Appointment with Death (14 page)

‘My preparations are complete,' said Hercule Poirot.

With a little sigh he stepped back a pace or two and contemplated his arrangement of one of the unoccupied hotel bedrooms.

Colonel Carbury, leaning inelegantly against the bed which had been pushed against the wall, smiled as he puffed at his pipe. ‘Funny feller, aren't you, Poirot?' he said. ‘Like to dramatize things.'

‘Perhaps—that is true,' admitted the little detective. ‘But indeed it is not all self-indulgence. If one plays a comedy, one must first set the scene.'

‘Is this a comedy?'

‘Even if it is a tragedy—there, too, the
décor
must be correct.'

Colonel Carbury looked at him curiously.

‘Well,' he said, ‘it's up to you! I don't know what you're driving at. I gather, though, that you've
got
something.'

‘I shall have the honour to present to you what you asked me for—the truth!'

‘Do you think we can get a conviction?'

‘That, my friend, I did not promise you.'

‘True enough. Maybe I'm glad you haven't. It depends.'

‘My arguments are mainly psychological,' said Poirot.

Colonel Carbury sighed. ‘I was afraid they might be.'

‘But they will convince you,' Poirot reassured him. ‘Oh, yes, they will convince you. The truth, I have always thought, is curious and beautiful.'

‘Sometimes,' said Colonel Carbury, ‘it's damned unpleasant.'

‘No, no.' Poirot was earnest. ‘You take there the personal view. Take instead the abstract, the detached point of vision. Then the absolute logic of events is fascinating and orderly.'

‘I'll try to look on it that way,' said the Colonel.

Poirot glanced at his watch, a large grotesque turnip of a watch.

‘But yes, indeed, it belonged to my grandfather.'

‘Thought it might have done.'

‘It is time to commence our proceedings,' said Poirot. ‘You,
mon Colonel
, will sit here behind this table in an official position.'

‘Oh, all right,' Carbury grunted. ‘You don't want me to put my uniform on, do you?'

‘No, no. If you would permit that I straightened your tie.' He suited the action to the word. Colonel Carbury grinned again, sat down in the chair indicated and a moment later, unconsciously, tweaked his tie round under his left ear again.

‘Here,' continued Poirot, slightly altering the position of the chairs, ‘we place
la famille Boynton
.

‘And over here,' he went on, ‘we will place the three outsiders who have a definite stake in the case. Dr Gerard, on whose evidence the case for the prosecution depends. Miss Sarah King, who has two separate interests in the case, a personal one, and that of medical examiner. Also Mr Jefferson Cope, who was on intimate terms with the Boyntons and so may be definitely described as an interested party.'

He broke off. ‘Aha—here they come.'

He opened the door to admit the party.

Lennox Boynton and his wife came in first. Raymond and Carol followed. Ginevra walked by herself, a faint, faraway smile on her lips. Dr Gerard and Sarah King brought up the rear. Mr Jefferson Cope was a few minutes late and came in with an apology.

When he had taken his place Poirot stepped forward.

‘Ladies and gentlemen,' he said, ‘this is an entirely informal gathering. It has come about through the accident of my presence in Amman. Colonel Carbury did me the honour to consult me—'

Poirot was interrupted. The interruption came from what was seemingly the most unlikely quarter. Lennox Boynton said suddenly and pugnaciously:

‘Why? Why the devil should he bring you into this business?'

Poirot waved a hand gracefully.

‘Me, I am often called in in cases of sudden death.'

Lennox Boynton said: ‘Doctors send for you whenever there is a case of heart failure?'

Poirot said gently: ‘Heart failure is such a very loose and unscientific term.'

Colonel Carbury cleared his throat. It was an official noise. He spoke in an official tone.

‘Best to make it quite clear. Circumstance of death reported to me. Very natural occurrence. Weather unusually hot—journey a very trying one for an elderly lady in bad health. So far all quite clear. But Dr Gerard came to me and volunteered a statement—'

He looked inquiringly at Poirot. Poirot nodded.

‘Dr Gerard is a very eminent physician with a worldwide reputation. Any statement he makes is bound to be received with attention. Dr Gerard's statement was as follows. On the morning after Mrs Boynton's death he noted that a certain quantity of a powerful drug acting on the heart was missing from his medical supplies. On the previous afternoon he had noticed the disappearance of a hypodermic syringe. Syringe was
returned during the night. Final point—there was a puncture on the dead woman's wrist corresponding to the mark of a hypodermic syringe.'

Colonel Carbury paused.

‘In these circumstances I considered that it was the duty of those in authority to inquire into the matter. M. Hercule Poirot was my guest and very considerately offered his highly specialized services. I gave him full authority to make any investigations he pleased. We are assembled here now to hear his report on the matter.'

There was silence—a silence so acute that you could have heard—as the saying is—a pin drop. Actually someone did drop what was probably a shoe in the next room. It sounded like a bomb in the hushed atmosphere.

Poirot cast a quick glance at the little group of three people on his right, then turned his gaze to the five people huddled together on his left—a group of people with frightened eyes.

Poirot said quietly: ‘When Colonel Carbury mentioned this business to me, I gave him my opinion as an expert. I told him that it might not be possible to bring proof—such proof as would be admissible in a court of law—but I told him very definitely that I was sure I could arrive at the truth—simply by questioning the people concerned. For let me tell you this, my friends, to investigate a crime it is only necessary to let the guilty
party or parties
talk
—always, in the end, they tell you what you want to know!' He paused.

‘So, in this case, although you have lied to me, you have also, unwittingly, told me the truth.'

He heard a faint sigh, the scrape of a chair on the floor to his right, but he did not look round. He continued to look at the Boyntons.

‘First, I examined the possibility of Mrs Boynton having died a natural death—and I decided against it. The missing drug—the hypodermic syringe—and above all, the attitude of the dead lady's family all convinced me that that supposition could not be entertained.

‘Not only was Mrs Boynton killed in cold blood—but every member of her family was aware of the fact! Collectively they reacted as guilty parties.

‘But there are degrees in guilt. I examined the evidence carefully with a view to ascertaining whether the murder—yes, it was
murder
—had been committed by the old lady's family
acting on a concerted plan
.

‘There was, I may say, overwhelming motive. One and all stood to gain by her death—both in the financial sense—for they would at once attain financial independence and indeed enjoy very considerable wealth—and also in the sense of being freed from what had become an almost insupportable tyranny.

‘To continue: I decided, almost immediately, that
the concerted theory would not hold water. The stories of the Boynton family did not dovetail neatly into each other, and no system of workable alibis had been arranged. The facts seemed more to suggest that one—or possibly two—members of the family had acted in collusion and that the others were accessories after the fact. I next considered which particular member or members—were indicated. Here, I may say, I was inclined to be biased by a certain piece of evidence known only to myself.'

Here Poirot recounted his experience in Jerusalem.

‘Naturally, that pointed very strongly to Mr Raymond Boynton as the prime mover in the affair. Studying the family, I came to the conclusion that the most likely recipient of his confidences that night would be his sister Carol. They strongly resembled each other in appearance and temperament, and so would have a keen bond of sympathy and they also possessed the nervous rebellious temperament necessary for the conception of such an act. That their motive was partly unselfish—to free the whole family and particularly their younger sister—only made the planning of the deed more plausible.' Poirot paused a minute.

Raymond Boynton half opened his lips, then shut them again. His eyes looked steadily at Poirot with a kind of dumb agony in them.

‘Before I go into the case against Raymond Boynton,
I would like to read to you a list of significant points which I drew up and submitted to Colonel Carbury this afternoon.

1. Mrs Boynton was taking a mixture containing digitalin.
   
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 is a mental sadist.
   
6. The distance from the marquee to the place where Mrs Boynton was sitting is (roughly) two hundred yards.
   
7. 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 wrist-watch to the right time.
   
8. Dr Gerard and Miss Genevra Boynton occupied tents next door to each other.
   
9. At half-past six, when dinner was ready, a servant was dispatched to announce the fact to Mrs Boynton.
   
10. Mrs Boynton, in Jerusalem, used these words: “I never forget. Remember that. I've never forgotten anything.”
    

‘Although I have numbered the points separately,
occasionally they can be bracketed in pairs. That is the case, for instance, with the first two.
Mrs Boynton taking a mixture containing digitalis. Dr Gerard had missed a hypodermic syringe
. Those two points were the first thing that struck me about the case, and I may say to you that I found them most extraordinary—and quite irreconcilable. You do not see what I mean? No matter. I will return to the point presently. Let it suffice that I noticed those two points as something that had definitely got to be explained satisfactorily.

‘I will conclude now with my study of the possibility of Raymond Boynton's guilt. The following are the facts. He had been heard to discuss the possibility of taking Mrs Boynton's life. He was in a condition of great nervous excitement. He had—mademoiselle will forgive me'—he bowed apologetically to Sarah—‘just passed through a moment of great emotional crisis. That is, he had fallen in love. The exaltation of his feelings might lead him to act in one of several ways. He might feel mellowed and softened towards the world in general, including his stepmother—he might feel the courage at last to defy her and shake off her influence—or he might find just the additional spur to turn his crime from theory to practice. That is the psychology! Let us now examine the
facts
.

‘Raymond Boynton left the camp with the others about three-fifteen. Mrs Boynton was then alive and
well. Before long Raymond and Sarah King had a
tête-à-tête
interview. Then he left her. According to him, he returned to the camp at ten minutes to six. He went up to his mother, exchanged a few words with her, then went to his tent and afterwards down to the marquee. He says that at ten minutes to six,
Mrs Boynton was alive and well
.

‘But we now come to a fact which directly contradicts that statement. At half-past six Mrs Boynton's death was discovered by a servant. Miss King, who holds a medical degree, examined her body and she swears definitely that at that time, though she did not pay any special attention to the time when death had occurred, it had
most certainly and decisively
taken place at least an hour (and probably
a good deal more
) before six o'clock.

‘We have here, you see, two conflicting statements. Setting aside the possibility that Miss King may have made a mistake—'

Sarah interrupted him. ‘I don't make mistakes. That is, if I had, I would admit to it.'

Her tone was hard and clear.

Poirot bowed to her politely.

‘Then there are only two possibilities—either Miss King or Mr Boynton is lying! Let us examine Raymond Boynton's reasons for so doing. Let us assume that Miss King was
not
mistaken and
not
deliberately lying.
What, then, was the sequence of events? Raymond Boynton returns to the camp, sees his mother sitting at the mouth of her cave, goes up to her and finds she is dead. What does he do? Does he call for help? Does he immediately inform the camp of what has happened? No, he waits a minute or two, then passes on to his tent and joins his family in the marquee and
says nothing
. Such conduct is exceedingly curious, is it not?'

Raymond said in a nervous, sharp voice:

‘It would be idiotic, of course. That ought to show you that my mother was alive and well as I've said. Miss King was flustered and upset and made a mistake.'

‘One asks oneself,' said Poirot, calmly sweeping on, ‘whether there could possibly be a reason for such conduct? It seems, on the face of it, that Raymond Boynton
cannot be guilty
, since at the only time he was known to approach his stepmother that afternoon
she had already been dead for some time
. Now, supposing, therefore, that Raymond Boynton is
innocent
, can we explain his conduct?

‘And I say, that on the assumption that he is innocent, we can! For I remember that fragment of conversation I overheard. “
You do see, don't you, that she's got to be killed?
” He comes back from his walk and finds her dead and at once his guilty memory envisages a certain possibility. The plan has been carried out—not by him—but by his fellow planner.
Tout simplement
—he
suspects that his sister, Carol Boynton, is guilty.'