I suppose I ought to say a word or two about myself. I’m thirty-two and my name is Amy Leatheran. I took my training at St Christopher’s and after that did two years maternity. I did a certain amount of private work and I was for four years at Miss Bendix’s Nursing Home in Devonshire Place. I came out to Iraq with a Mrs Kelsey. I’d attended her when her baby was born. She was coming out to Baghdad with her husband and had already got a children’s nurse booked who had been for some years with friends of hers out there. Their children were coming home and going to school, and the nurse had agreed to go to Mrs Kelsey when they left. Mrs Kelsey was delicate and nervous about the journey out with so young a child, so Major Kelsey arranged that I should come out with her and look after her and the baby. They would pay my passage home unless we found someone needing a nurse for the return journey.
Well, there is no need to describe the Kelseys—the baby was a little love and Mrs Kelsey quite nice, though rather the fretting kind. I enjoyed the voyage very much. I’d never been a long trip on the sea before.
Dr Reilly was on board the boat. He was a black-haired, long-faced man who said all sorts of funny things in a low, sad voice. I think he enjoyed pulling my leg and used to make the most extraordinary statements to see if I would swallow them. He was the civil surgeon at a place called Hassanieh—a day and a half’s journey from Baghdad.
I had been about a week in Baghdad when I ran across him and he asked when I was leaving the Kelseys. I said that it was funny his asking that because as a matter of fact the Wrights (the other people I mentioned) were going home earlier than they had meant to and their nurse was free to come straightaway.
He said that he had heard about the Wrights and that that was why he had asked me.
‘As a matter of fact, nurse, I’ve got a possible job for you.’
‘A case?’
He screwed his face up as though considering.
‘You could hardly call it a case. It’s just a lady who has—shall we say—fancies?’
‘Oh!’ I said.
(One usually knows what that means—drink or drugs!)
Dr Reilly didn’t explain further. He was very discreet. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘A Mrs Leidner. Husband’s an American—an American Swede to be exact. He’s the head of a large American dig.’
And he explained how this expedition was excavating the site of a big Assyrian city something like Nineveh. The expedition house was not actually very far from Hassanieh, but it was a lonely spot and Dr Leidner had been worried for some time about his wife’s health.
‘He’s not been very explicit about it, but it seems she has these fits of recurring nervous terrors.’
‘Is she left alone all day amongst natives?’ I asked.
‘Oh, no, there’s quite a crowd—seven or eight. I don’t fancy she’s ever been alone in the house. But there seems to be no doubt that she’s worked herself up into a queer state. Leidner has any amount of work on his shoulders, but he’s crazy about his wife and it worries him to know she’s in this state. He felt he’d be happier if he knew that some responsible person with expert knowledge was keeping an eye on her.’
‘And what does Mrs Leidner herself think about it?’
Dr Reilly answered gravely:
‘Mrs Leidner is a very lovely lady. She’s seldom of the same mind about anything two days on end. But on the whole she favours the idea.’ He added, ‘She’s an odd woman. A mass of affection and, I should fancy, a champion liar—but Leidner seems honestly to believe that she is scared out of her life by something or other.’
‘What did she herself say to you, doctor?’
‘Oh, she hasn’t consulted me! She doesn’t like me anyway—for several reasons. It was Leidner who came to me and propounded this plan. Well, nurse, what do you think of the idea? You’d see something of the country before you go home—they’ll be digging for another two months. And excavation is quite interesting work.’