by Agatha Christie, 1936
Fun mystery set in the desert of Iraq, near Baghdad. A nurse, Nurse Amy Leatheran, is sent to help the anxious wife (Mrs. Leidner) of an archaeologist (Mr. Leidner). They all live together in a gated compound with 8 other people who each have various jobs on the dig: Miss Johnson (elderly spinster), Mr. and Mrs. Mercado (strange, foreign couple-he’s an addict), Mr. Reiter, Richard Carey (handsome young archaeologist), David Emmott, Father Lavigny (an impostor monk), Mr. Coleman (young Englishman).
Mrs. Leidner reveals the reason for her fears to Nurse Leatheran: her first husband was a Nazi spy, she turned him in, he was supposedly executed but it wasn’t certain. Whenever she falls in love with another man, she receives a letter from him telling her he will murder her if she ever marries another man. After decades, she marries Mr. Leidner. No threats or letters come until a few years later, after they have lived a number of years at the archaeological dig in Iraq. A day or two after Mrs. Leidner tells Nurse the reason for her terrors, Mrs. Leidner is found murdered by a “heavy great quern or grinder” to her head.
Hercule Poirot is called in to solve the mystery. He happened to be in Syria and then passing through Iraq. He does solve it! It ends up being Mr. Leidner, who threw a heavy quern off the roof that lands on his wife’s head as she is looking out the window to see who is trying to scare her with a scary mask dangling by her window. Mr. Leidner is her long, lost husband. She didn’t recognize him after all those years. He starts up the threatening letters and determines to kill her because he found out his wife has fallen in love with the young, handsome Richard Carey. He loves her but he can’t handle her loving anyone else. Miss Johnson was also murdered a few days later by substituting her glass of water with a glass of poison. She died a horrible death and managed to tell Nurse Leatheran, “the window” as she died. Miss Johnson, who loved Mr. Leidner and was totally devoted to him, had figured out how Mrs. Leidner was killed and that it was Mr. Leidner who did it from the roof. Mr. Leidner felt he had to kill her too. That was a big mistake and helped Hercule solve the mystery.
Love Agatha Christie!