Agatha Christie: Appointment with Death

"You do see, don't you, that she's got to be killed?"

The question floated out into the still night air, seemed to hang there a moment and then drift away down into the darkness towards the Dead Sea.

Hercule Poirot paused a minute with his hand on the window catch. Frowning, he shut it decisively, thereby excluding any injurious night air! Hercule Poirot had been brought up to believe that all outside air was best left outside, and that night air was especially dangerous to the health.

As he pulled the curtains neatly over the window and walked to his bed, he smiled tolerantly to himself. "You do see, don't you, that she's got to be killed?" Curious words for one Hercule Poirot, detective, to overhear on his first night in Jerusalem.

"Decidedly, wherever I go, there is something to remind me of crime!" he murmured to himself. His smile continued as he remembered a story he had once heard concerning Anthony Trollope, the novelist.

Trollope was crossing the Atlantic at the time and had overheard two fellow passengers discussing the last published installment of one of his novels.

"Very good," one man had declared. "But he ought to kill off that tiresome old woman."

With a broad smile the novelist had addressed them: "Gentlemen, I am much obliged to you! I will go and kill her immediately!"

Hercule Poirot wondered what had occasioned the words he had just overheard. A collaboration, perhaps, over a play or a book. He thought, still smiling: "Those words might be remembered one day, and be given a more sinister meaning."

There had been, he now recollected, a curious nervous intensity in the voice-a tremor that spoke of some intense emotional strain. A man's voice-or a boy's…

Hercule Poirot thought to himself as he turned out the light by his bed: "I should know that voice again…"

Their elbows on the windowsill, their heads close together, Raymond and Carol Boynton gazed out into the blue depths of the night. Nervously, Raymond repeated his former words: "You do see, don't you, that she's got to be killed?"

Carol Boynton stirred slightly. She said, her voice deep and hoarse: "It's horrible…"

"It's not more horrible than this!"

"I suppose not…"

Raymond said violently: "It can't go on like this-it can't… We must do something… And there isn't anything else we can do…" Carol said-but her voice was unconvincing and she knew it: "If we could get away somehow…?"

"We can't." His voice was empty and hopeless. "Carol, you know we can't…"

The girl shivered.

"I know Ray- I know."

He gave a sudden short bitter laugh. "People would say we were crazy-not to be able just to walk out-"

Carol said slowly: "Perhaps we are crazy!"

"I daresay. Yes, I daresay we are. Anyway we soon shall be… I suppose some people would say we are already. Here we are calmly planning, in cold blood, to kill our own mother!"

Carol said sharply: "She isn't our own mother!"

"No, that's true."

There was a pause and then Raymond said, his voice now quietly matter-of-fact: "You do agree, Carol?"

Carol answered steadily: "I think she ought to die-yes…" Then she broke out suddenly: "She's mad… I'm quite sure she's mad… She-she couldn't torture us like she does if she were sane. For years we've been saying: 'This can't go on!' And it has gone on! We've said, 'She'll die sometime'-but she hasn't died! I don't think she ever will die unless-"

Raymond said steadily: "Unless we kill her…"

"Yes."

She clenched her hands on the windowsill in front of her.

Her brother went on in a cool matter-of-fact tone, with just a slight tremor denoting his deep underlying excitement: "You see why it's got to be one of us, don't you? With Lennox, there's Nadine to consider. And we couldn't bring Jinny into it."

Carol shivered. "Poor Jinny… I'm so afraid…"

"I know. It's getting pretty bad, isn't it? That's why something's got to be done quickly-before she goes right over the edge."

Carol stood up suddenly, pushing back the tumbled chestnut hair from her forehead. "Ray," she said. "You don't think it's really wrong, do you?"

He answered in that same would-be dispassionate tone: "No. I think it's just like killing a mad dog-something that's doing harm in the world and must be stopped. This is the only way of stopping it."

Carol murmured: "But they'd-they'd send us to the chair just the same… I mean we couldn't explain what she's like… It would sound fantastic… In a way, you know, it's all in our own minds!"

Raymond said: "Nobody will ever know. I've got a plan. I've thought it all out. We shall be quite safe."

Carol turned suddenly round on him. "Ray-somehow or other-you're different. Something's happened to you… What's put all this into your head?"

"Why should you think anything's 'happened' to me?" He turned his head away, staring out into the night.

"Because it has… Ray, was it that girl on the train?"

"No, of course not-why should it be? Oh, Carol, don't talk nonsense. Let's get back again to-to-"

"To your plan? Are you sure it's a good plan?"

"Yes. I think so… We must wait for the right opportunity, of course. And then-if it goes all right-we shall be free-all of us."

"Free?" Carol gave a little sigh. She looked up at the stars. Then suddenly she shook from head to foot in a sudden storm of weeping.

"Carol, what's the matter?"

She sobbed out brokenly: "It's so lovely-the night and the blueness and the stars. If only we could be part of it all… If only we could be like other people instead of being as we are-all queer and warped and wrong."

"But we shall be all right when she's dead!"

"Are you sure? Isn't it too late? Shan't we always be queer and different?"

"No, no, no."

"I wonder-"

"Carol, if you'd rather not-"

She pushed his comforting arm aside. "No, I'm with you-definitely I'm with you! Because of the others-especially Jinny. We must save Jinny!"

Raymond paused a moment. "Then-we'll go on with it?"

"Yes!"

"Good. I'll tell you my plan…"

He bent his head to hers.

Miss Sarah King, M.B., stood by the table in the writing-room of the Solomon Hotel in Jerusalem idly turning over the papers and magazines. A frown contracted her brows and she looked preoccupied.

The tall, middle-aged Frenchman who entered the room from the hall watched her for a moment or two before strolling up to the opposite side of the table. When their eyes met, Sarah made a little gesture of smiling recognition.

She remembered that this man had come to her help when traveling from Cairo and had carried one of her suitcases at a moment when no porter appeared to be available.

"You like Jerusalem, yes?" asked Dr. Gerard, after they had exchanged greetings.

"It's rather terrible in some ways," said Sarah, and added: "Religion is very odd!"

The Frenchman looked amused. "I know what you mean." His English was very nearly perfect. "Every imaginable sect squabbling and fighting!"

"And the awful things they've built, too!" Said Sarah.

"Yes, indeed."

Sarah sighed. "They turned me out of one place today because I had on a sleeveless dress," she said ruefully. "Apparently the Almighty doesn't like my arms in spite of having made them."

Dr. Gerard laughed. Then he said: "I was about to order some coffee. You will join me, Miss-?"

"King, my name is. Sarah King."

"And mine-permit me." He whipped out a card.

Taking it, Sarah's eyes widened in delighted awe. "Dr. Theodore Gerard? Oh! I am excited to meet you. I've read all your works, of course. Your views on schizophrenia are frightfully interesting."