‘I wonder,’ said Hercule Poirot. He folded up the list, went to the door and ordered Mahmoud to be brought to him. The stout dragoman was voluble. Words dripped from him in a rising flood.
‘Always, always, I am blamed. When anything happens, say always, my fault. Always my fault. When Lady Ellen Hunt sprain her ankle coming down from Place of Sacrifice it my fault, though she would go high-heeled shoes and she sixty at least—perhaps seventy. My life all one misery! Ah! what with miseries and iniquities, Jews do to us—’
At last Poirot succeeded in stemming the flood and in getting in his question.
‘Half-past five o’clock, you say? No, I not think any of servants were about then. You see, lunch is late—two o’clock. And then to clear it away. After the lunch all afternoon sleep. Yes, Americans, they not take tea. We all settle sleep by half-past three. At five I who am soul of efficiency—always—always I watch for the comfort of ladies and gentlemen I serving, I come out knowing that time all English ladies want tea. But no one there. They all gone walking. For me, that is very well—better than usual. I can go back sleep. At quarter to six trouble begin—large English lady—very grand lady—come back and want tea although boys are now laying dinner. She makes quite fuss—says water must be boiling—I am to see myself. Ah, my good gentlemen! What a life—what a life! I do all I can—always I blamed—I—’
Poirot asked about the recriminations.
‘There is another small matter. The dead lady was angry with one of the boys. Do you know which one it was and what it was about?’
Mahmoud’s hands rose to heaven.
‘Should I know? But naturally not. Old lady did not complain to me.’
‘Could you find out?’
‘No, my good gentlemen, that would be impossible. None of the boys admit it for a moment. Old lady angry, you say? Then naturally boys would not tell. Abdul say it Mohammed, and Mohammed say it Aziz and Aziz say it Aissa, and so on. They are all very stupid Bedouin—understand nothing.’
He took a breath and continued: ‘Now I, I have advantage of Mission education. I recite to you Keats—Shelley—“Iadadoveandasweedovedied—”’
Poirot flinched. Though English was not his native tongue, he knew it well enough to suffer from the strange enunciation of Mahmoud.
‘Superb!’ he said hastily. ‘Superb! Definitely I recommend you to all my friends.’
He contrived to escape from the dragoman’s eloquence. Then he took his list to Colonel Carbury, whom he found in his office.
Carbury pushed his tie a little more askew and asked:
‘Got anything?’
Poirot said: ‘Shall I tell you a theory of mine?’
‘If you like,’ said Colonel Carbury and sighed. One way and another he heard a good many theories in the course of his existence.
‘My theory is that criminology is the easiest science in the world! One has only to let the criminal talk—sooner or later he will tell you everything.’
‘I remember you said something of the kind before. Who’s been telling you things?’
‘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.
The Colonel perused this with great satisfaction.
‘Capital!’ he said. ‘Just the thing! You’ve made it difficult—and seemingly irrelevant—absolutely the authentic touch! By the way, it seems to me there are one or two noticeable omissions. But that, I suppose, is what you tempt the mug with?’
Poirot’s eyes twinkled a little, but he did not answer.
‘Point two, for instance,’ said Colonel Carbury tentatively. ‘Dr Gerard missed a hypodermic syringe—yes. He also missed a concentrated solution of digitalis—or something of that kind.’
‘The latter point,’ said Poirot, ‘is not important in the way the absence of his hypodermic syringe is important.’
‘Splendid!’ said Colonel Carbury, his face irradiated with smiles. ‘I don’t get it at all. I should have said the digitalis was much more important than the syringe! And what about that servant motif that keeps cropping up—a servant being sent to tell her dinner was ready—and that story of her shaking her stick at a servant earlier in the afternoon? You’re not going to tell me one of my poor desert mutts bumped her off after all? Because,’ added Colonel Carbury sternly, ‘if so, that would be cheating.’
Poirot smiled, but did not answer.
As he left the office he murmured to himself:
‘Incredible! The English never grow up!’
[Appointment with Death -Agatha Christie] Part 2. Chapter 10