Appointment With Death (Hercule Poirot 19)

‘Everybody.’ Briefly, Poirot retailed the interviews he had had that morning.

‘H’m,’ said Carbury. ‘Yes, you’ve got hold of a pointer or two, perhaps. Pity of it is they all seem to point in opposite directions. Have we got a case, that’s what I want to know?’

‘No.’

Carbury sighed again. ‘I was afraid not.’

‘But before nightfall,’ said Poirot, ‘you shall have the truth!’

‘Well, that’s all you ever promised me,’ said Colonel Carbury. ‘And I rather doubted you getting that! Sure of it?’

‘I am very sure.’

‘Must be nice to feel like that,’ commented the other.

If there was a faint twinkle in his eye, Poirot appeared unaware of it. He produced his list.

‘Neat,’ said Colonel Carbury approvingly.

He bent over it.

After a minute or two he said: ‘Know what I think?’

‘I should be delighted if you would tell me.’

‘Young Raymond Boynton’s out of it.’

‘Ah! you think so?’

‘Yes. Clear as a bell what he thought. We might have known he’d be out of it. Being, as in detective stories, the most likely person. Since you practically overheard him saying he was going to bump off the old lady—we might have known that meant he was innocent!’

‘You read the detective stories, yes?’

‘Thousands of them,’ said Colonel Carbury. He added, and his tone was that of a wistful schoolboy: ‘I suppose you couldn’t do the things the detective does in books? Write a list of significant facts—things that don’t seem to mean anything but are really frightfully important—that sort of thing.’

‘Ah,’ said Poirot kindly. ‘You like that kind of detective story? But certainly, I will do it for you with pleasure.’

He drew a sheet of paper towards him and wrote quickly and neatly:

Significant points

Mrs Boynton was taking a mixture containing digitalis.

Dr Gerard missed a hypodermic syringe.

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.

Mrs Boynton was a mental sadist.

The distance from the marquee to the place where Mrs Boynton was sitting is (roughly) two hundred yards.

Mr Lennox Boynton said at first he did not know what time he returned to the camp, but later he admitted having set his mother’s wrist-watch to the right time.

Dr Gerard and Miss Genevra Boynton occupied tents next door to each other.

At half-past six, when dinner was ready, a servant was dispatched to announce the fact to Mrs Boynton.