Appointment with Death hp-21

by Agatha Christie

  She had just passed through a difficult emotional crisis. A month ago she had broken off her engagement to a young doctor some four years her senior. They had been very much attracted to each other, but had been too much alike in temperament. Disagreements and quarrels had been of common occurrence. Sarah was of too imperious a temperament herself to brook a calm assertion of autocracy.

  Like many high-spirited women, Sarah believed herself to admire strength. She had always told herself that she wanted to be mastered. When she met a man capable of mastering her she found that she did not like it at all! To break off her engagement had cost her a good deal of heart burning, but she was clear-sighted enough to realize that mere mutual attraction was not a sufficient basis on which to build a lifetime of happiness. She had treated herself deliberately to an interesting holiday abroad in order to help on forgetfulness before she went back to start working in earnest.

  Sarah's thoughts came back from the past to the present.

  "I wonder," she thought, "if Dr. Gerard will let me talk to him about his work? He's done such marvelous work. If only he'll take me seriously… Perhaps-if he comes to Petra-" Then she thought again of the strange, boorish young American.

  She had no doubt that it was the presence of his family which had caused him to react in such a peculiar manner, but she felt slightly scornful of him, nevertheless. To be under the thumb of one's family like that-it was really rather ridiculous-especially for a man! And yet…

  A queer feeling passed over her. Surely there was something a little odd about it all?

  She said suddenly out loud: "That boy wants rescuing! I'm going to see to it!"

  3

  When Sarah had left the lounge Dr. Gerard sat where he was for some minutes. Then he walked over to the table, picked up the latest number of Le Matin and strolled with it to a chair a few yards away from the Boynton family. His curiosity was aroused.

  He had at first been amused by the English girl's interest in this American family, shrewdly diagnosing that it was inspired by interest in one particular member of the group. But now something out of the ordinary about this family party awakened in him the deeper, more impartial interest of the scientist. He sensed that there was something here of definite psychological interest.

  Very discreetly, under the cover of his paper, he took stock of them. First, the boy in whom that attractive English girl took such a decided interest. Yes, thought Gerard, definitely the type to appeal to her temperamentally. Sarah King had strength-she possessed well-balanced nerves, cool wits and a resolute will. Dr. Gerard judged the young man to be sensitive, perceptive, diffident and intensely suggestible. He noted with a physician's eye the obvious fact that the boy was at the moment in a state of high nervous tension. Dr. Gerard wondered why. He was puzzled. Why should a young man whose physical health was obviously good, who was abroad ostensibly enjoying himself, be in such a condition that a nervous breakdown was imminent?

  The doctor turned his attention to the other members of the party. The girl with the chestnut hair was obviously Raymond's sister. They were of the same racial type, small-boned, well-shaped, aristocratic-looking. They had the same slender, well-formed hands, the same clean line of jaw, and the same poise of the head on a long slender neck. And the girl, too, was nervous… She made slight involuntary nervous movements, her eyes were deeply shadowed underneath and over-bright. Her voice, when she spoke, was too quick and a shade breathless. She was watchful-alert-unable to relax.

  "And she is afraid, too," decided Dr. Gerard. "Yes, she is afraid!"

  He overheard scraps of conversation-a very ordinary normal conversation.

  "We might go to Solomon's Stables."

  "Would that be too much for Mother?"

  "The Weeping Wall in the morning?"

  "The Temple, of course-the Mosque of Omar they call it. I wonder why?"

  "Because it's been made into a Moslem mosque, of course, Lennox."

  Ordinary, commonplace tourists' talk. And yet, somehow, Dr. Gerard felt a queer conviction that these overheard scraps of dialogue were all singularly unreal. They were a mask-a cover for something that surged and eddied underneath-something too deep and formless for words…

  Again he shot a covert glance from behind the shelter of Le Matin.

  Lennox? That was the elder brother. The same family likeness could be traced, but there was a difference. Lennox was not so highly strung; he was, Gerard decided, of a less nervous temperament. But about him, no, there seemed something odd. There was no sign of muscular tension about him as there was about the other two. He sat relaxed, limp. Puzzling, searching among memories of patients he had seen sitting like that in hospital wards, Gerard thought: "He is exhausted-yes, exhausted with suffering. That look in the eyes-the look you see in a wounded dog or a sick horse-dumb bestial endurance… It is odd, that… Physically there seems nothing wrong with him… Yet there is no doubt that lately he has been through much suffering-mental suffering. Now he no longer suffers-he endures dumbly-waiting, I think, for the blow to fall… What blow? Am I fancying all this? No, the man is waiting for something, for the end to come. So cancer patients lie and wait, thankful that an anodyne dulls the pain a little…"

  Lennox Boynton got up and retrieved a ball of wool that the old lady had dropped.

  "Here you are. Mother."

  "Thank you."

  What was she knitting, this monumental, impassive old woman? Something thick and coarse. Gerard thought: "Mittens for inhabitants of a workhouse!" and smiled at his own fantasy.

  He turned his attention to the youngest member of the party-the girl with the golden red hair. She was, perhaps, seventeen. Her skin had the exquisite clearness that often goes with red hair. Although over-thin, it was a beautiful face. She was sitting smiling to herself-smiling into space. There was something a little curious about that smile. It was so far removed from the Solomon Hotel, from Jerusalem… It reminded Dr. Gerard of something… Presently it came to him in a flash. It was the strange unearthly smile that lifts the lips of the Maidens in the Acropolis at Athens-something remote and lovely and a little inhuman… The magic of the smile, her exquisite stillness, gave him a little pang.

  And then with a shock, Dr. Gerard noticed her hands. They were concealed from the group around her by the table, but he could see them clearly from where he sat. In the shelter of her lap they were picking-picking-tearing a delicate handkerchief into tiny shreds.

  It gave him a horrible shock.

  The aloof remote smile-the still body-and the busy destructive hands…

  4

  There was a slow asthmatic wheezing cough-then the monumental knitting woman spoke.

  "Ginevra, you're tired; you'd better go to bed."

  The girl started; her fingers stopped their mechanical action.

  "I'm not tired. Mother."

  Gerard recognized appreciatively the musical quality of her voice. It had the sweet singing quality that lends enchantment to the most commonplace utterances.

  "Yes, you are. I always know. I don't think you'll be able to do any sightseeing tomorrow."

  "Oh! But I shall. I'm quite all right."

  In a thick hoarse voice, almost a grating voice, her mother said: "No, you're not. You're going to be ill."

  "I'm not! I'm not!" The girl began trembling violently.

  A soft calm voice said: "I'll come up with you. Jinny." The quiet young woman with wide, thoughtful gray eyes and neatly coiled dark hair rose to her feet.

  Old Mrs. Boynton said: "No. Let her go up alone."

  The girl cried: "I want Nadine to come!"

  "Then of course I will." The young woman moved a step forward.

  The old woman said: "The child prefers to go by herself-don't you Jinny?"

  There was a pause-a pause of a moment-then Ginevra Boynton said, her voice suddenly flat and dull: "Yes-I'd rather go alone. Thank you, Nadine."

  She walked away, a tall angular figure that moved with a surprising grace.

>   Dr. Gerard lowered his paper and took a full satisfying gaze at old Mrs. Boynton. She was looking after her daughter and her fat face was creased into a peculiar smile. It was a caricature of the lovely unearthly smile that had transformed the girl's face so short a time before. Then the old woman transferred her gaze to Nadine.

  The latter had just sat down again. She raised her eyes and met her mother-in-law's glance. Her face was quite imperturbable. The old woman's glance was malicious.

  Dr. Gerard thought: "What an absurdity of an old tyrant!"

  And then, suddenly, the old woman's eyes were full on him, and he drew in his breath sharply. Small, black, smoldering eyes they were, but something came from them-a power, a definite force, a wave of evil malignancy. Dr. Gerard knew something about the power of personality. He realized that here was no spoilt tyrannical invalid indulging petty whims. This old woman was a definite force. In the malignancy of her glare he felt a resemblance to the effect produced by a cobra. Mrs. Boynton might be old, infirm, a prey to disease, but she was not powerless.

  She was a woman who knew the meaning of power, who recognized a lifetime of power and who had never once doubted her own force. Dr. Gerard had once met a woman who performed a most dangerous and spectacular act with tigers. The great slinking brutes had crawled to their places and performed their degrading and humiliating tricks. Their eyes and subdued snarls told of hatred, bitter fanatical hatred, but they had obeyed, cringed. That had been a young woman, a woman with an arrogant dark beauty, but the look had been the same.

  "Une dompteuse!" said Dr. Gerard to himself. And he understood now what that undercurrent to the harmless family talk had been. It was hatred-a dark eddying stream of hatred.

  He thought: "How fanciful and absurd most people would think me! Here is a commonplace devoted American family reveling in Palestine-and I weave a story of black magic round it!"

  Then he looked with interest at the quiet young woman who was called Nadine. There was a wedding ring on her left hand, and as he watched her, he saw her give one swift betraying glance at the fair-haired, loose-limbed Lennox. He knew, then… They were man and wife, those two. But it was a mother's glance rather than a wife's-a true mother's glance-protecting, anxious. And he knew something more. He knew that out of that group, Nadine Boynton alone was unaffected by her mother-in-law's spell. She may have disliked the old woman, but she was not afraid of her. The power did not touch her.

  She was unhappy, deeply concerned about her husband, but she was free.

  Dr. Gerard said to himself: "All this is very interesting."

  5

  INTO THESE DARK imaginings a breath of the commonplace came with almost ludicrous effect.

  A man came into the lounge, caught sight of the Boyntons and came across to them.

  He was a pleasant middle-aged American of a strictly conventional type. He was carefully dressed, with a long, clean-shaven face and he had a slow, pleasant, somewhat monotonous voice.

  "I was looking around for you all," he said. Meticulously he shook hands with the entire family.

  "And how do you find yourself, Mrs. Boynton? Not too tired by the journey?"

  Almost graciously, the old lady wheezed out: "No, thank you. My health's never good, as you know-"

  "Why, of course; too bad-too bad."

  "But I'm certainly no worse." Mrs. Boynton added with a slow reptilian smile: "Nadine, here, takes good care of me; don't you, Nadine?"

  "I do my best." Her voice was expressionless.

  "Why, I'll bet you do," said the stranger heartily. "Well, Lennox, and what do you think of King David's city?"

  "Oh, I don't know." Lennox spoke apathetically-without interest.

  "Find it kind of disappointing, do you? I'll confess it struck me that way at first. But perhaps you haven't been around much yet?"

  Carol Boynton said: "We can't do very much because of Mother."

  Mrs. Boynton explained: "A couple of hours' sightseeing is about all I can manage every day."

  The stranger said heartily: "I think it's wonderful you manage to do all you do, Mrs. Boynton."

  Mrs. Boynton gave a slow wheezy chuckle; it had an almost gloating sound. "I don't give in to my body! It's the mind that matters! Yes, it's the mind…"

  Her voice died away. Gerard saw Raymond Boynton give a nervous jerk.

  "Have you been to the Weeping Wall yet, Mr. Cope?" he asked.

  "Why, yes, that was one of the first places I visited. I hope to have done Jerusalem thoroughly in a couple more days and I'm letting them get me out an itinerary at Cook's so as to do the Holy Land thoroughly-Bethlehem, Nazareth, Tiberias, the Sea of Galilee. It's all going to be mighty interesting. Then there's Jerash; there are some very interesting ruins there-Roman, you know. And I'd very much like to have a look at the Rose Red City of Petra, a most remarkable natural phenomenon, I believe that is, and right off the beaten track; but it takes the best part of a week to get there and back and do it properly."

  Carol said: "I'd love to go there. It sounds marvelous."

  "Why I should say it was definitely worth seeing-yes, definitely worth seeing." Mr. Cope paused, shot a somewhat dubious glance at Mrs. Boynton, and then went on in a voice that to the listening Frenchman was palpably uncertain: "I wonder now if I couldn't persuade some of you people to come with me? Naturally I know you couldn't manage it, Mrs. Boynton, and naturally some of your family would want to remain with you; but if you were to divide forces, so to speak-"

  He paused. Gerard heard the even click of Mrs. Boynton's knitting needles. Then she said: "I don't think we'd care to divide up. We're a very homey group." She looked up. "Well, children, what do you say?"

  There was a queer ring in her voice. The answers came promptly: "No, Mother."

  "Oh, no."

  "No, of course not."

  Mrs. Boynton said, smiling that very odd smile of hers: "You see-they won't leave me. What about you, Nadine? You didn't say anything."

  "No, thank you, Mother, not unless Lennox cares about it."

  Mrs. Boynton turned her head slowly towards her son. "Well, Lennox, what about it; why don't you and Nadine go? She seems to want to."

  He started. Looked up.

  "I-well-no, I-I think we'd better all stay together." Mr. Cope said genially: "Well, you are a devoted family!" But something in his geniality rang a little hollow and forced.

  "We keep to ourselves," said Mrs. Boynton. She began to wind up her ball of wool. "By the way, Raymond, who was that young woman who spoke to you just now?"

  Raymond started nervously. He flushed, then went white. "I-I don't know her name. She-she was on the train the other night."

  Mrs. Boynton began slowly to try and heave herself out of her chair. "I don't think we'll have much to do with her," she said.

  Nadine rose and assisted the old woman to struggle out of her chair. She did it with a professional deftness that attracted Gerard's attention.

  "Bedtime," said Mrs. Boynton. "Good night, Mr. Cope."

  "Good night, Mrs. Boynton. Good night, Mrs. Lennox."

  They went off-a little procession. It did not seem to occur to any of the younger members of the party to stay behind.

  Mr. Cope was left looking after them. The expression on his face was an odd one.

  As Dr. Gerard knew by experience, Americans are disposed to be a friendly race. They have not the uneasy suspicion of the traveling Briton. To a man of Dr. Gerard's tact, making the acquaintance of Mr. Cope presented few difficulties. The American was lonely and was, like most of his race, disposed to friendliness. Dr. Gerard's card-case was again to the fore.

  Reading the name on it, Mr. Jefferson Cope was duly impressed.

  "Why surely. Dr. Gerard, you were over in the States not very long ago?"

  "Last Autumn. I was lecturing at Harvard."

  "Of course. Yours, Dr. Gerard, is one of the most distinguished names in your profession. You're pretty well at the head of your subject in Paris."

  "M
y dear sir, you are far too kind! I protest."

  "No, no, this is a great privilege-meeting you like this. As a matter of fact, there are several very distinguished people here in Jerusalem just at present. There's yourself and there's Lord Welldon, and Sir Gabriel Steinbaum, the financier. Then there's the veteran English archaeologist, Sir Manders Stone. And there's Lady Westholme who's very prominent in English politics. And there's that famous Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot."

  "Little Hercule Poirot? Is he here?"

  "I read his name in the local paper as having lately arrived. Seems to me all the world and his wife are at the Solomon Hotel. A mighty fine hotel it is, too. And very tastefully decorated."

  Mr. Jefferson Cope was clearly enjoying himself. Dr. Gerard was a man who could display a lot of charm when he chose. Before long the two men had adjourned to the bar.

  After a couple of highballs Gerard said: "Tell me, is that a typical American family to whom you were talking?"

  Jefferson Cope sipped his drink thoughtfully. Then he said: "Why, no, I wouldn't say it was exactly typical."

  "No? A very devoted family, though."

  Cope said slowly: "You mean they all seem to revolve round the old lady? That's true enough. She's a very remarkable old lady, you know."

  "Indeed?"

  Mr. Cope needed very little encouragement. The gentle invitation was enough. "I don't mind telling you, Dr. Gerard, I've been having that family a good deal on my mind lately. I've been thinking about them a lot. If I may say so, it would ease my mind to talk to you about the matter. If it won't bore you, that is?"

  Dr. Gerard disclaimed boredom. Mr. Jefferson Cope went on slowly, his pleasant clean-shaven face creased with perplexity.

  "I'll tell you straight away that I'm just a little worried. Mrs. Boynton, you see, is an old friend of mine. That is to say, not the old Mrs. Boynton, the young one. Mrs. Lennox Boynton."