Appointment With Death

by Agatha Christie

  ‘Doesn’t seem to,’ said Colonel Carbury gruffly.

  ‘There is one more possibility,’ said Poirot. ‘Mrs Lennox Boynton just now negatived strongly the possibility of her young sister-in-law being guilty. The force of her objection lay in the fact that she knew her mother-in-law to be dead at the time. But remember this, Ginevra Boynton was at the camp all the afternoon. And there was a moment—a moment when Lady Westholme and Miss Pierce were walking away from the camp and before Dr Gerard had returned to it…’

  Ginevra stirred. She leaned forward, staring into Poirot’s face with a strange, innocent, puzzled stare.

  ‘I did it? You think I did it?’

  Then suddenly, with a movement of swift incomparable beauty, she was up from her chair and had flung herself across the room and down on her knees beside Dr Gerard, clinging to him, gazing up passionately into his face.

  ‘No, no, don’t let them say it! They’re making the walls close round 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 entièrement de votre avis,’ he said smoothly.

  Chapter 18

  ‘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 this 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, mesdames 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 that they left on her mind that I think 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 into her hands!

  ‘We are back, you see, at 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 go 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 stated 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 was 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 Col
onel 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-coloured coat, made herself an Arab head-dress 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.

  ‘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. 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 Pierce’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 round, 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…’

  Epilogue

  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 travelling 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:

  How should I your true love know

  From another one?

  By his cockle hat and staff,

  And his sandal shoon.

  He is dead and gone, lady,

  He is dead and gone;

  At his head a grass-green turf;

  At his heels a stone.

  O, ho!

  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…’

  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 round 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, chérie.’

  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 round. Then she said to Lennox: ‘I think the children might go to the matinée, 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 apparelled, his moustaches proudly twisted, bowed regally.

  ‘Mademoiselle,’ he said to Ginevra, ‘mes hommages. You were superb!’

  They greeted him affectionately, made a place for him beside Sarah.

  He beamed round 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 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.

  ‘You drink a toast, madame?’ asked Poirot.

  Sarah said slowly:

  ‘I thought—suddenly—of Her. Looking at Jinny, I saw—for the first time—the likeness. The same thing—only Jinny is in light—where She was in darkness…’

  And from opposite, Ginevra said unexpectedly:

  ‘Poor Mother…She was queer…Now—that we’re all so happy—I feel kind of sorry for her. She didn’t get what she wanted out of life. It must have been tough for her.’

  Almost without a pause, her voice quivered softly into the lines from Cymbeline while the others listened spell-bound to the music of them:

  ‘Fear no more the heat o’ the sun,

  Nor the furious winter’s rages;

  Thou the worldly task hast done,

  Home art gone, and ta’en thy wages…’

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