Appointment With Death (Hercule Poirot 19)

Colonel Carbury spoke for the first time. ‘Suppose, now, we hear what they are?’ he suggested.

Poirot said with dignity: ‘I am about to tell you. We will take once more those first two facts on my list. Mrs Boynton was taking a mixture of digitalis and Dr Gerard missed a hypodermic syringe. Take those facts and set them against the undeniable fact (with which I was immediately confronted) that the Boynton family showed unmistakably guilty reactions. It would seem, therefore, certain that one of the Boynton family must have committed the crime! And yet, those two facts I mentioned were all against the theory. For, you see, to take a concentrated solution of digitalis—that, yes, it is a clever idea, because Mrs Boynton was already taking the drug. But what would a member of her family do then? Ah, ma foi! there was only one sensible thing to do. Put the poison into her bottle of medicine! That is what anyone, anyone with a grain of sense and who had access to the medicine would certainly do!

‘Sooner or later Mrs Boynton takes a dose and dies—and even if the digitalis is discovered in the bottle it may be set down as a mistake of the chemist who made it up. Certainly nothing can be proved!

‘Why, then, the theft of the hypodermic needle?

‘There can be only two explanations of that—either Dr Gerard overlooked the syringe and it was never stolen, or else the syringe was taken because the murderer had not got access to the medicine—that is to say the murderer was not a member of the Boynton family. Those two first facts point overwhelmingly to an outsider as having committed the crime!

‘I saw that—but I was puzzled, as I say, by the strong evidences of guilt displayed by the Boynton family. Was it possible that, in spite of that consciousness of guilt, the Boynton family were innocent? I set out to prove—not the guilt—but the innocence of those people!

‘That is where we stand now. The murder was committed by an outsider—that is, by someone who was not sufficiently intimate with Mrs Boynton to enter her tent or to handle her medicine bottle.’

He paused.

‘There are three people in this room who are, technically, outsiders, but who have a definite connection with the case.

‘Mr Cope, whom we will consider first, has been closely associated with the Boynton family for some time. Can we discover motive and opportunity on his part? It seems not. Mrs Boynton’s death has affected him adversely—since it has brought about the frustration of certain hopes. Unless Mr Cope’s motive was an almost fanatical desire to benefit others, we can find no reason for his desiring Mrs Boynton’s death. (Unless, of course, there is a motive about which we are entirely in the dark. We do not know what Mr Cope’s dealings with the Boynton family have been.)’

> Mr Cope said with dignity: ‘This seems to me a little farfetched, M. Poirot. You must remember I had absolutely no opportunity for committing this deed and, in any case I hold very strong views as to the sanctity of human life.’

‘Your position certainly seems impeccable,’ said Poirot with gravity. ‘In a work of fiction you would be strongly suspected on that account.’

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 got her opportunity.

‘Next we must consider Dr Gerard. Now here we must take into account the actual time that the murder was committed. According to Mr 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-sixteen 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 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!’

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.

‘There is one more possibility,’ said Poirot. ‘Mrs Lennox Boynton just now negatived 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 round 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 entièrement de votre avis,’ he said smoothly.

Chapter 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 this 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.