Appointment With Death (Hercule Poirot 19)

Body discovered 6.30

‘There is, you will notice, a gap of twenty minutes between four-fifty when Nadine Boynton left her mother-in-law and five-ten when Carol returned. Therefore, if Carol is speaking the truth, Mrs Boynton must have been killed in that twenty minutes.

‘Now who could have ki

lled her? At that time Miss King and Raymond Boynton were together. Mr Cope (not that he had any perceivable motive for killing her) has an alibi. He was with Lady Westholme and Miss Pierce. Lennox Boynton was with his wife in the marquee. Dr Gerard was groaning with fever in his tent. The camp is deserted, the boys are asleep. It is a suitable moment for a crime! Was there a person who could have committed it?’

His eyes went thoughtfully to Ginevra Boynton.

‘There was one person. Ginevra Boynton was in her tent all the afternoon. That is what we have been told—but actually there is evidence that she was not in her tent all the time. Ginevra Boynton made a very significant remark. She said that Dr Gerard spoke her name in his fever. And Dr Gerard has also told us that he dreamt in his fever of Ginevra Boynton’s face. But it was not a dream! It was actually her face he saw, standing there by his bed. He thought it an effect of fever—but it was the truth. Ginevra was in Dr Gerard’s tent. Is it not possible that she had come to put back the hypodermic syringe after using it?’

Ginevra Boynton raised her head with its crown of red-gold hair. Her wide beautiful eyes stared at Poirot. They were singularly expressionless. She looked like a vague saint.

‘Ah, ça non!’ cried Dr Gerard.

‘Is it, then, so psychologically impossible?’ inquired Poirot.

The Frenchman’s eyes dropped.

Nadine Boynton said sharply: ‘It’s quite impossible!’

Poirot’s eyes came quickly round to her.

‘Impossible, madame?’

‘Yes.’ She paused, bit her lip, then went on, ‘I will not hear of such a disgraceful accusation against my young sister-in-law. We—all of us—know it to be impossible.’

Ginevra moved a little on her chair. The lines of her mouth relaxed into a smile—the touching, innocent half-unconscious smile of a very young girl.

Nadine said again: ‘Impossible.’

Her gentle face had hardened into lines of determination. The eyes that met Poirot’s were hard and unflinching.

Poirot leaned forward in what was half a bow.

‘Madame is very intelligent,’ he said.

Nadine said quietly: ‘What do you mean by that, M. Poirot?’

‘I mean, madame, that all along I have realized that you have what I believe is called an “excellent headpiece”.’

‘You flatter me.’

‘I think not. All along you have envisaged the situation calmly and collectively. You have remained on outwardly good terms with your husband’s mother, deeming that the best thing to be done, but inwardly you have judged and condemned her. I think that some time ago you realized that the only chance for your husband’s happiness was for him to make an effort to leave home—strike out on his own no matter how difficult and penurious such a life might be. You were willing to take all risks and you endeavoured to influence him to exactly that course of action. But you failed, madame. Lennox Boynton had no longer the will to freedom. He was content to sink into a condition of apathy and melancholy.

‘Now I have no doubt at all, madame, but that you love your husband. Your decision to leave him was not actuated by a greater love for another man. It was, I think, a desperate venture undertaken as a last hope. A woman in your position could only try three things. She could try appeal. That, as I have said, failed. She could threaten to leave herself. But it is possible that even that threat would not have moved Lennox Boynton. It would plunge him deeper in misery, but it would not cause him to rebel. There was one last desperate throw. You could go away with another man. Jealousy and the instinct of possession is one of the most deeply rooted fundamental instincts in man. You showed your wisdom in trying to reach that deep underground savage instinct. If Lennox Boynton would let you go without an effort to another man—then he must indeed be beyond human aid, and you might as well then try to make a new life for yourself elsewhere.

‘But let us suppose that even that last desperate remedy failed. Your husband was terribly upset at your decision, but in spite of that he did not, as you had hoped, react as a primitive man might have done with an uprush of the possessive instinct. Was there anything at all that could save your husband from his own rapidly failing mental condition? Only one thing. If his stepmother were to die, it might not be too late. He might be able to start life anew as a free man, building up in himself independence and manliness once more.’

Poirot paused, then repeated gently: ‘If your mother-in-law were to die…’

Nadine’s eyes were still fixed on him. In an unmoved gentle voice she said: ‘You are suggesting that I helped to bring that event about, are you not? But you cannot do so, M. Poirot. After I had broken the news of my impending departure to Mrs Boynton, I went straight to the marquee and joined Lennox. I did not leave it again until my mother-in-law was found dead. Guilty of her death I may be, in the sense that I gave her a shock—that, of course, presupposes a natural death. But if, as you say (though so far you have no direct evidence of it and cannot have until an autopsy has taken place) she was deliberately killed, then I had no opportunity of doing so.’

Poirot said: ‘You did not leave the marquee again until your mother-in-law was found dead. That is what you have just said. That, Mrs Boynton, was one of the points I found curious about this case.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘It is here on my list. Point nine. At half-past six, when dinner was ready, a servant was dispatched to announce the fact to Mrs Boynton.’