‘I do not think that anyone could,’ he said slowly. ‘That is partly why I have been so anxious to hear all you could tell me. No, I think—I am sure—you are quite safe.’
‘If anyone had told me in Baghdad—’ I began and stopped.
‘Did you hear any gossip about the Leidners and the expedition before you came here?’ he asked.
I told him about Mrs Leidner’s nickname and just a little of what Mrs Kelsey had said about her.
In the middle of it the door opened and Miss Reilly came in. She had been playing tennis and had her racquet in her hand.
I gathered Poirot had already met her when he arrived in Hassanieh.
She said how-do-you-do to me in her usual off-hand manner and picked up a sandwich.
‘Well, M. Poirot,’ she said. ‘How are you getting on with our local mystery?’
‘Not very fast, mademoiselle.’
‘I see you’ve rescued nurse from the wreck.’
‘Nurse Leatheran has been giving me valuable information about the various members of the expedition. Incidentally I have learnt a good deal—about the victim. And the victim, mademoiselle, is very often the clue to the mystery.’
Miss Reilly said: ‘That’s rather clever of you, M. Poirot. It’s certainly true that if ever a woman deserved to be murdered Mrs Leidner was that woman!’
‘Miss Reilly!’ I cried, scandalized.
She laughed, a short, nasty laugh.
‘Ah!’ she said. ‘I thought you hadn’t been hearing quite the truth. Nurse Leatheran, I’m afraid, was quite taken in, like many other people. Do you know, M. Poirot, I rather hope that this case isn’t going to be one of your successes. I’d quite like the murderer of Louise Leidner to get away with it. In fact, I wouldn’t much have objected to putting her out of the way myself.’
I was simply disgusted with the girl. M. Poirot, I must say, didn’t turn a hair. He just bowed and said quite pleasantly:
‘I hope, then, that you have an alibi for yesterday afternoon?’
There was a moment’s silence and Miss Reilly’s racquet went clattering down on to the floor. She didn’t bother to pick it up. Slack and untidy like all her sort! She said in a rather breathless voice: ‘Oh, yes, I was playing tennis at the club. But, seriously, M. Poirot, I wonder if you know anything at all about Mrs Leidner and the kind of woman she was?’
Again he made a funny little bow and said: ‘You shall inform me, mademoiselle.’
She hesitated a minute and then spoke with a callousness and lack of decency that really sickened me.
‘There’s a convention that one doesn’t speak ill of the dead. That’s stupid, I think. The truth’s always the truth. On the whole it’s better to keep your mouth shut about living people. You might conceivably injure them. The dead are past that. But the harm they’ve done lives after them sometimes. Not quite a quotation from Shakespeare but very nearly! Has nurse told you of the queer atmosphere there was at Tell Yarimjah? Has she told you how jumpy they all were? And how they all used to glare at each other like enemies? That was Louise Leidner’s doing. When I was a kid out here three years ago they were the happiest, jolliest lot imaginable. Even last year they were pretty well all right. But this year there was a blight over them—and it was her doing. She was the kind of woman who won’t let anybody else be happy! There are women like that and she was one of them! She wanted to break up things always. Just for fun—or for the sense of power—or perhaps just because she was made that way. And she was the kind of woman who had to get hold of every male creature within reach!’
‘Miss Reilly,’ I cried, ‘I don’t think that’s true. In fact I know it isn’t.’
She went on without taking the least notice of me.
‘It wasn’t enough for her to have her husband adore her. She had to make a fool of that long-legged shambling idiot of a Mercado. Then she got hold of Bill. Bill’s a sensible cove, but she was getting him all mazed and bewildered. Carl Reiter she just amused herself by tormenting. It was easy. He’s a sensitive boy. And she had a jolly good go at David.