p q ■ B L A N K P A G E 6 ■ 6 p q Murder in Mesopotamia 3 Dedicated to My many archaeological friends in Iraq and Syria 5 p q ■ B L A N K P A G E 6 ■ 6 Contents About Agatha Christie The Agatha Christie Collection E-Book Extras Foreword b y Giles Reilly, MD 9 1 Frontispiece 13 2 Introducing Amy Leatheran 1 7 3 Gossip 25 4 I Arrive i n Hassanieh 31 5 Tell Y arimjah 45 6 First Evening 5 1 7 The Man at the W indow 6 7 8 Night Alarm 7 9 9 Mrs Leidner’s Story 8 9 10 SaturdayA fternoon 101 11 An Odd B usiness 1 09 12 ‘I Didn’t B elieve . . .’ 1 17 13 Hercule Poirot A rrives 1 25 7 p q 14 One o f Us? 139 15 Poirot Makes a S uggestion 1 49 16 The Suspects 1 61 17 The Stain by the W ashstand 171 18 Tea at D r R eilly’s 183 19 A New Suspicion 1 99 20 Miss Johnson, M rs M ercado, M r R eiter 213 21 Mr Mercado, Richard Carey 231 22 DavidE mmott,F atherL avignya nda Discovery 2 43 23 I Go Psychic 2 59 24 Murder is a Habit 2 73 25 Suicide or Murder 2 79 26 Next I t Will B e Me! 291 27 Beginning o f a Journey 3 01 28 Journey’s End 337 29 L’Envoi 349 Copyright www.agathachristie.com About the Publisher p q ■ B L A N K P A G E 6 ■ 6 Foreword by Giles Reilly, MD The events chronicled in this narrative took place some four years ago. Circumstances have rendered it necessary, in my opinion, that a straightforward account of them should be given to the public. There have been the wildest and most ridiculous rumours suggesting that important evidence was suppressed and other nonsense of that kind. Those misconstruc- tions have appeared more especially in the American Press. For obvious reasons it was desirable that the account should not come from the pen of one of the expedi- tion staff, who might reasonably be supposed to be prejudiced. I therefore suggested to Miss Amy Leatheran that she should undertake the task. She is obviously the person to do it. She had a professional character of the highest, she is not biased by having any previous connection with the University of Pittstown Expedition 9 p q to Iraq and she was an observant and intellectual eye-witness. It was not very easy to persuade Miss Leatheran to undertake this task – in fact, persuading her was one of the hardest jobs of my professional career – and even after it was completed she displayed a curious reluctance to let me see the manuscript. I discovered that this was partly due to some critical remarks she had made concerning my daughter Sheila. I soon disposed of that, assuring her that as children criticize their parents freely in print nowadays, parents are only too delighted when their offspring come in for their share of abuse! Her other objection was extreme modesty about her literary style. She hoped I would ‘put the grammar right and all that.’ I have, on the contrary, refused to alter so much as a single word. Miss Leatheran’s style in my opinion is vigorous, individual and entirely apposite. If she calls Hercule Poirot ‘Poirot’ in one paragraph and ‘Mr Poirot’ in the next, such a variation is both interesting and suggestive. At one moment she is, so to speak, ‘remembering her manners’ (and hospital nurses are great sticklers for etiquette) and at the next her interest in what she is telling is that of a pure human being – cap and cuffs forgotten! The only thing I have done is to take the liberty of writing a first chapter – aided by a letter kindly supplied 10