Agatha Christie: Appointment with Death

Sarah caught her by the arm as she was darting off. "One minute. We must meet again and talk."

"I can't. I shan't be able to."

"Yes, you can." She spoke authoritatively. "Come to my room after you go to bed. It's 319. Don't forget; 319." She released her hold. Carol ran off after her family.

Sarah stood staring after her. She awoke from her thoughts to find Dr. Gerard by her side.

"Good morning, Miss King. So you've been talking to Miss Carol Boynton?"

"Yes, we had the most extraordinary conversation. Let me tell you."

She repeated the substance of her conversation with the girl.

Gerard pounced on one point. "Wardress in a prison, was she, that old hippopotamus? That is significant, perhaps."

Sarah said: "You mean that that is the cause of her tyranny? It is the habit of her former profession?"

Gerard shook his head. "No, that is approaching it from the wrong angle. There is some deep underlying compulsion. She does not love tyranny because she has been a wardress. Let us rather say that she became a wardress because she loved tyranny. In my theory it was a secret desire for power over other human beings that led her to adopt that profession."

His face was very grave. "There are such strange things buried down in the unconscious. A lust for power-a lust for cruelty-a savage desire to tear and rend-all the inheritance of our past racial memories… They are all there, Miss King, all the cruelty and savagery and lust… We shut the door on them and deny them conscious life, but sometimes they are too strong."

Sarah shivered. "I know."

Gerard continued: "We see it all around us today-in political creeds, in the conduct of nations. A reaction from humanitarianism, from pity, from brotherly good will. The creeds sound well sometimes, a wise regime, a beneficent government-but imposed by force-resting on a basis of cruelty and fear. They are opening the door, these apostles of violence, they are letting out the old savagery, the old delight in cruelty for its own sake! Oh, it is difficult. Man is an animal very delicately balanced. He has one prime necessity-to survive. To advance too quickly is as fatal as to lag behind. He must survive! He must, perhaps, retain some of the old savagery, but he must not-no, definitely he must not-deify it!"

There was a pause. Then Sarah said: "You think old Mrs. Boynton is a kind of Sadist?"

"I am almost sure of it. I think she rejoices in the infliction of pain-mental pain, mind you, not physical. That is very much rarer and very much more difficult to deal with. She likes to have control of other human beings and she likes to make them suffer."

"It's pretty beastly," said Sarah.

Gerard told her of his conversation with Jefferson Cope.

"He doesn't realize what is going on?" she said thoughtfully.

"How should he? He is not a psychologist."

"True. He hasn't got our disgusting minds!"

"Exactly. He has a nice, upright, sentimental, normal American mind. He believes in good rather than evil. He sees that the atmosphere of the Boynton family is all wrong, but he credits Mrs. Boynton with misguided devotion rather than active maleficence."

"That must amuse her," said Sarah.

"I should imagine it does!"

Sarah said impatiently: "But why don't they break away? They could."

Gerard shook his head. "No, there you are wrong. They cannot. Have you ever seen the old experiment with a cock? You chalk a line on the floor and put the cock's beak to it. The cock believes he is tied there. He cannot raise his head. So with these unfortunates. She has worked on them, remember, since they were children. And her dominance has been mental. She has hypnotized them to believe that they cannot disobey her. Oh, I know most people would say that was nonsense-but you and I know better. She has made them believe that utter dependence on her is inevitable. They have been in prison so long that if the prison door stood open they would no longer notice! One of them, at least, no longer even wants to be free! And they would all be afraid of freedom."

Sarah asked practically: "What will happen when she dies?"

Gerard shrugged his shoulders. "It depends on how soon that happens. If it happened, well, I think it might not be too late. The boy and the girl are still young-impressionable. They would become, I believe, normal human beings. With Lennox, possibly, it has gone too far. He looks to me like a man who has parted company with hope-he lives and endures like a brute beast."

Sarah said impatiently: "His wife ought to have done something! She ought to have yanked him out of it."

"I wonder. She may have tried-and failed."

"Do you think she's under the spell too?"

Gerard shook his head. "No. I don't think the old lady has any power over her, and for that reason she hates her with a bitter hatred. Watch her eyes."

Sarah frowned. "I can't make her out-the young one, I mean. Does she know what is going on?"

"I think she must have a pretty shrewd idea."

"Hm," said Sarah. "That old woman ought to be murdered! Arsenic in her early morning tea would be my prescription."

Then she said abruptly: "What about the youngest girl-the red-haired one with the rather fascinating vacant smile?"

Gerard frowned. "I don't know. There is something queer there. Ginevra Boynton is the old woman's own daughter, of course."

"Yes. I suppose that would be different-or wouldn't it?"

Gerard said slowly: "I do not believe that when once the mania for power (and the lust for cruelty) has taken possession of a human being that it can spare anybody-not even its nearest and dearest."

He was silent for a moment then he said: "Are you a Christian, Mademoiselle?"

Sarah said slowly: "I don't know. I used to think that I wasn't anything. But now-I'm not sure. I feel-oh, I feel that if I could sweep all this away-" she made a violent gesture, "-all the buildings and the sects and the fierce squabbling churches-that-that I might see Christ's quiet figure riding into Jerusalem on a donkey-and believe in him."

Dr. Gerard said gravely: "I believe at least in one of the chief tenets of the Christian faith-contentment with a lowly place. I am a doctor and I know that ambition-the desire to succeed-to have power-leads to most ills of the human soul. If the desire is realized it leads to arrogance, violence and final satiety; and if it is denied-ah! If it is denied let all the asylums for the insane rise up and give their testimony! They are filled with human beings who were unable to face being mediocre, insignificant, ineffective and who therefore created for themselves ways of escape from reality so to be shut off from life itself forever."

Sarah said abruptly: "It's a pity the old Boynton woman isn't in an asylum."

Gerard shook his head. "No-her place is not there among the failures. It is worse than that. She has succeeded, you see! She has accomplished her dream."

Sarah shuddered.

She cried passionately: "Such things ought not to be!"

Sarah wondered very much whether Carol Boynton would keep her appointment that night. On the whole, she rather doubted it. She was afraid that Carol would have a sharp reaction after her semi-confidences of the morning.

Nevertheless, she made her preparations, slipping on a blue satin dressing gown and getting out her little spirit lamp and boiling up water. She was just on the point of giving Carol up (it was after one o'clock) and going to bed, when there was a tap on her door. She opened it and drew quickly back to let Carol come in.

The latter said breathlessly: "I was afraid you might have gone to bed…"

Sarah's manner was carefully matter-of-fact. "Oh, no. I was waiting for you. Have some tea, will you? It's real Lapsang Souchong."

She brought over a cup. Carol had been nervous and uncertain of herself. Now she accepted the cup and a biscuit and her manner became calmer.