Agatha Christie - Appointment with Death

"Mrs. Boynton may have been dozing. Lady Westholme was quick. She caught her by the wrist and injected the stuff. Mrs. Boynton half cried out-tried to rise-then sank back. The 'Arab' hurried away with every evidence of being ashamed and abashed. Mrs. Boynton shook her stick, tried to rise, then fell back into her chair."

"Five minutes later Lady Westholme rejoins Miss Pierce and comments on the scene she has just witnessed, impressing her own version of it on the other. Then they go for a walk, pausing below the ledge where Lady Westholme shouts up to the old lady. She receives no answer for Mrs. Boynton is dead but she remarks to Miss Pierce: 'Very rude just to snort at us like that!' Miss Pierce accepts the suggestion. She has often heard Mrs. Boynton receive a remark with a snort-she will swear quite sincerely if necessary that she actually heard it. Lady Westholme has sat on committees often enough with women of Miss Pieree's type to know exactly how her own eminence and masterful personality can influence them. The only point where her plan went astray was the replacing of the syringe. Dr. Gerard returning so soon upset her scheme. She hoped he might not have noticed its absence, or might think he had overlooked it, and she put it back during the night."

He stopped.

Sarah said: "But why? Why should Lady Westholme want to kill old Mrs. Boynton?"

"Did you not tell me that Lady Westholme had been quite near you in Jerusalem when you spoke to Mrs. Boynton? It was to Lady Westholme that Mrs. Boynton's words were addressed. 'I've never forgotten anything, not an action, not a name, not a face.' Put that with the fact that Mrs. Boynton had been a wardress in a prison and you can get a very shrewd idea of the truth. Lord Westholme met his wife on a voyage back from America. Lady Westholme, before her marriage, had been a criminal and had served a prison sentence."

"You see the terrible dilemma she was in? Her career, her ambitions, her social position-all at stake! What the crime was for which she served a sentence in prison we do not yet know (though we soon shall) but it must have been one that would effectually blast her political career if it was made public. And remember this, Mrs. Boynton was not an ordinary blackmailer. She did not want money. She wanted the pleasure of torturing her victim for a while and then she would have enjoyed revealing the truth in the most spectacular fashion! No; while Mrs. Boynton lived Lady Westholme was not safe. She obeyed Mrs. Boynton's instructions to meet her at Petra (I thought it strange all along that a woman with such a sense of her own importance as Lady Westholme should have preferred to travel as a mere tourist), but in her own mind she was doubtless revolving ways and means of murder. She saw her chance and carried it out boldly. She only made two slips. One was to say a little too much-the description of the torn breeches-which first drew my attention to her, and the other was when she mistook Dr. Gerard's tent and looked first into the one where Ginevra was lying half asleep. Hence the girl's story-half make-believe, half true-of a Sheikh in disguise. She put it the wrong way around, obeying her instinct to distort the truth by making it more dramatic, but the indication was quite significant enough for me."

He paused. "But we shall soon know. I obtained Lady Westholme's fingerprints today without her being aware of the fact. If these are sent to the prison where Mrs. Boynton was once a wardress, we shall soon know the truth when they are compared with the files."

He stopped. In the momentary stillness a sharp sound was heard.

"What's that?" asked Dr. Gerard.

"Sounded like a shot to me," said Colonel Carbury, rising to his feet quickly. "In the next room. Who's got that room, by the way?"

Poirot murmured: "I have a little idea-it is the room of Lady Westholme…"

Extract from the Evening Shout.

We regret to announce the death of Lady Westholme, M.P., the result of a tragic accident. Lady Westholme, who was fond of traveling in out-of-the-way countries, always took a small revolver with her.

She was cleaning this when it went off accidentally and killed her. Death was instantaneous. The deepest sympathy will be felt for Lord Westholme, etc. etc.

On a warm June evening five years later Sarah Boynton and her husband sat in the stalls of a London theatre. The play was Hamlet. Sarah gripped Raymond's arm as Ophelia's words came floating over the footlights:

A lump rose in Sarah's throat. That exquisite, witless beauty, that lovely, unearthly smile of one gone beyond trouble and grief to a region where only a floating mirage was truth…

Sarah said to herself: "She's lovely-lovely…"

That haunting, lilting voice, always beautiful in tone, but now disciplined and modulated to be the perfect instrument.

Sarah said with decision, as the curtain fell at the end of the act: "Jinny's a great actress-a great-great actress!"

Later, they sat around a supper table at the Savoy.

Ginevra, smiling, remote, turned to the bearded man by her side.

"I was good, wasn't I, Theodore?"

"You were wonderful, cherie."

A happy smile floated on her lips.

She murmured: "You always believed in me-you always knew I could do great things-sway multitudes…"

At a table not far away, the Hamlet of the evening was saying gloomily: "Her mannerisms! Of course people like it just at first but what I say is, it's not Shakespeare. Did you see how she ruined my exit?…"

Nadine, sitting opposite Ginevra, said: "How exciting it is, to be here in London with Jinny acting Ophelia and being so famous!"

Ginevra said softly: "It was nice of you to come over."

"A regular family party," said Nadine, smiling, as she looked around. Then she said to Lennox: "I think the children might go to the matinee, don't you? They're quite old enough, and they do so want to see Aunt Jinny on the stage!"

Lennox, a sane, happy-looking Lennox with humorous eyes, lifted his glass. "To the newly-weds, Mr. and Mrs. Cope!"

Jefferson Cope and Carol acknowledged the toast.

"The unfaithful swain!" said Carol, laughing. "Jeff, you'd better drink to your first love as she's sitting right opposite you."

Raymond said gaily: "Jeff's blushing. He doesn't like being reminded of the old days."

His face clouded suddenly. Sarah touched his hand with hers, and the cloud lifted. He looked at her and grinned.

"Seems just like a bad dream!"

A dapper figure stopped by their table. Hercule Poirot, faultlessly and beautifully appareled, his moustaches proudly twisted, bowed regally.

"Mademoiselle," he said to Ginevra, "mes homages. You were superb!"

They greeted him affectionately, made a place for him beside Sarah. He beamed on them all and when they were all talking, he leaned a little sideways and said softly to Sarah: "Eh bien, it seems that all marches well now with la famille Boynton?"

"Thanks to you." said Sarah.

"He becomes very eminent, your husband. I read today an excellent review of his last book."

"It's really rather good-although I do say it! Did you know that Carol and Jefferson Cope had made a match of it at last? And Lennox and Nadine have got two of the nicest children-cute, Raymond calls them. As for Jinny-well, I rather think Jinny's a genius."

She looked across the table at the lovely face and the red-gold crown of hair, and then she gave a tiny start. For a moment her face was grave. She raised her glass slowly to her lips.