he had appendicitis² a year ago. I got quite fond of him. Hispeople were sending him out to farm in South Africa.

I’ve never been out East again. It’s funny—sometimes I wish I could. I think of the noise thewater-wheel made and the women washing, and that queer³ haughty⁴ look that camels give you—and I get quite a homesick feeling. After all, perhaps dirt isn’t really so unhealthy as one is broughtup to believe!

Dr.?Reilly usually looks me up when he’s in England, and as I said, it’s he who’s got me intothis. “Take it or leave it,” I said to him. “I know the grammar’s all wrong and it’s not properlywritten or anything like that—but there it is.”

And he took it. Made no bones about it. It will give me a queer feeling if it’s ever printed.

M.?Poirot went back to Syria and about a week later he went home on the Orient⁵ Express andgot himself mixed up in another murder. He was clever, I don’t deny it, but I shan’t forgive him ina hurry for pulling my leg the way he did. Pretending to think I might be mixed up in the crimeand not a real hospital nurse at all!

Doctors are like that sometimes. Will have their joke, some of them will, and never think ofyour feelings!

I’ve thought and thought about Mrs.?Leidner and what she was really like .?.?. Sometimes itseems to me she was just a terrible woman—and other times I remember how nice she was to meand how soft her voice was—and her lovely fair hair and everything—and I feel that perhaps, afterall, she was more to be pitied than blamed. .?.?.

And I can’t help but pity Dr.?Leidner. I know he was a murderer⁶ twice over, but it doesn’tseem to make any difference. He was so dreadfully fond of her. It’s awful to be fond of anyonelike that.

Somehow, the more I get older, and the more I see of people and sadness and illness andeverything, the sorrier I get for everyone. Sometimes, I declare, I don’t know what’s becoming ofthe good, strict principles my aunt brought me up with. A very religious woman she was, and mostparticular. There wasn’t one of our neighbours whose faults she didn’t know backwards⁷ andforwards. .?.?.

Oh, dear, it’s quite true what Dr.?Reilly said. How does one stop writing? If I could find areally good telling phrase.

I must ask Dr.?Reilly for some Arab one.

Like the one M.?Poirot used.

In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate⁸ .?.?.

Something like that.

 

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