My respect for him went up. It was clever the way he had tricked her into mentioning the letters.

‘Are you going to tackle her about them?’ I asked. M. Poirot seemed quite shocked by the idea.

‘No, no, indeed. Always it is unwise to parade one’s knowledge. Until the last minute I keep everything here,’ he tapped his forehead. ‘At the right moment – I make the spring – like the panther – and, mon Dieu! the consternation!’

I couldn’t help laughing to myself at little M. Poirot in the role of a panther.

We had just reached the dig. The first person we saw was Mr Reiter, who was busy photographing some walling.

It’s my opinion that the men who were digging just hacked out walls wherever they wanted them. That’s what it looked like anyway. Mr Carey explained to me that you could feel the difference at once with a pick, and he tried to show me – but I never saw. When the man said ‘Libn’ – mud-brick – it was just ordinary dirt and mud as far as I could see.

Mr Reiter finished his photographs and handed over the camera and the plate to his boy and told him to take them back to the house.

Poirot asked him one or two questions about exposures and film packs and so on which he answered very readily. He seemed pleased to be asked about his work.

He was just tendering his excuses for leaving us when Poirot plunged once more into his set speech. As a matter of fact it wasn’t quite a set speech because he varied it a little each time to suit the person he was talking to. But I’m not going to write it all down every time. With sensible people like Miss Johnson he went straight to the point, and with some of the others he had to beat about the bush a bit more. But it came to the same in the end.

‘Yes, yes, I see what you mean,’ said Mr Reiter. ‘But indeed, I do not see that I can be much help to you. I am new here this season and I did not speak much with Mrs Leidner. I regret, but indeed I can tell you nothing.’

There was something a little stiff and foreign in the way he spoke, though, of course, he hadn’t got any accent – except an American one, I mean.

‘You can at least tell me whether you liked or disliked her?’ said Poirot with a smile.

Mr Reiter got quite red and stammered: ‘She was a charming person – most charming. And intellectual. She had a very fine brain – yes.’

‘Bien! You liked her. And she liked you?’

Mr Reiter got redder still.

‘Oh, I – I don’t know that she noticed me much. And I was unfortunate once or twice. I was always unlucky when I tried to do anything for her. I’m afraid I annoyed her by my clumsiness. It was quite unintentional…I would have done anything–’

Poirot took pity on his flounderings.

‘Perfectly – perfectly. Let us pass to another matter. Was it a happy atmosphere in the house?’

‘Please?’

‘Were you all happy together? Did you laugh and talk?’

‘No – no, not exactly that. There was a little – stiffness.’

He paused, struggling with himself, and then said: ‘You see, I am not very good in company. I am clumsy. I am shy. Dr Leidner always he has been most kind to me. But – it is stupid – I cannot overcome my shyness. I say always the wrong thing. I upset water jugs. I am unlucky.’

He really looked like a large awkward child.

‘We all do these things when we are young,’ said Poirot, smiling. ‘The poise, the savoir faire, it comes later.’

Then with a word of farewell we walked on.

He said: ‘That, ma soeur, is either an extremely simple young man or a very remarkable actor.’

I didn’t answer. I was caught up once more by the fantastic notion that one of these people was a dangerous and cold-blooded murderer. Somehow, on this beautiful still sunny morning it seemed impossible.

Chapter 21. Mr Mercado, Richard Carey

‘They work in two separate places, I see,’ said Poirot, halting.

Mr Reiter had been doing his photography on an outlying portion of the main excavation. A little distance away from us a second swarm of men were coming and going with baskets.

‘That’s what they call the deep cut,’ I explained. ‘They don’t find much there, nothing but rubbishy broken pottery, but Dr Leidner always says it’s very interesting, so I suppose it must be.’

‘Let us go there.’

We walked together slowly, for the sun was hot.

Mr Mercado was in command. We saw him below us talking to the foreman, an old man like a tortoise who wore a tweed coat over his long striped cotton gown.

It was a little difficult to get down to them as there was only a narrow path or stair and basket-boys were going up and down it constantly, and they always seemed to be as blind as bats and never to think of getting out of the way.

As I followed Poirot down he said suddenly over his shoulder: ‘Is Mr Mercado right-handed or left-handed?’

Now that was an extraordinary question if you like!

I thought a minute, then: ‘Right-handed,’ I said decisively.

Poirot didn’t condescend to explain. He just went on and I followed him.

Mr Mercado seemed rather pleased to see us.

His long melancholy face lit up.

M. Poirot pretended to an interest in archaeology that I’m sure he couldn’t have really felt, but Mr Mercado responded at once.

He explained that they had already cut down through twelve levels of house occupation.

‘We are now definitely in the fourth millennium,’ he said with enthusiasm.

I always thought a millennium was in the future – the time when everything comes right.

Mr Mercado pointed out belts of ashes (how his hand did shake! I wondered if he might possibly have malaria) and he explained how the pottery changed in character, and about burials – and how they had had one level almost entirely composed of infant burials – poor little things – and about flexed position and orientation, which seemed to mean the way the bones were lying.

And then suddenly, just as he was stooping down to pick up a kind of flint knife that was lying with some pots in a corner, he leapt into the air with a wild yell.

He spun round to find me and Poirot staring at him in astonishment.

He clapped his hand to his left arm.

‘Something stung me – like a red-hot needle.’

Immediately Poirot was galvanized into energy.

‘Quick, mon cher, let us see. Nurse Leatheran!’

I came forward.

He seized Mr Mercado’s arm and deftly rolled back the sleeve of his khaki shirt to the shoulder.

‘There,’ said Mr Mercado pointing.

About three inches below the shoulder there was a minute prick from which the blood was oozing.

‘Curious,’ said Poirot. He peered into the rolled-up sleeve. ‘I can see nothing. It was an ant, perhaps?’

‘Better put on a little iodine,’ I said.

I always carry an iodine pencil with me, and I whipped it out and applied it. But I was a little absentminded as I did so, for my attention had been caught by something quite different. Mr Mercado’s arm, all the way up the forearm to the elbow, was marked all over by tiny punctures. I knew well enough what they were – the marks of a hypodermic needle.

Mr Mercado rolled down his sleeve again and recommenced his explanations. Mr Poirot listened, but didn’t try to bring the conversation round to the Leidners. In fact, he didn’t ask Mr Mercado anything at all.

Presently we said goodbye to Mr Mercado and climbed up the path again.

‘It was neat that, did you not think so?’ my companion asked.

‘Neat?’ I asked.

M. Poirot took something from behind the lapel of his coat and surveyed it affectionately. To my surprise I saw that it was a long sharp darning needle with a blob of sealing wax making it into a pin.

‘M. Poirot,’ I cried, ‘did you do that?’

‘I was the stinging insect – yes. And very neatly I did it, too, do you not think so? You did not see me.’