Agatha Christie - Appointment with Death

"No! No! Don't let them say it! They're making the walls close around me again! It's not true! I never did anything! They are my enemies-they want to put me in prison-to shut me up. You must help me! You must help me!"

"There, there, my child." Gently the doctor patted her head. Then he addressed Poirot. "What you say is nonsense-absurd."

"Delusions of persecution?" murmured Poirot.

"Yes-but she could never have done it that way. She would have done it, you must perceive, dramatically-a dagger, something flamboyant, spectacular-never this cool, calm logic! I tell you, my friends, it is so. This was a reasoned crime-a sane crime."

Poirot smiled. Unexpectedly he bowed. "Je suis entierement de votre avis," he said smoothly.

"Come," said Hercule Poirot. "We have still a little way to go! Dr. Gerard has invoked the psychology. So let us now examine the psychological side of the case. We have taken the facts, we have established a chronological sequence of events, we have heard the evidence. There remains-the psychology. And the most important psychological evidence concerns the dead woman. It is the psychology of Mrs. Boynton herself that is the most important thing in this case."

"Take from my list of specified facts points three and four. Mrs. Boynton took definite pleasure in keeping her family from enjoying themselves with other people. Mrs. Boynton, on the afternoon in question, encouraged her family to go away and leave her."

"These two facts, they contradict each other flatly! Why, on this particular afternoon, should Mrs. Boynton suddenly display a complete reversal of her usual policy? Was it that she felt a sudden warmth of the heart-an instinct of benevolence? That, it seems to me from all I have heard, was extremely unlikely! Yet there must have been a reason. What was that reason?"

"Let us examine closely the character of Mrs. Boynton. There have been many different accounts of her. She was a tyrannical old martinet, she was a mental sadist, she was an incarnation of evil, she was crazy. Which of these views is the true one?"

"I think myself that Sarah King came nearest to the truth when in a flash of inspiration in Jerusalem she saw the old lady as intensely pathetic. But not only pathetic-futile!"

"Let us, if we can, think ourselves into the mental condition of Mrs. Boynton. A human creature born with immense ambition, with a yearning to dominate and to impress her personality on other people. She neither sublimated that intense craving for power nor did she seek to master it. No, mes dames and messieurs, she fed it! But in the end-listen well to this-in the end, what did it amount to? She was not a great power! She was not feared and hated over a wide area! She was the petty tyrant of one isolated family! And as Dr. Gerard said to me-she became bored like any other old lady with her hobby and she sought to extend her activities and to amuse herself by making her dominance more precarious! But that led to an entirely different aspect of the case! By coming abroad, she realized for the first time how extremely insignificant she was!"

"And now we come directly to point number ten-the words spoken to Sarah King in Jerusalem. Sarah King, you see, had put her finger on the truth. She had revealed fully and uncompromisingly the pitiful futility of Mrs. Boynton's scheme of existence! And now listen very carefully-all of you-to what her exact words to Miss King were. Miss King has said that Mrs. Boynton spoke 'so malevolently, not even looking at me.' And this is what she actually said: 'I've never forgotten anything, not an action, not a name, not a face.'"

"Those words made a great impression on Miss King. Their extraordinary intensity and the loud hoarse tone in which they were uttered! So strong was the impression they left on her mind I think that she quite failed to realize their extraordinary significance!"

"Do you see that significance, any of you?" He waited a minute. "It seems not… But, mes amis, does it escape you that those words were not a reasonable answer at all to what Miss King had just been saying. 'I've never forgotten anything, not an action, not a name, not a face.' It does not make sense! If she had said: 'I never forget impertinence'-something of that kind-but no-a face is what she said…"

"Ah!" cried Poirot, beating his hands together. "But it leaps to the eye! Those words, ostensibly spoken to Miss King, were not meant for Miss King at all! They were addressed to someone else standing behind Miss King."

He paused, noting their expressions.

"Yes, it leaps to the eye! That was, I tell you, a psychological moment in Mrs. Boynton's life! She had been exposed to herself by an intelligent young woman! She was full of baffled fury and at that moment she recognized someone-a face from the past-a victim delivered bound into her hands!"

"We are back, you see, to the outsider! And now the meaning of Mrs. Boynton's unexpected amiability on the afternoon of her death is clear. She wanted to get rid of her family because-to use a vulgarity-she had other fish to fry! She wanted the field left clear for an interview with a new victim…"

"Now, from that new standpoint, let us consider the events of the afternoon! The Boynton family goes off. Mrs. Boynton sits up by her cave. Now, let us consider very carefully the evidence of Lady Westholme and Miss Pierce. The latter is an unreliable witness, she is unobservant and very suggestible. Lady Westholme, on the other hand, is perfectly clear as to her facts and meticulously observant. Both ladies agree on one fact! An Arab, one of the servants, approaches Mrs. Boynton, angers her in some way and retires hastily. Lady Westholme states definitely that the servant had first been into the tent occupied by Ginevra Boynton but you may remember that Dr. Gerard's tent was next door to Ginevra's. It is possible that it was Dr. Gerard's tent the Arab entered…"

Colonel Carbury said: "D'you mean to tell me that one of those Bedouin fellows of mine murdered an old lady by sticking her with a hypodermic? Fantastic!"

"Wait, Colonel Carbury; I have not yet finished. Let us agree that the Arab might have come from Dr. Gerard's tent and not Ginevra Boynton's. What is the next thing? Both ladies agree that they could not see his face clearly enough to identify him and that they did not hear what was said. That is understandable. The distance between the marquee and the ledge is about two hundred yards. Lady Westholme gave a clear description of the man otherwise, describing in detail his ragged breeches and the untidiness with which his puttees were rolled."

Poirot leaned forward. "And that, my friends, was very odd indeed! Because, if she could not see his face or hear what was said, she could not possibly have noticed the state of his breeches and puttees! Not at two hundred yards!"

"It was an error, that, you see! It suggested a curious idea to me. Why insist so on the ragged breeches and untidy puttees. Could it be because the breeches were not torn and the puttees were non-existent? Lady Westholme and Miss Pierce both saw the man-but from where they were sitting they could not see each other. That is shown by the fact that Lady Westholme came to see if Miss Pierce was awake and found her sitting in the entrance of her tent."

"Good Lord," said Colonel Carbury, suddenly sitting up very straight. "Are you suggesting-"

"I am suggesting that having ascertained just what Miss Pierce (the only witness likely to be awake) was doing, Lady Westholme returned to her tent, put on her riding breeches, boots and khaki-colored coat, made herself an Arab headdress with her checked duster and a skein of knitting wool and that, thus attired, she went boldly up to Dr. Gerard's tent, looked in his medicine chest, selected a suitable drug, took the hypodermic, filled it and went boldly up to her victim."