Chapter 11 Chapter Ten Saturday Afternoon

Mrs. Leidner told me all that happened on Friday, and on Saturday morning the place had a slightly climactic atmosphere. Mrs. Leidner, in particular, seemed to be very unkind to me, and rather conspicuously avoided the possibility of secret conversations with me.Ah, I am not surprised at this point. I have encountered the same thing again and again. Female patients often tell the secret to the nurse on the spur of the moment, and feel uncomfortable afterwards, thinking that it would have been better if they hadn't told it.This is just human nature. I was very careful not to insinuate or remind her in any way of what she had said before, and I deliberately tried to say things as flat as possible.

Coleman went to town in the morning, driving a station wagon himself, with the mail wrapped in canvas.He also has one or two things that colleagues from the inspection team entrusted him to do. This is the worker's pay day, and he gets a small amount of coins from the bank. All these things must be delayed for a long time, so I can't come back until the afternoon, I feel a little bit He might have lunch with Sheila Riley. The work at the excavation site in the afternoon of payday is usually not very busy, because the salary starts to be paid at 3:30.～ That little boy, Abdullah, his job was to wash jars.Now he is sitting in the middle of the courtyard as usual, and singing that strange song with a nasal voice as usual.Dr. Leidner and Mr. Emmott had something to do before Mr. Coleman returned, and Mr. Garley went to the site to dig.

Mrs. Leidner went to her room to rest, and I helped her get settled as usual, and then went to my own room, taking a book to read as I didn't feel sleepy.It was a quarter to one, and the next few hours were pleasantly passed, reading "Sanatorium Murder"--it is a very exciting novel--though I don't think the author knows much about the management of sanitariums. .Anyway, I've never seen a sanitarium like that, and I really want to write to the author to correct a couple of things in the book. I put the book down, (the murderer turned out to be the red-haired maid!) I looked at my watch, and was surprised, it turned out that it was twenty minutes to three o'clock.

I got up, straightened the wrinkled nurse's clothes, and went to the yard. Abdullah was still washing the clay pots and singing that dreary tune.David Emmott stood beside him, sorting things out, putting the broken ones in boxes to be repaired later.I swung towards them just as Leidner was coming down the stairs from the roof at that moment. "It's been a good afternoon," Leidner said enthusiastically. "I'll clean it up—Louis must be very happy to see it. She complained recently that there is no room to walk around. I want to clean it up." Go and tell her the good news."

He went to his wife's door, knocked, and went in. When he came out again, I think it was about seven and a half minutes later.I happened to be looking at that door when he came out.It was like a nightmare, and he went in a brisk, cheerful man and came out like a man who was quite drunk--staggering and dazed. "Miss Nurse—" he called in a strange, hoarse voice, "Miss Nurse—" I saw immediately that something was wrong and ran over.He looked ugly--pale, twitching, looking like he might break down at any moment. "My wife—" he said, "my wife—oh, go!"

I rushed into the room next to him to have a look, and felt a shiver. Mrs. Leidner lay curled up beside the bed. I leaned over and saw that she was quite out of breath--perhaps dead for at least an hour, the cause of death was obvious--had a blow to the front of the head--on the temple, she must have got up from the bed, Knocked people down while standing on the edge of the bed. I try not to move her too much. I looked around to see if there was anything that would give me a clue, but everything in the room was in order, and there was no sign of disturbance.The windows were closed and well bolted, leaving no room for the murderer, who had evidently been here and gone.

I walked out and closed the door behind me. Dr. Leidner was completely broken now, and David Emmott was with him, turning his pale face to look at me, full of eagerness to know. In a few short sentences I told David Emmott what had happened. I used to always feel that David Emmott was the most reliable person when encountering difficulties.Sure enough, he was very calm and calm.His blue eyes were wide open, but he showed nothing else in particular. He thought about it, then said, "I think we need to notify the police as soon as possible. Bill could be back at any moment. What should we do with Leidner?"

"Help me carry him back to the room." He nodded. "I think it's best to lock this door first," he said. He took out Mrs. Leidner's house key and handed it to me. "Miss Nurse, I think it's better for you to keep this key. Well, let's carry him in now." Together we lifted Dr. Leidner and carried him to his own room and laid him on the bed.Mr. Emmott went to fetch him brandy.When he returned, Miss Johnson came with him. Her face was drawn long and worried, but she was calm and competent.So I thought it would be nice to leave Dr. Leidner here in her care.

I hurried out into the yard, where the station wagon had just entered through the arch.We saw Bill's red, happy face, and heard the familiar voice when he jumped down, saying, "Hello, hello, hello! Here comes the money!" And he went on cheerfully, "No Meeting robbers on the road—” I think everyone finds it very disgusting. He broke off suddenly: "Huh? What's the matter? What's the matter with you all? You look like the cat killed your canary." Mr. Emmott said curtly: "Mrs. Leidner's dead—killed." "What?" Bill's joyful face suddenly changed comically.He stared at us intently, his eyes widened. "Mama Leidner is dead? Are you kidding me?"

"Dead?" was a sharp cry.I turned my head and saw Mrs. McGadot behind me. "You mean Mrs. Leidner was killed?" "Yes," I said, "somebody got killed." "No!" she gasped. "Oh, no! I don't believe it. Maybe she killed herself." "A suicidal man doesn't beat himself on the head," I said coldly. "It's murder, yes, Mrs. McGado." She suddenly sat down on an upside-down packing box. She said, "Oh, it's dreadful! It's dreadful!" This is, of course, terrible, and we don't need her to tell us.I thought maybe it was her remorse for having a bad feeling for the dead, and all the hateful things she had said.

After a minute or two, she asked out of breath, "What are you going to do?" Mr. Emmott took charge of everything with his customary poise. "Bill, you'd better get back into town as soon as possible. I don't know what the proper steps to take in this kind of thing. Better to find Captain Maitland, who's in charge of the police here. I think I'd better go to Ray first." Dr. Lee is better, he knows what to do." Mr. Coleman nodded, his joking air so frightened that there was no shadow of it.He just acted like he was very young and very scared, and without saying a word, he jumped in the car and drove away. Mr. Emmott said somewhat uncertainly: "I think we should search around." He raised his voice and called: "Abrahim!" "Have!"" The servant came running, and Mr. Emmott spoke to him in Arabic. They talked for a while, and the servant seemed to be trying to deny something. At last, Mr. Emmott said perplexedly: "He said there was no one here this afternoon, not any strangers. I guess that person must have slipped in when they didn't see him." "Of course it is," said Mrs. McGado. "He slipped in when he wasn't looking." "Yes," said Mr. Emmott. Since his voice contained uncertainty, I looked at him curiously. He turned to Abdullah the boy who washed the jars, and he asked him a word. The child answered him excitedly and in detail. Mr. Emmott's brows were furrowed even more perplexed. "I don't understand," he murmured quietly, "I don't understand at all." However, he didn't tell me what he didn't understand.