Appointment With Death - Agatha Christie [53]
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 shrugged his shoulders. ‘You, perhaps!’
Sarah said: ‘You had fever—a high temperature—you couldn’t be clear-headed about the business. The syringe was probably there all the time. And you may have made a mistake about the digitoxin or one of the servants may have meddled with the case.’
Gerard said cynically: ‘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 interfering? And now look!’
‘I have not interfered. 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 grave she can still reach out and hold them. There was something—terrible about her—she’s just as terrible now she’s dead! I feel—I feel she’s enjoying all this!’
She clenched her hands. Then she said in an entirely different tone, a light everyday voice: ‘That little 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 sadly down at his patent leather shoes.
‘Alas!’ he said. ‘This stony country! My poor shoes.’
‘You can borrow Lady Westholme’s shoe-cleaning apparatus,’ said Sarah unkindly. ‘And her duster. 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 coats and 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 the beads that clink! Even young Mrs Boynton, who is a good-looking woman, is not what you call chic! Her clothes are uninteresting.’
Sarah said restively: ‘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—and yours, too, mademoiselle—you are young and up to date in your psychology. I want to know, you see, 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 Mrs Boynton 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 loath. He described his own interest in the family group, his conversation with Jefferson Cope, and the latter’s complete misreading of the situation.
‘He is a sentimentalist, then,’ said Poirot.
‘Oh, essentially! He has ideals—based, really, on a deep instinct of laziness.