‘It seems quite straightforward,’ said Poirot. ‘She was lying on the bed, asleep or resting—someone opens the door, she looks up, rises to her feet—’
‘And he struck her down,’ finished the doctor. ‘The blow would produce unconsciousness and death would follow very shortly. You see—’
He explained the injury in technical language.
‘Not much blood, then?’ said Poirot.
‘No, the blood escaped internally into the brain.’
‘Eh bien,’ said Poirot, ‘that seems straightforward enough—except for one thing. If the man who entered was a stranger, why did not Mrs Leidner cry out at once for help? If she had screamed she would have been heard. Nurse Leatheran here would have heard her, and Emmott and the boy.’
‘That’s easily answered,’ said Dr Reilly dryly. ‘Because it wasn’t a stranger.’
Poirot nodded.
‘Yes,’ he said meditatively. ‘She may have been surprised to see the person—but she was not afraid. Then, as he struck, she may have uttered a half-cry—too late.’
‘The cry Miss Johnson heard?’
‘Yes, if she did hear it. But on the whole I doubt it. These mud walls are thick and the windows were closed.’
He stepped up to the bed.
‘You left her actually lying down?’ he asked me.
I explained exactly what I had done.
‘Did she mean to sleep or was she going to read?’
‘I gave her two books—a light one and a volume of memoirs. She usually read for a while and then sometimes dropped off for a short sleep.’
‘And she was—what shall I say—quite as usual?’
I considered.
‘Yes. She seemed quite normal and in good spirits,’ I said. ‘Just a shade off-hand, perhaps, but I put that down to her having confided in me the day before. It makes people a little uncomfortable sometimes.’
Poirot’s eyes twinkled.
‘Ah, yes, indeed, me, I know that well.’
He looked round the room.
‘And when you came in here after the murder, was everything as you had seen it before?’
I looked round also.
‘Yes, I think so. I don’t remember anything being different.’
‘There was no sign of the weapon with which she was struck?’
‘No.’
Poirot looked at Dr Reilly.
‘What was it in your opinion?’
The doctor replied promptly:
‘Something pretty powerful, of a fair size and without any sharp corners or edges. The rounded base of a statue, say—something like that. Mind you, I’m not suggesting that that was it. But that type of thing. The blow was delivered with great force.’
‘Struck by a strong arm? A man’s arm?’
‘Yes—unless—’
‘Unless—what?’
Dr Reilly said slowly: ‘It is just possible that Mrs Leidner might have been on her knees—in which case, the blow being delivered from above with a heavy implement, the force needed would not have been so great.’
‘On her knees,’ mused Poirot. ‘It is an idea—that.’
‘It’s only an idea, mind,’ the doctor hastened to point out. ‘There’s absolutely nothing to indicate it.’
‘But it’s possible.’
‘Yes. And after all, in view of the circumstances, it’s not fantastic. Her fear might have led her to kneel in supplication rather than to scream when her instinct would tell her it was too late—that nobody could get there in time.’
‘Yes,’ said Poirot thoughtfully. ‘It is an idea…’
It was a very poor one, I thought. I couldn’t for one moment imagine Mrs Leidner on her knees to anyone.
Poirot made his way slowly round the room. He opened the windows, tested the bars, passed his head through and satisfied himself that by no means could his shoulders be made to follow his head.
‘The windows were shut when you found her,’ he said. ‘Were they also shut when you left her at a quarter to one?’
‘Yes, they were always shut in the afternoon. There is no gauze over these windows as there is in the living-room and dining-room. They are kept shut to keep out the flies.’
‘And in any case no one could get in that way,’ mused Poirot. ‘And the walls are of the most solid—mud-brick—and there are no trap-doors and no sky-lights. No, there is only one way into this room—through the door. And there is only one way to the door through the courtyard. And there is only one entrance to the courtyard—through the archway. And outside the archway there were five people and they all tell the same story, and I do not think, me, that they are lying…No, they are not lying. They are not bribed to silence. The murderer was here…’