It was just like an operation over again. You’ve got to be careful to hand the doctor just what he wants and not what he doesn’t want. I mean, suppose you gave him the artery forceps at the wrong moment, and were late with them at the right moment! Thank goodness I know my work in the theatre well enough. I’m not likely to make mistakes there. But in this business I was really the rawest of raw little probationers. And so I had to be particularly careful not to make any silly mistakes.
Of course, I didn’t for one moment imagine that M. Poirot didn’t want me to hear what he and Mr Carey were saying. But he might have thought he’d get Mr Carey to talk better if I wasn’t there.
Now I don’t want anybody to get it in to their heads that I’m the kind of woman who goes about eavesdropping on private conversations. I wouldn’t do such a thing. Not for a moment. Not however much I wanted to.
And what I mean is if it had been a private conversation I wouldn’t for a moment have done what, as a matter of fact, I actually did do.
As I looked at it I was in a privileged position. After all, you hear many a thing when a patient’s coming round after an anaesthetic. The patient wouldn’t want you to hear it—and usually has no idea you have heard it—but the fact remains you do hear it. I just took it that Mr Carey was the patient. He’d be none the worse for what he didn’t know about. And if you think that I was just curious, well, I’ll admit that I was curious. I didn’t want to miss anything I could help.
All this is just leading up to the fact that I turned aside and went by a round about way up behind the big dump until I was a foot from where they were, but concealed from them by the corner of the dump. And if anyone says it was dishonourable I just beg to disagree. Nothing ought to be hidden from the nurse in charge of the case, though, of course, it’s for the doctor to say what shall be done.
I don’t know, of course, what M. Poirot’s line of approach had been, but by the time I’d got there he was aiming straight for the bull’s eye, so to speak.
‘Nobody appreciates Dr Leidner’s devotion to his wife more than I do,’ he was saying. ‘But it is often the case that one learns more about a person from their enemies than from their friends.’
‘You suggest that their faults are more important than their virtues?’ said Mr Carey. His tone was dry and ironic.
‘Undoubtedly—when it comes to murder. It seems odd that as far as I know nobody has yet been murdered for having too perfect a character! And yet perfection is undoubtedly an irritating thing.’
‘I’m afraid I’m hardly the right person to help you,’ said Mr Carey. ‘To be perfectly honest, Mrs Leidner and I didn’t hit it off particularly well. I don’t mean that we were in any sense of the word enemies, but we were not exactly friends. Mrs Leidner was, perhaps, a shade jealous of my old friendship with her husband. I, for my part, although I admired her very much and thought she was an extremely attractive woman, was just a shade resentful of her influence over Leidner. As a result we were quite polite to each other, but not intimate.’
‘Admirably explained,’ said Poirot.
I could just see their heads, and I saw Mr Carey’s turn sharply as though something in M. Poirot’s detached tone struck him disagreeably.
M. Poirot went on: ‘Was not Dr Leidner distressed that you and his wife did not get on together better?’
Carey hesitated a minute before saying: ‘Really—I’m not sure. He never said anything. I always hoped he didn’t notice it. He was very wrapped up in his work, you know.’
‘So the truth, according to you, is that you did not really like Mrs Leidner?’
Carey shrugged his shoulders.
‘I should probably have liked her very much if she hadn’t been Leidner’s wife.’