Chapter 23
I Go Psychic
The funeral was, I thought, a very affecting affair. As well as ourselves, all the English people in Hassanieh attended it. Even Sheila Reilly was there, looking quiet and subdued in a dark coat and skirt. I hoped that she was feeling a little remorseful for all the unkind things she had said.
When we got back to the house I followed Dr Leidner into the office and broached the subject of my departure. He was very nice about it, thanked me for what I had done (Done! I had been worse than useless) and insisted on my accepting an extra week’s salary.
I protested because really I felt I’d done nothing to earn it.
‘Indeed, Dr Leidner, I’d rather not have any salary at all. If you’ll just refund me my travelling expenses, that’s all I want.’
But he wouldn’t hear of that.
‘You see,’ I said, ‘I don’t feel I deserve it, Dr Leidner. I mean, I’ve—well, I’ve failed. She—my coming didn’t save her.’
‘Now don’t get that idea into your head, nurse,’ he said earnestly. ‘After all, I didn’t engage you as a female detective. I never dreamt my wife’s life was in danger. I was convinced it was all nerves and that she’d worked herself up into a rather curious mental state. You did all anyone could do. She liked and trusted you. And I think in her last days she felt happier and safer because of your being here. There’s nothing for you to reproach yourself with.’
His voice quivered a little and I knew what he was thinking. He was the one to blame for not having taken Mrs Leidner’s fears seriously.
‘Dr Leidner,’ I said curiously. ‘Have you ever come to any conclusion about those anonymous letters?’
He said with a sigh: ‘I don’t know what to believe. Has M. Poirot come to any definite conclusion?’
‘He hadn’t yesterday,’ I said, steering rather neatly, I thought, between truth and fiction. After all, he hadn’t until I told him about Miss Johnson.
It was on my mind that I’d like to give Dr Leidner a hint and see if he reacted. In the pleasure of seeing him and Miss Johnson together the day before, and his affection and reliance on her, I’d forgotten all about the letters. Even now I felt it was perhaps rather mean of me to bring it up. Even if she had written them, she had had a bad time after Mrs Leidner’s death. Yet I did want to see whether that particular possibility had ever entered Dr Leidner’s head.
‘Anonymous letters are usually the work of a woman,’ I said. I wanted to see how he’d take it.
‘I suppose they are,’ he said with a sigh. ‘But you seem to forget, nurse, that these may be genuine. They may actually be written by Frederick Bosner.’
‘No, I haven’t forgotten,’ I said. ‘But I can’t believe somehow that that’s the real explanation.’
‘I do,’ he said. ‘It’s all nonsense, his being one of the expedition staff. That is just an ingenious theory of M. Poirot’s. I believe that the truth is much simpler. The man is a madman, of course. He’s been hanging round the place—perhaps in disguise of some kind. And somehow or other he got in on that fatal afternoon. The servants may be lying—they may have been bribed.’
‘I suppose it’s possible,’ I said doubtfully.
Dr Leidner went on with a trace of irritability.
‘It is all very well for M. Poirot to suspect the members of my expedition. I am perfectly certain none of them have anything to do with it! I have worked with them. I know them!’
He stopped suddenly, then he said: ‘Is that your experience, nurse? That anonymous letters are usually written by women?’
‘It isn’t always the case,’ I said. ‘But there’s a certain type of feminine spitefulness that finds relief that way.’
‘I suppose you are thinking of Mrs Mercado?’ he said.
Then he shook his head.
‘Even if she were malicious enough to wish to hurt Louise she would hardly have the necessary knowledge,’ he said.
I remembered the earlier letters in the attaché-case.