‘For once,’ said Dr Gerard, ‘the good Mamma permits them to enjoy themselves without her. A new devilment on her part, perhaps?’
‘Do you know,’ said Sarah, ‘that’s just what I thought.’
‘What suspicious minds we have. Come, let us join the truants.’
Leaving Miss Pierce to her exciting reading, they set off. Once round the bend of the valley, they caught up the other party who were walking slowly. For once, the Boyntons looked happy and carefree.
Lennox and Nadine, Carol and Raymond, Mr Cope with a broad smile on his face and the last arrivals, Gerard and Sarah, were soon all laughing and talking together.
A sudden wild hilarity was born. In everyone’s mind was the feeling that this was a snatched pleasure—a stolen joy to enjoy to the full. Sarah and Raymond did not draw apart. Instead, Sarah walked with Carol and Lennox. Dr Gerard chatted to Raymond close behind them. Nadine and Jefferson Cope walked a little apart.
It was the Frenchman who broke up the party. His words had been coming spasmodically for some time. Suddenly he stopped.
‘A thousand excuses. I fear I must go back.’
Sarah looked at him. ‘Anything the matter?’
He nodded. ‘Yes, fever. It’s been coming on ever since lunch.’
Sarah scrutinized him. ‘Malaria?’
‘Yes. I’ll go back and take quinine. Hope this won’t be a bad attack. It is a legacy from a visit to the Congo.’
‘Shall I come with you?’ asked Sarah.
‘No, no. I have my case of drugs with me. A confounded nuisance. Go on, all of you.’
He walked quickly back in the direction of the camp.
Sarah looked undecidedly after him for a minute, then she met Raymond’s eyes, smiled at him, and the Frenchman was forgotten.
For a time the six of them, Carol, herself, Lennox, Mr Cope, Nadine and Raymond, kept together.
Then, somehow or other, she and Raymond had drifted apart. They walked on, climbing up rocks, turning ledges, and rested at last in a shady spot.
There was a silence—then Raymond said:
‘What’s your name? It’s King, I know. But your other name.’
‘Sarah.’
‘Sarah. May I call you that?’
‘Of course.’
‘Sarah, will you tell me something about yourself?’
Leaning back against the rocks, she talked, telling him of her life at home in Yorkshire, of her dogs and the aunt who had brought her up.
Then, in his turn, Raymond told her a little, disjointedly, of his own life.
After that there was a long silence. Their hands strayed together. They sat, like children, hand in hand, strangely content.
Then, as the sun grew lower, Raymond stirred.
‘I’m going back now,’ he said. ‘No, not with you. I want to go back by myself. There’s something I have to say and do. Once that’s done, once I’ve proved to myself that I’m not a coward—then—then—I shan’t be ashamed to come to you and ask you to help me. I shall need help, you know, I shall probably have to borrow money from you.’
Sarah smiled.
‘I’m glad you’re a realist. You can count on me.’
‘But first I’ve got to do this alone.’
‘Do what?’
The young boyish face grew suddenly stern. Raymond Boynton said: ‘I’ve got to prove my courage. It’s now or never.’
Then, abruptly, he turned and strode away.
Sarah leant back against the rock and watched his receding figure. Something in his words had vaguely alarmed her. He had seemed so intense—so terribly in earnest and strung up. For a moment she wished she had gone with him…
But she rebuked herself sternly for that wish. Raymond had desired to stand alone, to test his new-found courage. That was his right.
But she prayed with all her heart that that courage would not fail…
The sun was setting when Sarah came once more in sight of the camp. As she came nearer in the dim light she could make out the grim figure of Mrs Boynton still sitting in the mouth of the cave. Sarah shivered a little at the sight of that grim, motionless figure…
She hurried past on the path below and came into the lighted marquee.
Lady Westholme was sitting knitting a navy-blue jumper, a skein of wool hung round her neck. Miss Pierce was embroidering a table-mat with anaemic blue forget-me-nots, and being instructed on the proper reform of the Divorce Laws.
The servants came in and out preparing for the evening meal. The Boyntons were at the far end of the marquee in deck-chairs reading. Mahmoud appeared, fat and dignified, and was plaintively reproachful. Very nice after-tea ramble had been arranged to take place, but everyone absent from camp…The programme was now entirely thrown out…Very instructive visit to Nabataen architecture.
Sarah said hastily that they had all enjoyed themselves very much.
She went off to her tent to wash for supper. On the way back she paused by Dr Gerard’s tent, calling in a low voice: ‘Dr Gerard.’
There was no answer. She lifted the flap and looked in. The doctor was lying motionless on his bed. Sarah withdrew noiselessly, hoping he was asleep.
A servant came to her and pointed to the marquee. Evidently supper was ready. She strolled down again. Everyone else was assembled there round the table with the exception of Dr Gerard and Mrs Boynton. A servant was dispatched to tell the old lady dinner was ready. Then there was a sudden commotion outside. Two frightened servants rushed in and spoke excitedly to the dragoman in Arabic.
Mahmoud looked round him in a flustered manner and went outside. On an impulse Sarah joined him.
‘What’s the matter?’ she asked.
Mahmoud replied: ‘The old lady. Abdul says she is ill—cannot move.’
‘I’ll come and see.’
Sarah quickened her step. Following Mahmoud, she climbed the rock and walked along until she came to the squat figure in the chair, touched the puffy hand, felt for the pulse, bent over her…
When she straightened herself she was paler.
She retraced her steps back to the marquee. In the doorway she paused a minute looking at the group at the far end of the table. Her voice when she spoke sounded to herself brusque and unnatural.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. She forced herself to address the head of the family, Lennox. ‘Your mother is dead, Mr Boynton.’
And curiously, as though from a great distance, she watched the faces of five people to whom that announcement meant freedom…
Part II
Chapter 1
Colonel Carbury smiled across the table at his guest and raised his glass. ‘Well, here’s to crime!’
Hercule Poirot’s eyes twinkled in acknowledgement of the aptness of the toast.
He had come to Amman with a letter of introduction to Colonel Carbury from Colonel Race.
Carbury had been interested to see this world-famous person to whose gifts his old friend and ally in the Intelligence had paid such unstinting tribute.
‘As neat a bit of psychological deduction as you’ll ever find!’ Race had written of the solution of the Shaitana murder.
‘We must show you all we can of the neighbourhood,’ said Carbury, twisting a somewhat ragged brindled moustache. He was an untidy stocky man of medium height with a semibald head and vague, mild, blue eyes. He did not look in the least like a soldier. He did not look even particularly alert. He was not in the least one’s idea of a disciplinarian. Yet in Transjordania he was a power.
‘There’s Jerash,’ he said. ‘Care about that sort of thing?’
‘I am interested in everything!’
‘Yes,’ said Carbury. ‘That’s the only way to react to life.’ He paused.
‘Tell me, d’you ever find your own special job has a way of following you round?’
‘Pardon?’
‘Well—to put it plainly—do you come to places expecting a holiday from crime—and find instead bodies cropping up?’
&n
bsp; ‘It has happened, yes; more than once.’
‘H’m,’ said Colonel Carbury and looked particularly abstracted.
Then he roused himself with a jerk. ‘Got a body now I’m not very happy about,’ he said.
‘Indeed?’
‘Yes. Here in Amman. Old American woman. Went to Petra with her family. Trying journey, unusual heat for time of year, old woman suffered from heart trouble, difficulties of the journey a bit harder for her than she imagined, extra strain on heart—she popped off!’
‘Here—in Amman?’
‘No, down at Petra. They brought the body here today.’
‘Ah!’
‘All quite natural. Perfectly possible. Likeliest thing in the world to happen. Only—’
‘Yes? Only—?’
Colonel Carbury scratched his bald head.
‘I’ve got the idea,’ he said, ‘that her family did her in!’
‘Aha! And what makes you think that?’
Colonel Carbury did not reply to that question directly.
‘Unpleasant old woman, it seems. No loss. General feeling all round that her popping off was a good thing. Anyway, very difficult to prove anything so long as the family stick together and if necessary lie like hell. One doesn’t want complications—or international unpleasantness. Easiest thing to do—let it go! Nothing really to go upon. Knew a doctor chap once. He told me—often had suspicions in cases of his patients—hurried into the next world a little ahead of time! He said—best thing to do to keep quiet unless you really had something damned good to go upon! Otherwise beastly stink, case not proved, black mark against an earnest hard-working G.P. Something in that. All the same—’ He scratched his head again. ‘I’m a tidy man,’ he said unexpectedly.
Colonel Carbury’s tie was under his left ear, his socks were wrinkled, his coat stained and torn. Yet Hercule Poirot did not smile. He saw, clearly enough, the inner neatness of Colonel Carbury’s mind, his neatly docketed facts, his carefully sorted impressions.
‘Yes. I’m a tidy man,’ said Carbury. He waved a vague hand. ‘Don’t like a mess. When I come across a mess I want to clear it up. See?’
Hercule Poirot nodded gravely. He saw.
‘There was no doctor down there?’ he asked.
‘Yes, two. One of ’em was down with malaria, though. The other’s a girl—just out of the medical student stage. Still, she knows her job, I suppose. There wasn’t anything odd about the death. Old woman had got a dicky heart. She’d been taking heart medicine for some time. Nothing really surprising about her conking out suddenly like she did.’
‘Then what, my friend, is worrying you?’ asked Poirot gently.
Colonel Carbury turned a harassed blue eye on him.
‘Heard of a Frenchman called Gerard? Theodore Gerard?’
‘Certainly. A very distinguished man in his own line.’
‘Loony bins,’ confirmed Colonel Carbury. ‘Passion for a charwoman at the age of four makes you insist you’re the Archbishop of Canterbury when you’re thirty-eight. Can’t see why and never have, but these chaps explain it very convincingly.’
‘Dr Gerard is certainly an authority on certain forms of deep-seated neurosis,’ agreed Poirot, with a smile. ‘Is—er—are—er—his views on the happening at Petra based on that line of argument?’
Colonel Carbury shook his head vigorously.
‘No, no. Shouldn’t have worried about them if they had been! Not, mind you, that I don’t believe it’s all true. It’s just one of those things I don’t understand—like one of my Bedouin fellows who can get out of a car in the middle of a flat desert, feel the ground with his hand and tell you to within a mile or two where you are. It isn’t magic, but it looks like it. No, Dr Gerard’s story is quite straightforward. Just plain facts. I think, if you’re interested—you are interested?’
‘Yes, yes.’
‘Good man. Then I think I’ll just phone over and get Gerard along here, and you can hear his story for yourself.’
When the Colonel had dispatched an orderly on this quest, Poirot said:
‘Of what does this family consist?’
‘Name’s Boynton. There are two sons, one of ’em married. His wife’s a nice-looking girl—the quiet, sensible kind. And there are two daughters. Both of ’em quite good-looking in totally different styles. Younger one a bit nervy—but that may be just shock.’
‘Boynton,’ said Poirot. His eyebrows rose. ‘That is curious—very curious.’
Carbury cocked an inquiring eye at him. But as Poirot said nothing more, he himself went on:
‘Seems pretty obvious Mother was a pest! Had to be waited on hand and foot and kept the whole lot of them dancing attendance. And she held the purse strings. None of them had a penny of their own.’
‘Aha! All very interesting. Is it known how she left her money?’
‘I did just slip that question in—casual like, you know. It gets divided equally between the lot of them.’
Poirot nodded his head. Then he asked:
‘You are of the opinion that they are all in it?’
‘Don’t know. That’s where the difficulty’s going to lie. Whether it was a concerted effort, or whether it was one bright member’s idea—I don’t know. Maybe the whole thing’s a mare’s nest! What it comes to is this: I’d like to have your professional opinion. Ah, here comes Gerard.’
Chapter 2
The Frenchman came in with a quick yet unhurried tread. As he shook hands with Colonel Carbury he shot a keen, interested glance at Poirot. Carbury said:
‘This is M. Hercule Poirot. Staying with me. Been talking to him about this business down at Petra.’
‘Ah, yes?’ Gerard’s quick eyes looked Poirot up and down. ‘You are interested?’
Hercule Poirot threw up his hands.
‘Alas! one is always incurably interested in one’s own subject.’
‘True,’ said Gerard.
‘Have a drink?’ said Carbury.
He poured out a whisky and soda and placed it by Gerard’s elbow. He held up the decanter inquiringly, but Poirot shook his head. Colonel Carbury set it down again and drew his chair a little nearer.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘where are we?’
‘I gather,’ said Poirot to Gerard, ‘that Colonel Carbury is not satisfied.’
Gerard made an expressive gesture.
‘And that,’ he said, ‘is my fault! And I may be wrong. Remember that, Colonel Carbury, I may be entirely wrong.’
Carbury gave a grunt.
‘Give Poirot the facts,’ he said.
Dr Gerard began by a brief recapitulation of the events preceding the journey to Petra. He gave a short sketch of the various members of the Boynton family and described the condition of emotional strain under which they were labouring.
Poirot listened with interest.
Then Gerard proceeded to the actual events of their first day at Petra, describing how he had returned to the camp.
‘I was in for a bad bout of malaria—cerebral type,’ he explained. ‘For that I proposed to treat myself by an intravenous injection of quinine. That is the usual method.’
Poirot nodded his comprehension.
‘The fever was on me badly. I fairly staggered into my tent. I could not at first find my case of drugs, someone had moved it from where I had originally placed it. Then, when I had found that, I could not find my hypodermic syringe. I hunted for it for some time, then gave it up and took a large dose of quinine by the mouth and flung myself on my bed.’
Gerard paused, then went on:
‘Mrs Boynton’s death was not discovered until after sunset. Owing to the way in which she was sitting and the support the chair gave to her body, no change occurred in her position and it was not until one of the boys went to summon her to dinner at six-thirty that it was noticed that anything was wrong.’
He explained in full detail the position of the cave and its distance away from the big marquee.
‘Miss King, who
is a qualified doctor, examined the body. She did not disturb me, knowing that I had fever. There was, indeed, nothing that could be done. Mrs Boynton was dead—and had been dead for some little time.’
Poirot murmured: ‘How long exactly?’
Gerard said slowly:
‘I do not think that Miss King gave much attention to that point. She did not, I presume, think it of any importance.’
‘One can say, at least, when she was last definitely known to be alive?’ said Poirot.
Colonel Carbury cleared his throat and referred to an official-looking document.
‘Mrs Boynton was spoken to by Lady Westholme and Miss Pierce shortly after 4 p.m. Lennox Boynton spoke to his mother about four-thirty. Mrs Lennox Boynton had a long conversation with her about five minutes later. Carol Boynton had a word with her mother at a time she is unable to state precisely—but which from the evidence of others would seem to have been about ten minutes past five.
‘Jefferson Cope, an American friend of the family, returning to the camp with Lady Westholme and Miss Pierce, saw her asleep. He did not speak to her. That was about twenty to six. Raymond Boynton, the younger son, seems to have been the last person to see her alive. On his return from a walk he went and spoke to her at about ten minutes to six. The discovery of the body was made at six-thirty when a servant went to tell her dinner was ready.’
‘Between the time that Mr Raymond Boynton spoke to her and half-past six did no one go near her?’ asked Poirot.
‘I understand not.’
‘But someone might have done so?’ Poirot persisted.
‘I don’t think so. From close on six onwards servants were moving about the camp, people were going to and from their tents. No one can be found who saw anyone approaching the old lady.’
‘Then Raymond Boynton was definitely the last person to see his mother alive?’ said Poirot.
Dr Gerard and Colonel Carbury interchanged a quick glance. Colonel Carbury drummed on the table with his fingers.
‘This is where we begin to get into deep waters,’ he said. ‘Go on, Gerard. This is your pigeon.’