"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 your 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 saving 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 

1. Mrs. Boynton was taking a mixture containing digitalis.

2. Dr. Gerard missed a hypodermic syringe.

3. Mrs. Boynton took definite pleasure in keeping her family from enjoying themselves with other people.

4. Mrs. Boynton, on the afternoon in question, encouraged her family to go away and leave her.

5. Mrs. Boynton was a mental sadist.

6. 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 wristwatch to the right time.

8 Dr. Gerard and Miss Ginevra 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 rather 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 Carburv 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!"

Sarah King sat on a hilltop absently plucking up wild flowers. Dr. Gerard sat on a rough wall of stones near her. 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 clearheaded 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 somber eyes she watched the uphill progress of Hercule Poirot.

He reached them at last 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 soigne," 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. "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 terribly 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 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 thoughtfully.

"Oh, essentially! He has ideals-based, really, on a deep instinct of laziness. To take human nature at its best and the world as a pleasant place is undoubtedly the easiest course in life! Jefferson Cope has, consequently, not the least idea what people are really like."

"That might be dangerous sometimes," said Poirot.

Dr. Gerard went on: "He persisted in regarding what I may describe as 'the Boynton situation' as a case of mistaken devotion. Of the underlying hate, rebellion, slavery and misery he had only the faintest notion."

"It is stupid, that," Poirot commented.

"All the same," went on Dr. Gerard, "even the most willfully obtuse of sentimental optimists cannot be quite blind. I think, on the journey to Petra, Mr. Jefferson Cope's eyes were being opened."

And he described the conversation he had had with the American on the morning of Mrs. Boynton's death.

"That is an interesting story, that story of a servant girl, said Poirot thoughtfully. "It throws light on the old woman's methods."

Gerard said: "It was altogether an odd, strange morning, that! You have not been to Petra, M. Poirot? If you go, you must certainly climb to the Place of Sacrifice. It has an-how could I say?-an atmosphere!" He described the scene in detail adding: "Mademoiselle here sat like a young judge, speaking of the sacrifice of one to save many. You remember, Miss King?"

Sarah shivered. "Don't! Don't let's talk of that day."

"No, no," said Poirot. "Let us talk of events further back in the past. I am interested, Dr. Gerard, in your sketch of Mrs. Boynton's mentality. What I do not quite understand is this. Having brought her family into absolute subjection, why did she then arrange this trip abroad where surely there was danger of outside contacts and of her authority being weakened?"

Dr. Gerard leaned forward excitedly. "But, mon vieux, that is just it! Old ladies are the same all the world over. They get bored! If their specialty is placing patience, they sicken of the patience they know too well. They want to learn a new patience. And it is just the same with an old lady whose recreation (incredible as it may sound) is the dominating and tormenting of human creatures! Mrs. Boynton-to speak of her as une dompteuse-had tamed her tigers. There was perhaps some excitement as they passed through the stage of adolescence. Lennox's marriage to Nadine was an adventure. But then, suddenly, all was stale. Lennox is so sunk in melancholy that it is practically impossible to wound or stress him. Raymond and Carol show no signs of rebellion."