Agatha Christie - Appointment with Death

Poirot cut short the recriminations. "There is another small matter. The dead lady was angry with one of the boys. Do you know which one it was and what it was about?"

Mahmoud's hands rose to heaven. "Should I know? But naturally not. Old lady did not complain to me."

"Could you find out?"

"No, my good gentleman, that would be impossible. None of the boys admit it for a moment. Old lady angry, you say? Then naturally boys would not tell. Abdul say it Mohammed, and Mohammed say it Aziz, and Aziz say it Aissa, and so on. They are all very stupid Bedouin-understand nothing." He took a breath and continued: "Now I, I have advantage of Mission education. I recite to you Keats-Shelley-ladadoveandasweedovedied-"

Poirot flinched. Though English was not his native tongue he knew it well enough to suffer from the strange enunciation of Mahmoud.

"Superb!" he said hastily. "Superb! Definitely I recommend you to all my friends." He contrived to escape from the dragoman's eloquence. Then he took his list to Colonel Carbury, whom he found in his office.

Carbury pushed his tie a little more askew and asked: "Got anything?"

Poirot sat down. "Shall I tell you a theory of mine?"

"If you like," said Colonel Carbury, and sighed. One and another he had heard a good many theories in the course of his existence.

"My theory is that criminology is the easiest science in the world! One has only to let the criminal talk-sooner or later he will tell you everything."

"I remember you said something of the kind before. Who's been telling you things?"

"Everybody."

Briefly, Poirot retailed the interviews he had had that morning.

"Hm," said Carbury. "Yes, you've got hold of a pointer or two, perhaps. Pity of it is, they all seem to point in opposite directions. Have we got a case, that's what I want to know?"

"No."

Carbury sighed again.

"I was afraid not."

"But before nightfall," said Poirot, "you shall have the truth!"

"Well, that's all you ever promised me," said Colonel Carbury. "And I rather doubted your getting that! Sure of it?"

"I am very sure."

"Must be nice to feel like that," commented the other. If there was a faint twinkle in his eye, Poirot appeared unaware of it. He produced his list.

"Neat," said Colonel Carbury approvingly.

He bent over it. After a minute or two he said: "Know what I think?"

"I should be delighted if you would tell me."

"Young Raymond Boynton's out of it."

"Ah! You think so?"

"Yes. Clear as a bell what he thought. We might have known he'd be out of it. Being, as in detective stories the most likely person. Since you practically overheard him saving he was going to bump off the old lady-we might have known that meant he was innocent!"

"You read the detective stories, yes?"

"Thousands of them," said Colonel Carbury. He added and his tone was that of a wistful schoolboy: "I suppose you couldn't do the things the detective does in books? Write a list of significant facts-things that don't seem to mean anything but are really frightfully important-that sort of thing?"

"Ah," said Poirot kindly. "You like that kind of detective story? But certainly, I will do it for you with pleasure."

He drew a sheet of paper towards him and wrote quickly and neatly:

SIGNIFICANT POINTS

1. Mrs. Boynton was taking a mixture containing digitalis.

2. Dr. Gerard missed a hypodermic syringe.

3. Mrs. Boynton took definite pleasure in keeping her family from enjoying themselves with other people.

4. Mrs. Boynton, on the afternoon in question, encouraged her family to go away and leave her.

5. Mrs. Boynton was a mental sadist.

6. The distance from the marquee to the place where Mrs. Boynton was sitting is (roughly) two hundred yards. Mr Lennox Boynton said at first he did not know what time he returned to the camp, but later he admitted having set his mother's wristwatch to the right time.

8 Dr. Gerard and Miss Ginevra Boynton occupied tents next door to each other. At half-past six, when dinner was ready, a servant was dispatched to announce the fact to Mrs. Boynton.

The Colonel perused this with great satisfaction. "Capital!" he said. "Just the thing! You've made it difficult-and seemingly irrelevant-absolutely the authentic touch! By the way, it seems to me there are one or two rather noticeable omissions. But that, I suppose, is what you tempt the mug with?"

Poirot's eyes twinkled a little but he did not answer.

"Point two, for instance," said Colonel Carbury tentatively. "Dr. Gerard missed a hypodermic syringe-yes. He also missed a concentrated solution of digitalis-or something of that kind."

"The latter point," said Poirot, "is not important in the way the absence of his hypodermic syringe is important."

"Splendid!" said Colonel Carbury, his face irradiated with smiles. "I don't get it at all. I should have said the digitalis was much more important than the syringe! And what about that servant motif that keeps cropping up-a servant being sent to tell her dinner was ready. And that story of her shaking her stick at a servant earlier in the afternoon? You're not going to tell me one of my poor desert mutts bumped her off after all? Because," added Colonel Carburv sternly, "if so, that would be cheating."

Poirot smiled but did not answer. As he left the office, he murmured to himself: "Incredible! The English never grow up!"

Sarah King sat on a hilltop absently plucking up wild flowers. Dr. Gerard sat on a rough wall of stones near her. She said, suddenly and fiercely: "Why did you start all this? If it hadn't been for you-"

Dr. Gerard said slowly: "You think I should have kept silence?"

"Yes."

"Knowing what I knew?"

"You didn't know," said Sarah.

The Frenchman sighed. "I did know. But I admit one can never be absolutely sure."

"Yes, one can," said Sarah uncompromisingly.

The Frenchman shrugged his shoulders. "You, perhaps!"

Sarah said: "You had fever-a high temperature-you couldn't be clearheaded about the business. The syringe was probably there all the time. And you may have made a mistake about the digitoxin or one of the servants may have meddled with the case."

Gerard said cynically: "You need not worry! The evidence is almost bound to be inconclusive. You will see, your friends the Boyntons will get away with it!"

Sarah said fiercely: "I don't want that, either."

He shook his head. "You are illogical!"

"Wasn't it you"-Sarah demanded-"in Jerusalem who said a great deal about not interfering? And now look!"

"I have not interfered. I have only told what I know!"

"And I say you don't know it. Oh, dear, there we are back again! I'm arguing in a circle."

Gerard said gently: "I am sorry, Miss King."

Sarah said in a low voice: "You see, after all, they haven't escaped-any of them! She's still there! Even from her grave she can still reach out and hold them. There was something terrible about her. She's just as terrible now she's dead! I feel-I feel she's enjoying all this!"

She clenched her hands. Then she said in an entirely different tone, a light everyday voice: "That little man's coming up the hill."

Dr. Gerard looked over his shoulder, "Ah! He comes in search of us, I think."

"Is he as much of a fool as he looks?" asked Sarah.

Dr. Gerard said gravely: "He is not a fool at all."

"I was afraid of that," said Sarah King. With somber eyes she watched the uphill progress of Hercule Poirot.

He reached them at last and wiped his forehead. Then he looked sadly down at his patent leather shoes.

"Alas," he said. "This stony country! My poor shoes."

"You can borrow Lady Westholme's shoe-cleaning apparatus," said Sarah unkindly. "And her duster. She travels with a kind of patent housemaid's equipment."