死亡约会23

Chapter 11

Sarah King sat on a hill-top absently plucking up wild flowers. Dr Gerard sat on a rough wall ofstones near her.

She said suddenly and fiercely: ‘Why did you start all this? If it hadn’t been for you—’

Dr Gerard said slowly: ‘You think I should have kept silence?’

‘Yes.’

‘Knowing what I knew?’

‘You didn’t know,’ said Sarah.

The Frenchman sighed. ‘I did know. But I admit one can never be absolutely sure.’

‘Yes, one can,’ said Sarah uncompromisingly.

The Frenchman shrugged¹ his shoulders. ‘You, perhaps!’

Sarah said: ‘You had fever—a high temperature—you couldn’t be clear-headed about thebusiness. The syringe was probably there all the time. And you may have made a mistake aboutthe digitoxin or one of the servants may have meddled² with the case.’

Gerard said cynically³: ‘You need not worry! The evidence is almost bound to be inconclusive.

You will see, your friends the Boyntons will get away with it!’

Sarah said fiercely: ‘I don’t want that, either.’

He shook his head. ‘You are illogical!’

‘Wasn’t it you—’ Sarah demanded, ‘in Jerusalem—who said a great deal about not interfering⁴?

And now look!’

‘I have not interfered⁵. I have only told what I know!’

‘And I say you don’t know it. Oh dear, there we are, back again! I’m arguing in a circle.’

Gerard said gently: ‘I am sorry, Miss King.’

Sarah said in a low voice:

‘You see, after all, they haven’t escaped—any of them! She’s still there! Even from her graveshe can still reach out and hold them. There was something—terrible about her—she’s just asterrible now she’s dead! I feel—I feel she’s enjoying all this!’

She clenched⁶ her hands. Then she said in an entirely⁷ different tone, a light everyday voice: ‘Thatlittle man’s coming up the hill.’

Dr Gerard looked over his shoulder.

‘Ah! he comes in search of us, I think.’

‘Is he as much of a fool as he looks?’ asked Sarah.

Dr Gerard said gravely: ‘He is not a fool at all.’

‘I was afraid of that,’ said Sarah King.

With sombre eyes she watched the uphill progress of Hercule Poirot.

He reached them at last, uttered a loud ‘ouf’ and wiped his forehead. Then he looked sadlydown at his patent leather shoes.

‘Alas!’ he said. ‘This stony⁸ country! My poor shoes.’

‘You can borrow Lady Westholme’s shoe-cleaning apparatus,’ said Sarah unkindly. ‘And herduster. She travels with a kind of patent housemaid’s equipment.’

‘That will not remove the scratches, mademoiselle,’ Poirot shook his head sadly.

‘Perhaps not. Why on earth do you wear shoes like that in this sort of country?’

Poirot put his head a little on one side.

‘I like to have the appearance soigné,’ he said.

‘I should give up trying for that in the desert,’ said Sarah.

‘Women do not look their best in the desert,’ said Dr Gerard dreamily. ‘But Miss King here, yes—she always looks neat and well-turned out. But that Lady Westholme in her great thick coatsand skirts and those terrible unbecoming riding breeches and boots—quelle horreur de femme!

And the poor Miss Pierce—her clothes so limp, like faded cabbage leaves, and the chains and thebeads that clink! Even young Mrs Boynton, who is a good-looking woman, is not what you callchic! Her clothes are uninteresting.’

Sarah said restively⁹: ‘Well, I don’t suppose M. Poirot climbed up here to talk about clothes!’

‘True,’ said Poirot. ‘I came to consult Dr Gerard—his opinion should be of value to me—andyours, too, mademoiselle—you are young and up to date in your psychology¹⁰. I want to know, yousee, all that you can tell me of Mrs Boynton.’

‘Don’t you know all that by heart now?’ asked Sarah.

‘No. I have a feeling—more than a feeling—a certainty that the mental equipment of MrsBoynton is very important in this case. Such types as hers are no doubt familiar to Dr Gerard.’

‘From my point of view she was certainly an interesting study,’ said the doctor.

‘Tell me.’

Dr Gerard was nothing loath¹¹. He described his own interest in the family group, hisconversation with Jefferson Cope, and the latter’s complete misreading of the situation.

‘He is a sentimentalist, then,’ said Poirot.

‘Oh, essentially¹³! He has ideals—based, really, on a deep instinct of laziness. To take humannature at its best, and the world as a pleasant place is undoubtedly¹⁴ the easiest course in life!

Jefferson Cope has, consequently, not the least idea what people are really like.’

‘That might be dangerous sometimes,’ said Poirot.

Dr Gerard went on: ‘He persisted in regarding what I may describe as “the Boynton situation”

as a case of mistaken devotion. Of the underlying¹⁵ hate, rebellion, slavery and misery¹⁶ he had onlythe faintest notion.’

‘It is stupid, that,’ Poirot commented.

‘All the same,’ went on Dr Gerard, ‘even the most willfully obtuse¹⁷ of sentimental¹² optimistscannot be quite blind. I think, on the journey to Petra, Mr Jefferson Cope’s eyes were beingopened.’

And he described the conversation he had had with the American on the morning of MrsBoynton’s death.

‘That is an interesting story, that story of a servant girl,’ said Poirot thoughtfully. ‘It throwslight on the old woman’s methods.’

Gerard said: ‘It was altogether an odd strange morning, that! You have not been to Petra, M.

Poirot. If you go you must certainly climb to the Place of Sacrifice. It has an—how shall I say?—an atmosphere!’ He described the scene in detail, adding: ‘Mademoiselle here sat like a youngjudge, speaking of the sacrifice of one to save many. You remember, Miss King?’

Sarah shivered. ‘Don’t! Don’t let’s talk of that day.’

‘No, no,’ said Poirot. ‘Let us talk of events further back in the past. I am interested, Dr Gerard,in your sketch¹⁸ of Mrs Boynton’s mentality¹⁹. What I do not quite understand is this, having broughther family into absolute subjection, why did she then arrange this trip abroad where surely therewas danger of outside contacts and of her authority being weakened?’

Dr Gerard leaned forward excitedly.

‘But, mon vieux, that is just it! Old ladies are the same all the world over. They get bored! Iftheir specialty²⁰ is playing patience, they sicken of the patience they know too well. They want tolearn a new patience. And it is just the same with an old lady whose recreation (incredible as itmay sound) is the dominating and tormenting²¹ of human creatures! Mrs Boynton—to speak of heras une dompteuse—had tamed her tigers. There was perhaps some excitement as they passedthrough the stage of adolescence²². Lennox’s marriage to Nadine was an adventure. But then,suddenly, all was stale. Lennox is so sunk in melancholy²³ that it is practically impossible to woundor distress²⁴ him. Raymond and Carol show no signs of rebellion. Ginevra—ah! la pauvre Ginevra—she, from her mother’s point of view, gives the poorest sport of all. For Ginevra has found away of escape! She escapes from reality into fantasy. The more her mother goads²⁵ her, the moreeasily she gets a secret thrill out of being a persecuted²⁶ heroine! From Mrs Boynton’s point of viewit is all deadly dull. She seeks, like Alexander, new worlds to conquer. And so she plans thevoyage abroad. There will be the danger of her tamed beasts rebelling, there will be opportunitiesfor inflicting²⁷ fresh pain! It sounds absurd, does it not, but it was so! She wanted a new thrill.’

Poirot took a deep breath. ‘It is perfect, that. Yes, I see exactly what you mean. It was so. It allfits in. She chose to live dangerously, la maman Boynton—and she paid the penalty!’

Sarah leaned forward, her pale, intelligent face very serious. ‘You mean,’ she said, ‘that shedrove her victims too far and—and they turned on her—or—or one of them did?’

Poirot bowed his head.

Sarah said, and her voice was a little breathless:

‘Which of them?’

Poirot looked at her, at her hands clenched fiercely on the wild flowers, at the pale rigidity²⁸ ofher face.

He did not answer—was indeed saved from answering, for at that moment Gerard touched hisshoulder and said: ‘Look.’

A girl was wandering along the side of the hill. She moved with a strange rhythmic²⁹ grace thatsomehow gave the impression that she was not quite real. The gold red of her hair shone in thesunlight, a strange secretive smile lifted the beautiful corners of her mouth. Poirot drew in hisbreath.

He said: ‘How beautiful…How strangely movingly beautiful…That is how Ophelia should beplayed—like a young goddess straying from another world, happy because she has escaped out ofthe bondage³⁰ of human joys and griefs.’

‘Yes, yes, you are right,’ said Gerard. ‘It is a face to dream of, is it not? I dreamt of it. In myfever I opened my eyes and saw that face—with its sweet, unearthly smile…It was a good dream.

I was sorry to wake…’

Then, with a return to his commonplace manner:

‘That is Ginevra Boynton,’ he said.

 

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