‘You have not the true version. You do not appreciate an important point. If Frederick Bosner is not dead—what has he been doing all these years? He must have taken a different name. He must have built himself up a career.’
‘As a Père Blanc?’ asked Dr Reilly sceptically.
‘It is a little fantastic that, yes,’ confessed Poirot. ‘But we cannot put it right out of court. Besides, these other possibilities.’
‘The young ’uns?’ said Reilly. ‘If you want my opinion, on the face of it there’s only one of your suspects that’s even plausible.’
‘And that is?’
‘Young Carl Reiter. There’s nothing actually against him, but come down to it and you’ve got to admit a few things—he’s the right age, he’s got a German name, he’s new this year and he had the opportunity all right. He’d only got to pop out of his photographic place, cross the courtyard to do his dirty work and hare back again while the coast was clear. If anyone were to have dropped into the photographic-room while he was out of it, he can always say later that he was in the dark-room. I don’t say he’s your man but if you are going to suspect someone I say he’s by far and away the most likely.’
M. Poirot didn’t seem very receptive. He nodded gravely but doubtfully.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘He is the most plausible, but it may not be so simple as all that.’
Then he said: ‘Let us say no more at present. I would like now, if I may, to examine the room where the crime took place.’
‘Certainly.’ Dr Leidner fumbled in his pockets, then looked at Dr Reilly.
‘Captain Maitland took it,’ he said.
‘Maitland gave it to me,’ said Reilly. ‘He had to go off on that Kurdish business.’
He produced the key.
Dr Leidner said hesitatingly: ‘Do you mind—if I don’t—Perhaps, nurse—’
‘Of course. Of course,’ said Poirot. ‘I quite understand. Never do I wish to cause you unnecessary pain. If you will be good enough to accompany me, ma soeur.’
‘Certainly,’ I said.
Chapter 17
The Stain by the Washstand
Mrs Leidner’s body had been taken to Hassanieh for the postmortem, but otherwise her room had been left exactly as it was. There was so little in it that it had not taken the police long to go over it.
To the right of the door as you entered was the bed. Opposite the door were the two barred windows giving on the countryside. Between them was a plain oak table with two drawers that served Mrs Leidner as a dressing-table. On the east wall there was a line of hooks with dresses hung up protected by cotton bags and a deal chest of drawers. Immediately to the left of the door was the washstand. In the middle of the room was a good-sized plain oak table with a blotter and inkstand and a small attaché-case. It was in the latter that Mrs Leidner had kept the anonymous letters. The curtains were short strips of native material—white striped with orange. The floor was of stone with some goatskin rugs on it, three narrow ones of brown striped with white in front of the two windows and the washstand, and a larger better quality one of white with brown stripes lying between the bed and the writing-table.
There were no cupboards or alcoves or long curtains—nowhere, in fact, where anyone could have hidden. The bed was a plain iron one with a printed cotton quilt. The only trace of luxury in the room were three pillows all made of the best soft and billowy down. Nobody but Mrs Leidner had pillows like these.
In a few brief words Dr Reilly explained where Mrs Leidner’s body had been found—in a heap on the rug beside the bed.
To illustrate his account, he beckoned me to come forward.
‘If you don’t mind, nurse?’ he said.
I’m not squeamish. I got down on the floor and arranged myself as far as possible in the attitude in which Mrs Leidner’s body had been found.
‘Leidner lifted her head when he found her,’ said the doctor. ‘But I questioned him closely and it’s obvious that he didn’t actually change her position.’