He turned a little in his chair. "We now come to Miss King. Miss King had a certain amount of motive and she had the necessary medical knowledge and is a person of character and determination, but since she left the camp before three-thirty with the others and did not return to it until six o'clock, it seems difficult to see where she could have had an opportunity."
"Next we must consider Dr. Gerard. Now, here we must take into account the actual time that the murder was committed. According to M. Lennox Boynton's last statement, his mother was dead at four thirty-five. According to Lady Westholme and Miss Pierce she was alive at four-fifteen, when they started on their walk. That leaves exactly twenty minutes unaccounted for. Now, as these two ladies walked away from the camp Dr. Gerard passed them going to it. There is no one to say what Dr. Gerard's movements were when he reached the camp because the two ladies' backs were towards it. They were walking away from it. Therefore it is perfectly possible for Dr. Gerard to have committed the crime. Being a doctor, he could easily counterfeit the appearance of malaria. There is, I should say, a possible motive. Dr. Gerard might have wished to save a certain person whose reason (perhaps more vital a loss than a loss of life) was in danger and he may have considered the sacrifice of an old and worn out life worth it!"
"Your ideas," said Dr. Gerard, "are fantastic!" He smiled amiably.
Without taking any notice, Poirot went on. "But if so, why did Gerard call attention to the possibility of foul play? It is quite certain that, but for his statement to Colonel Carbury, Mrs. Boynton's death would have been put down to natural causes. It was Dr. Gerard who first pointed out the possibility of murder. That, my friends," said Poirot, "does not make common sense!"
"Doesn't seem to," said Colonel Carbury gruffly. He looked curiously at Poirot.
"There is one more possibility," said Poirot. "Mrs. Lennox Boynton just now negated 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 around 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 entierement de votre avis," he said smoothly.
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 the 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, mes dames 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 they left on her mind I think that 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 bound into her hands!"
"We are back, you see, to 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 goes 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 states 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 is 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 Colonel 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-colored coat, made herself an Arab headdress 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 for 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 Pieree'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 around, 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?"
