The other thing was nothing very much. I was trying to entice a pi dog pup with a piece of bread. It was very timid, however, like all Arab dogs - and was convinced I meant no good. It slunk away and I followed it - out through the archway and round the corner of the house. I came round so sharply that before I knew I had cannoned into Father Lavigny and another man who were standing together - and in a minute I realized that the second man was the same one Mrs. Leidner and I had noticed that day trying to peer through the window. I apologized and Father Lavigny smiled, and with a word of farewell greeting to the other man he returned to the house with me.
"You know," he said, "I am very ashamed. I am a student of Oriental languages and none of the men on the men work can understand me! It is humiliating, do you not think? I was trying my Arabic on that man, who is a townsman, to see if I got on better - but it still wasn't very successful. Leidner says my Arabic is too pure."
That was all. But it just passed through my head that it was odd the same man should still be hanging round the house.
That night we had a scare.
It must have been about two in the morning. I'm a light sleeper, as most nurses have to be. I was awake and sitting up in bed by the time that my door opened.
"Nurse, nurse!"
It was Mrs. Leidner's voice low and urgent.
I struck a match and lighted the candle.
She was standing by the door in a long blue dressing-gown. She was looking petrified with terror.
"There's someone - someone - in the room next to mine... I heard him - scratching on the wall."
I jumped out of bed and came to her.
"It's all right," I said. "I'm here. Don't be afraid, my dear."
She whispered:
"Get Eric."
I nodded and ran out and knocked on his door. In a minute he was with us. Mrs. Leidner was sitting on my bed, her breath coming in great gasps.
"I heard him," she said. "I heard him - scratching on the wall."
"Some one in the antika-room?" cried Dr. Leidner.
He ran out quickly - and it just flashed across my mind how differently these two had reacted. Mrs. Leidner's fear was entirely personal, but Dr. Leidner's mind leaped at once to his precious treasures.
"The antika-room!" breathed Mrs. Leidner. "Of course! How stupid of me."
And rising and pulling her gown round her, she bade me come with her. All traces of her panic-stricken fear had vanished.
We arrived in the antika-room to find Dr. Leidner and Father Lavigny. The latter had also heard a noise, had risen to investigate, and had fancied he saw a light in the antika-room. He had delayed to put on slippers and snatch up a torch and had found no one by the time he got there. The door, moreover, was duly locked, as it was supposed to be at night.
Whilst he was assuring himself that nothing had been taken, Dr. Leidner had joined him.
Nothing more was to be learned. The outside archway door was locked. The guard swore nobody could have got in from outside, but as they had probably been fast asleep this was not conclusive. There were no marks or traces of an intruder and nothing had been taken.
It was possible that what had alarmed Mrs. Leidner was the noise made by Father Lavigny taking down boxes from the shelves to assure himself that all was in order.
On the other hand, Father Lavigny himself was positive that he had (a) heard footsteps passing his window and (b) seen the flicker of a light, possibly a torch, in the antika-room.
Nobody else had heard or seen anything.
The incident is of value in my narrative because it led to Mrs. Leidner's unburdening herself to me on the following day.
Chapter 9
MRS. LEIDNER'S STORY
We had just finished lunch. Mrs. Leidner went to her room to rest as usual. I settled her on her bed with plenty of pillows and her book, and was leaving the room when she called me back.
"Don't go, nurse, there's something I want to say to you."
I came back into the room.
"Shut the door."
I obeyed.
She got up from the bed and began to walk up and down the room. I could see that she was making up her mind to something and I didn't like to interrupt her. She was clearly in great indecision of mind.
At last she seemed to have nerved herself to the required point. She turned to me and said abruptly:
"Sit down."
I sat down by the table very quietly. She began nervously:
"You must have wondered what all this is about?"
I just nodded without saying anything.
"I've made up my mind to tell you - everything! I must tell some one or I shall go mad."
"Well," I said. "I think really it would be just as well. It's not easy to know the best thing to do when one's kept in the dark."
She stopped in her uneasy walk and faced me.
"Do you know what I'm frightened of?"
"Some man," I said.
"Yes - but I didn't say whom - I said what."
I waited.
She said:
"I'm afraid of being killed!"
Well, it was out now. I wasn't going to show any particular concern. She was near enough hysterics as it was.
"Dear me," I said. "So that's it, is it?"
Then she began to laugh. She laughed and she laughed - and the tears ran down her face.
"The way you said that!" she gasped. "The way you said it..."
"Now, now," I said. "This won't do." I spoke sharply. I pushed her into a chair, went over to the wash-stand and got a cold sponge and bathed her forehead and wrists.
"No more nonsense," I said. "Tell me calmly and sensibly all about it."
That stopped her. She sat up and spoke in her natural voice.
"You're a treasure, nurse," she said. "You make me feel as though I'm six. I'm going to tell you."
"That's right," I said. "Take your time and don't hurry."
She began to speak, slowly and deliberately.
"When I was a girl of twenty I married. A young man in one of our state departments. It was in 1918."
"I know," I said. "Mrs. Mercado told me. He was killed in the war."
But Mrs. Leidner shook her head.
"That's what she thinks. That's what everybody thinks. The truth is something quite different I was a queer patriotic, enthusiastic girl, nurse, full of idealism. When I'd been married a few months I discovered - by a quite unforeseeable accident - that my husband was a spy in German pay. I learned that the information supplied by him had led directly to the sinking of an American transport and the loss of hundreds of lives. I don't know what most people would have done... But I'll tell you what I did. I went straight to my father, who was in the War Department, and told him the truth. Frederick was killed in the war - but he was killed in America - shot as a spy."
"Oh, dear, dear!" I ejaculated. "How terrible!"
"Yes," she said. "It was terrible. He was so kind, too - so gentle... And all the time... But I never hesitated. Perhaps I was wrong."
"It's difficult to say," I said. "I'm sure I don't know what one would do."
"What I'm telling you was never generally known outside the state departments. Ostensibly my husband had gone to the front and had been killed. I had a lot of sympathy and kindness shown me as a war widow."
Her voice was bitter and I nodded comprehendingly.
"Lots of people wanted to marry me, but I always refused. I'd had too bad a shock. I didn't feel I could ever trust anyone again."
"Yes, I can imagine feeling like that."
"And then I became very fond of a certain young man. I wavered. An amazing thing happened! I got an anonymous letter - from Frederick - saying that if I ever married another man, he'd kill me!"
"From Frederick? From your dead husband?"
"Yes. Of course, I thought at first I was mad or dreaming... At last I went to my father. He told me the truth. My husband hadn't been shot after all. He'd escaped - but his escape did him no good. He was involved in a train wreck a few weeks later and his dead body was found amongst others. My father had kept the fact of his escape from me, and since the man had died anyway he had seen no reason to tell me anything until now.
"But the letter I received opened up entirely new possibilities. Was it perhaps a fact that my husband was still alive?
"My father went into the matter as carefully as possible. And he declared that as far as one could humanly be sure the body that was buried as Frederick's was Frederick's. There had been a certain amount of disfiguration, so that he could not speak with absolute cast-iron certainty, but he reiterated his solemn belief that Frederick was dead and that this letter was a cruel and malicious hoax.
"The same thing happened more than once. If I seemed to be on intimate terms with any man, I would receive a threatening letter."
"In your husband's handwriting?"
She said slowly:
"That is difficult to say. I had no letters of his. I had only my memory to go by."
"There was no allusion or special form of words used that could make you sure?"
"No. There were certain terms - nicknames, for instance - private between us - if one of those had been used or quoted, then I should have been quite sure."
"Yes," I said thoughtfully. "That is odd. It looks as though it wasn't your husband. But is there anyone else it could be?"
"There is a possibility. Frederick had a younger brother - a boy of ten or twelve at the time of our marriage. He worshipped Frederick and Frederick was devoted to him. What happened to this boy, William his name was, I don't know. It seems to me possible that, adoring his brother as fanatically as he did, he may have grown up regarding me as directly responsible for his death. He had always been jealous of me and may have invented this scheme by way of punishment."
"It's possible," I said. "It's amazing the way children do remember if they've had a shock."
"I know. This boy may have dedicated his life to revenge."
"Please go on."
"There isn't very much more to tell. I met Eric three years ago. I meant never to marry. Eric made me change my mind. Right up to our wedding day I waited for another threatening letter. None came. I decided that whoever the writer might be, he was either dead, or tired of his cruel sport. Two days after our marriage I got this."
Drawing a small attaché-case which was on the table towards her, she unlocked it, took out a letter and handed it to me.
The ink was slightly faded. It was written in a rather womanish hand with a forward slant.
You have disobeyed. Now you cannot escape. You must be Frederick Bosner's wife only! You have got to die.
"I was frightened - but not so much as I might have been to begin with. Being with Eric made me feel safe. Then, a month later, I got a second letter."
I have not forgotten. I am making my plans. You have got to die. Why did you disobey?
"Does your husband know about this?"
Mrs. Leidner answered slowly.
"He knows that I am threatened. I showed him both letters when the second one came. He was inclined to think the whole thing a hoax. He thought also that it might be some one who wanted to blackmail me by pretending my first husband was alive."
She paused and then went on.
"A few days after I received the second letter we had a narrow escape from death by gas poisoning. Somebody entered our apartment after we were asleep and turned on the gas. Luckily I woke and smelled the gas in time. Then I lost my nerve. I told Eric how I had been persecuted for years, and I told him that I was sure this madman, whoever he might be, did really mean to kill me. I think that for the first time I really did think it was Frederick. There was always something a little ruthless behind his gentleness.
"Eric was still, I think, less alarmed than I was. He wanted to go to the police. Naturally I wouldn't hear of that. In the end we agreed that I should accompany him here, and that it might be wise if I didn't return to America in the summer but stayed in London and Paris.
"We carried out our plan and all went well. I felt sure that now everything would be all right. After all, we had put half the globe between ourselves and my enemy.
"And then - a little over three weeks ago - I received a letter - with an Iraq stamp on it."
She handed me a third letter.
You thought you could escape. You were wrong. You shall not be false to me and live. I have always told you so. Death is coming very soon.
"And a week ago - this! Just lying on the table here. It had not even gone through the post."
I took the sheet of paper from her. There was just one phrase scrawled across it.
I have arrived.
She stared at me.
"You see? You understand? He's going to kill me. It may be Frederick - it may be little William - but he's going to kill me."
Her voice rose shudderingly. I caught her wrist.
"Now - now," I said warningly. "Don't give way. We'll look after you. Have you got any sal volatile?"
She nodded towards the wash-stand and I gave her a good dose.
"That's better," I said, as the colour returned to her cheeks.
"Yes, I'm better now. But oh, nurse, do you see why I'm in this state. When I saw that man looking in through my window, I thought: He's come... Even when you arrived I was suspicious. I thought you might be a man in disguise -"
"The idea!"
"Oh, I know it sounds absurd. But you might have been in league with him perhaps - not a hospital nurse at all."
"But that's nonsense!"
"Yes, perhaps. But I've got beyond sense."
Struck by a sudden idea, I said:
"You' d recognize your husband, I suppose?"
She answered slowly.
"I don't even know that. It's over fifteen years ago. I mightn't recognize his face."
Then she shivered.
"I saw it one night - but it was a dead face. There was a tap, tap, tap on the window. And then I saw a face, a dead face, ghastly and grinning against the pane. I screamed and screamed... And they said there wasn't anything there!"
