Read Online They Came to Baghdad by Agatha Christie - Free Book Online

I don’t know what he wanted to see me about. He wasn’t drunk, was he?”
    â€œHe said it was a joke,” said Richard drily, “and that the gun went off by accident.”
    Clayton raised his eyebrows.
    â€œCommercial travellers don’t usually carry loaded guns in their pockets,” he said.
    Clayton, Richard thought, was no fool.
    â€œPerhaps I ought to have stopped him going away.”
    â€œIt’s difficult to know what one should do when these things happen. The man he fired at wasn’t hurt?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œProbably was better to let the thing slide, then.”
    â€œI wonder what was behind it?”
    â€œYes, yes…I wonder too.”
    Clayton looked a little distrait.
    â€œWell, I must be getting back,” he said and hurried away.
    Mrs. Clayton took Richard into the drawing room, a large inside room, with green cushions and curtains and offered him a choice of coffee or beer. He chose beer and it came deliciously iced.
    She asked him why he was going to Kuwait and he told her.
    She asked him why he hadn’t got married yet and Richard said he didn’t think he was the marrying kind, to which Mrs. Clayton said briskly, “Nonsense.” Archaeologists, she said, made splendid husbands—and were there any young women coming out to the Dig this season? One or two, Richard said, and Mrs. Pauncefoot Jones of course.
    Mrs. Clayton asked hopefully if they were nice girls who were coming out, and Richard said he didn’t know because he hadn’t met them yet. They were very inexperienced, he said.
    For some reason this made Mrs. Clayton laugh.
    Then a short stocky man with an abrupt manner came in and was introduced as Captain Crosbie. Mr. Baker, said Mrs. Clayton, was an archaeologist and dug up the most wildly interesting things thousands of years old. Captain Crosbie said he never could understand how archaeologists were able to say so definitely how old these things were. Always used to think they must be the most awful liars, ha ha, said Captain Crosbie. Richard looked at him ina rather tired kind of way. No, said Captain Crosbie, but how did an archaeologist know how old a thing was? Richard said that that would take a long time to explain, and Mrs. Clayton quickly took him away to see his room.
    â€œHe’s very nice,” said Mrs. Clayton, “but not quite quite, you know. Hasn’t got any idea of culture.”
    Richard found his room exceedingly comfortable, and his appreciation of Mrs. Clayton as a hostess rose still higher.
    Feeling in the pocket of his coat, he drew out a folded-up piece of dirty paper. He looked at it with surprise, for he knew quite well that it had not been there earlier in the morning.
    He remembered how the Arab had clutched him when he stumbled. A man with deft fingers might have slipped this into his pocket without his being aware of it.
    He unfolded the paper. It was dirty and seemed to have been folded and refolded many times.
    In six lines of rather crabbed handwriting, Major John Wilber-force recommended one Ahmed Mohammed as an industrious and willing worker, able to drive a lorry and do minor repairs and strictly honest—it was, in fact, the usual type of “chit” or recommendation given in the East. It was dated eighteen months back, which again is not unusual as these chits are hoarded carefully by their possessors.
    Frowning to himself, Richard went over the events of the morning in his precise orderly fashion.
    Fakir Carmichael, he was now well assured, had been in fear of his life. He was a hunted man and he bolted into the Consulate. Why? To find security? But instead of that he had found a more instant menace. The enemy or a representative of the enemy had beenwaiting for him. This commercial traveller chap must have had very definite orders—to be willing to risk shooting Carmichael in the Consulate in the presence of witnesses. It must, therefore, have been very