The Baghdad Railway Club(71)

But he could not have killed Jarvis. I had entered the square only seconds after hearing the gunshot, and Shepherd hadn’t been there then‚ as far as I had seen. As he spoke to me – which he did while kneeling next to Jarvis – I looked all around the square. There were three alleyways leading off. For Shepherd to have shot Jarvis from some way along any one of these . . . his bullet would have had to go around a corner.

Shepherd was saying, ‘I believe it’s your piece.’

He took it gently from Jarvis, and handed me back the revolver. He seemed to think nothing of doing so.

‘He’d been cleaning it,’ I said.

Shepherd was carefully moving Jarvis’s right arm.

‘I’m going to look in his pockets,’ he said. He was cool as usual.

‘Why?’ I said.

‘He went back into the club to fetch something.’

‘A photograph?’ I said.

Shepherd eyed me, and for the first time in our acquaintance, it was a sharp look that he gave me.

‘You saw it?’ he said.

I said, ‘It showed Boyd with Harriet Bailey.’

Shepherd resumed his inspection of Jarvis’s shirt pockets.

‘Hold on a minute,’ I said, ‘the place was on fire.’

Having searched through the first of Jarvis’s pockets, Shepherd had now started on the second. He was shaking his head: ‘Just a lot of smoke,’ he said.

‘Did you see the photograph, sir?’

He hadn’t had sight of it in the clubhouse, as far as I could recall.

He said, ‘No, but I knew there was something queer about it from the way Findlay reacted to it. I quizzed Jarvis after we came out of the building, and we agreed it could have a bearing on the murder of Boyd. I kept them talking while he went back. They would have gone straight in themselves after it otherwise.’

By ‘them’, he meant Major Findlay and Harriet Bailey.

‘It’s not there,’ he said, and he sat back on the gravel, holding Jarvis’s paybook and pocket book. He sat with ankles crossed, knees upraised, arms around knees – like a boy. He had reholstered his Colt revolver. He said, ‘I know Jarvis told you all about Captain Boyd. He was found stabbed to death at the station. We believed it might not have been Arabs that killed him.’

‘You think Findlay killed Boyd over Miss Bailey?’

He nodded.

‘Jarvis believed there was an attachment between the lady and Captain Boyd. He had reason to believe Boyd had been wiring her from here when she was in Basrah – before she came up.’

Was Jarvis also acquainted with the amenable Private Lennon at the Residency? Had he had sight of the same telegram forms as me?

‘In the photograph’, I said, ‘they’re practically kissing.’

Shepherd nodded. ‘Which is why Findlay would have wanted to get hold of it as well.’

‘Did he also do for Jarvis?’ I said, turning again to the body. ‘Surely Jarvis made away with himself ?’

‘I’d say it’s a certainty,’ said Shepherd. And he could see that I wanted to know why that was the case. ‘There’s no sign of a struggle, and he wasn’t shot from a distance.’ With a tilt of the head, he indicated Jarvis, and I looked the same way. ‘He shot himself through the mouth – powder marks all round the lips.’

I knew he was right.

‘Why would he shoot himself?’

‘I got to know him a little bit,’ said Shepherd. ‘It was obvious enough he didn’t care for this place.’

He looked all around the empty square: what was horrible about it was that it didn’t look as though it belonged to Baghdad. It was just an all-purpose nightmare setting. ‘He was what I believe is called depressive,’ said Shepherd.

‘He told me Boyd was that.’

‘Boyd was a machine-gunner,’ said Shepherd, a trace of the sharpness returning. ‘They’re not usually very reflective types. Jarvis was describing himself.’

‘Then do you mean Findlay has come by, discovered the body, and taken the photograph?’ I answered my own question. ‘No, because I got here pretty sharpish after hearing the shot. I mean, there was no time, was there?’

Shepherd gave a half shrug‚ saying, ‘I believe Findlay would have gone after the picture himself. Returned to the club, I mean – after he got clear of me. He’d have discovered Jarvis had beaten him to it, in which case he’d have been looking for Jarvis.’

‘How would he know Jarvis had been in?’

‘He might have seen him coming out . . . Or from Layth. He does have some English, and he never left the building.’

Shepherd rose to his feet.