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    Appointment With Death: A Hercule Poirot Mystery: The Official Authorized Edition
    Appointment With Death: A Hercule Poirot Mystery: The Official Authorized Edition
    Appointment With Death: A Hercule Poirot Mystery: The Official Authorized Edition
    Ebook334 pages4 hours

    Appointment With Death: A Hercule Poirot Mystery: The Official Authorized Edition

    By Agatha Christie

    4.5/5

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    About this ebook

    Hercule Poirot may be on vacation, but a killer isn't. The victim's a hateful tourist despised even by her own children. For the guests at the resort hotel, sympathies are with the murderer, which means a tough job for the Belgian detective.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateJan 25, 2005
    ISBN9780061738005
    Author

    Agatha Christie

    Agatha Christie is known throughout the world as the Queen of Crime. Her books have sold over a billion copies in English with another billion in over 70 foreign languages. She is the most widely published author of all time and in any language, outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. She is the author of 80 crime novels and short story collections, 20 plays, and six novels written under the name of Mary Westmacott.

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    Reviews for Appointment With Death

    4.5/5

    42 ratings24 reviews

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    • 4/5
      As stated in another review, I had never read anything by Agatha Christie until I recently picked up several volumes from a remainder table. Appointment With Death was a quick read, the murderer was a surprise, and the siting of the murder at Petra was a real plus. However, having recently read Death on the Nile, I have read more than enough about "voluble dragomen". It seems Christie considered the two words to be inseparable.
    • 5/5
      4.5*

      "You do see, don't you, that she's got to be killed?"

      Mrs. Boynton is despised by everyone who meets her. Even her family. All of her children live under her thumb and it is easy to see how her manipulative tyranny make Mrs. Boynton one of the most despicable characters and one of the most deserving victims in any Christie novel.

      Poirot, having once overheard a conversation between two of the Boyton children, is resolved to investigate when a death occurs on a trip to Petra.

      I really enjoyed this mystery. Christie focuses once again on the relationships between the characters and uses psychology to map out what makes those relationship keep intact. There is something compelling about the vile Mrs Boynton as none of the people around her find the strength to tear away from her even though this would ultimately be for their own good. At the same time, Mrs Boyton's sadistic behaviour provides a number of lies and deceptions that make it fun to follow Poirot's investigations and keep guessing the resolution to this mystery.
    • 3/5
      Another reliable author for a bit of Christmas reading. The interesting thing about this one, is how different it is to the TV adaptation.
    • 5/5
      Now I've read both the play and the novel.
    • 3/5
      Death of a very unpleasant woman while sitting in a deck chair during a tour of an archaeological site in he Near Eat, Infuenced by Christie's life in the area with her archaeologist husband Max Mallown. There is a good film version. .
    • 4/5
      Really 3.5 stars. I had trouble getting into the book at first because I found the character of Mrs. Boynton do creepy and unpleasant, but quite enjoyed it after that. Good ending.
    • 3/5
      One of the more predictable of the Poirot cases. I had figured out the solution by the halfway point so the second half of the book was a little tedious to read.
    • 3/5
      This was not the best book by Agatha. By all means. First of all, Poirot only appears in half the book (100 of 210 pages) and the last 20 pages is the setting as Poirot tells them all how smart he is and how he cracked the murder.

      So it seems, not all people had some motifs to kill the Matriach of a American family and the killer isn't who we are led to believe.

      My main problem is that Agatha Christie was getting more and more discontent with Poirot and this book shows it. I understand. This lady as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle are two examples that created some powerful characters that are more known than them. Everyone knows who is Sherlock Holmes but I bet that some people don't know who wrote the stories. The same happens with Poirot and Agatha Christie. I understand that this must me a pression to the writer... I really hope the last 10 books of Poirot are better than the last couple ones I read.

      This book also had some interesting notions how Christie view the americans, jews or the beduins.

      The story itself was quite good. A matriach keeps under her leash four (step)sons/daughters and they all want to leave her. Poirot hears in the beginning of the story two persons saying that "She must die, you understand?" and from that moment on we learn more of the family and several people they met as they travel to israel and arabian penisula. Is quite interesting, don't get me wrong. A psychodrama.

      Not the best to start reading Poirot.
    • 3/5
      Number 19 in the Hercule Poirot series and first published in 1938. The tyrannical Mrs Boynton has a great hold over her family which many witness during a holiday to The Holy Land. When the sadistic woman and former prison warden is seemingly murdered, Belgian detective Poirot interrupts his vacation to take on the case. The book examines the psychology of the warped Boynton family. Her other characters include Lady Westholme (imperious MP), Dr.Gerard (French doctor), Miss Pierce (scatterbrained goose), Miss Sarah King (newly qualified doctor). A good read with a twist at the end.
    • 4/5
      One of her best, I find, mostly due to how rich the characterization is and how good of a villain Mrs Boynton is. I also really enjoyed the epilogue and I think if any book deserved an epilogue so the reader knows the characters end up okay, it was this. The only thing that bothers me is that Poirot dismisses the idea of letting the culprit get away with it even though he did it in Orient Express and in my opinion they're both as evil. Orient Express is my favourite Christie so far and it's also due to the fact that the murder questions Poirot's values so much - he had no good reason to pursue the investigation here seeing as Mrs Boynton is an absolute sadist and I for one would have liked more consistency on his part. Regardless, it's a really good mystery.
    • 3/5
      On Dec 29, 1945, I siad: "Today I finished a mystery - then the mail came: three Chicago Suns, the Commonweal, abd The Messenager, which had all about the four new Ameican Cardinals" Not a word about what I thought of this book!
    • 4/5
      Once again murder disrupts Hercule Poirot's vacation. This time, he's in the Middle East. He first encounters the victim and several suspects in their Jerusalem hotel. Mrs. Boynton is more than just the stereotypical obnoxious American tourist. She's a tyrant who takes pleasure in manipulating the lives of her daughter and step-children. In some ways, it's not a surprise when Mrs. Boynton is murdered during an excursion to Petra. Did she push her children too far? Or could someone else in the party have had a motive for murdering the woman?While some of the plot elements are similar to her other books, Christie adds some different twists. Even though I had read the book before, I had forgotten the culprit's identity, and Christie fooled me this time. The book is full of suspects and red herrings, yet the significant clues were delivered in a way that didn't raise my suspicion. This is a characteristic I take for granted in Christie's mysteries, but it's something a lot of other mystery writers don't manage to do.
    • 4/5
      Amidst a group that is touring the Middle East is a family, consisting of a malicious, domineering woman, her three adult step-children, her daughter, and her daughter-in-law. The evil old harridan controls every aspect of her children's lives, rarely even allowing them to interact independently with the outside world.When she is found dead, it is assumed that the trip was too strenuous for her, since she suffered from a "dicky" heart.The investigating officer feels that there are still questions about the woman's death, and turns to Hercule Poirot, who happens to be in the Middle East, and who also happens to have overheard a very incriminating conversation between two of her children.The character of the vile old woman was so vivid that I could feel the evil oozing from her! In fact, in my mind's eye I saw her as a nasty, fat, black spider, spinning the web in which she entrapped her children. This is an example of Christie at her best! I enjoyed it immensely.
    • 5/5
      Mrs Boynton's American family are in thrall to her. She dominates their lives like a giant spider and saps their individual wills to rebel. Only one of her family are actually her own child. Three of the remaining are her step children and one of the women is married to her eldest step-son. They are all totally dependent on her for financial support, although they will all inherit a massive fortune equally at her death. " What a horror of a woman!" Old, swollen, bloated, sitting there immoveable in the midsts of them - a distorted old Buddha - a gross spider in the centre of a web!Onlookers can see the toll that attendance on their mother is taking on the younger members of the Boynton family. They are nervy, drained, and apparently exhausted. What should have been a holiday in Jerusalem and Petra is a constant battle of wills with their mother who controls where they go, what they see, and who they talk to.By the end of Part I, nearly half way through the novel, Mrs Boynton keeps her appointment with death while visiting Petra. Hercule Poirot had already observed the family in Jerusalem. Just now he is visiting Colonel Carbury in Amman with a letter of introduction from Colonel Race. Mrs Boynton's body is brought to Amman and Carbury invites Poirot to assist him in the investigation. Hercule Poirot ... the egg-shaped head, the gigantic moustaches, the dandyfied appearance and the suspicious blackness of his hair.Poirot is fresh from his success in DEATH ON THE NILE. Where Colonel Race was his confidante in that case, Colonel Carbury takes on that role in APPOINTMENT WITH DEATH. Poirot is pretty confident though thta he will be able to solve the puzzle fairly quickly. Carbury says that he is only able to detain the family members and fellow travellers for 24 hours, so Poirot has a limit to the time available to him.Poirot says he will succeed through ... methodical sifting of the evidence, by a process of reasoning.... And by a study of psychological possibilities.Carbury is very sceptical of Poirot's ability, but of course, in the end Poirot proves what he said at the beginning. I am gifted.... I know my own ability.This is once again an enjoyable read. What strikes you with these novels is that they are relatively short by today's standards. Christie seems to have the ability to put a small world under the microscope, and yet at the same time can supply us with a considerable amount of detail, enough to float a red herring or two.
    • 5/5
      Shocking ending! Reminiscent of Murder on the Orient Express, but of course enough differences to keep you interested!
    • 5/5
      Another of Christie's adventures that keeps you guessing until the very end. A subtle clue is there that makes you think...it could be this one...but, it's so much more obviously THIS one. And, then, of course, it's the one who flitted right through your brain with no more than a second's thought. I love that she constantly delights me no matter how jaded I think I am to murder mysteries and no matter that I read these as a teen. Thirty years later they are just as engrossing, just as intriguing---if not more so---and just as satisfying.
    • 4/5
      You could look at Appointment with Death as either an appropriate read, or a totally wrong read for Mother’s Day as it deals with a monstrous mother whose chief joy in life is tormenting her children. In this offering by Agatha Christie we deal with the death of Mrs. Boynton, who along with her family is vacationing in the Middle East. Coincidentally, Hercule Poirot is also on vacation and is conveniently on hand to investigate firstly whether a murder did occur, and if so, who is the murderer.In typical Christie fashion, there’s plenty of suspects, the five remaining Boyntons, all interesting characters on their own, as well as other travellers in the party. A few red herrings help to keep you guessing, but overall, I wasn’t too surprised at the outcome. Perhaps not my favorite Agatha Christie mystery, but certainly an enjoyable read that gives us a fun look at upper class travellers in the 1930’s.
    • 5/5
      One of my favorite Christies. An absolutely obnoxious victim, an old spider of a woman; an oddball family group to pull suspects from; the red city of Petra as a setting--who could ask for anything more in a relaxing mystery?
    • 4/5
      One of her best. Don't judge it by the TV version which bears almost no relation to the original and contains a great deal of silliness that would've made Agatha very angry indeed. The book has a great deal to say about the nature of evil, and the need for courage in the face of it. Some great little riffs that could be called post modern too - reference to DL Sayers "Unnatural death" (1927) (p141 "...I read in a book - an English Detective story...") and Colonel Carbury's request that Poirot make a timetable and a list ("I suppose you couldn't do the things the detective does in books?" p116). Great fun. Just leave out white slaving nuns and the head of John the Baptist - AC was much cleverer than that!
    • 4/5
      Appointment with Death hails from Christie's prime, i.e. the 1930s, and its exotic settings in the middle East are a big plus, too. Poirot is called to the scene -- Petra -- to investigate the suspicious death of a tyrannical matriarch, whose cowering stepchildren and natural daughter are all sympathetic but highly plausible suspects. Christie also brings in a couple of characters with medical/psychological background here, and they spend a great deal of the novel dissecting the likelihood that our suspects' deep-seated murderous urges simply grew too powerful to resist. This doesn't make for an action-packed story, but I never found it dull.Overall, then, this is a good standard Christie. It's not one of her very best, but it's still a delight to read.
    • 4/5
      June, 2001Appointment with DeathAgatha ChristieAnother one from Grandpa’s paperback collection. Typical Christie fare. Poirot mystery. I usually prefer the “singles”, as I call them, rather than the Miss Marples or Poirots, but this was okay. Poirot is in Jerusalem, some tour thing, and some nasty old biddy gets murdered in her tent, or sitting outside of it, rather. Everybody had a reason to kill her, especially her grown children, who she kept under a firm grip financially and emotionally. Christie does excel at that kind of familial desperation - the need to kill to escape. I often wish they’d get away with it!
    • 5/5
      This is one of my favourite Christie novels. I love the idea of setting the murder at Petra of all places and the victim, Mrs Boynton is one of Christie's most psychologically interesting characters and one who very definitely deserves to die.
    • 3/5
      Die, Mother, Die!If anyone ever deserved to die, Mrs. Boynton was it.This is made chillingly clear to us in the very first sentence of Agatha's 1938 novel Appointment With Death: "You do see, don't you, that she's got to be killed?"The speaker is Mrs. Boynton's stepson, Raymond, and he's making that desperate, emphatic statement to his sister Carol while they stand at the window of the King Solomon Hotel in Jerusalem. Unbeknownst to him, there is one other person who heard that declaration of murderous intent: Monsieur Hercule Poirot, who has a room above the Boynton's.You do see, don't you, that she's got to be killed?"The question floated out into the still night air, seemed to hang there a moment and then drift away down into the darkness towards the Dead Sea.Hercule Poirot paused a minute with his hand on the window catch.…."Decidedly, wherever I go, there is something to remind me of crime!" he murmured to himself.Poirot thinks he's overheard someone rehearsing a play or reading aloud from a book and so he goes to bed, trying to put the remark out of his head.After that opening scene, Poirot won't show up for another 75 pages. By that time, She has most certainly been killed.And what of this Mrs. Boynton? Why must she be killed?As we get deeper into Appointment With Death, it quickly becomes apparent that the lady must die in order to put the rest of her family out of their misery. Fat, lazy and self-indulgent, Mrs. Boynton is surrounded by the fawning members of her family—stepchildren Raymond, Carol, and Lennox; her daughter Ginevra; and Lennox' wife Nadine. Revolving like satellites around the family are other characters: famed French psychoanalyst Dr. Theodore Gerard, young doctor Sarah King, family friend Mr. Cope, social matron Lady Westholme, and her traveling companion Miss Pierce.But it's the ruling Queen Mother to whom our eye is constantly drawn. Indulge me, if you will, a couple of passages from the novel describing this vicious sack of flesh we call "Mrs. Boynton.""Heavens!" thought Dr. Gerard, with a Frenchman's candid repulsion. "What a horror of a woman!" Old, swollen, bloated, sitting there immovable in the midst of them—a distorted old Buddha—a gross spider in the center of a web!A few minutes later, as Dr. Gerard continues to observe the odd family tableau with its demanding matriarch giving orders and responding to her minions with mere grunts, he makes this observation:"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 had exercised a lifetime of power and who had never once doubted her own force.Mrs. Boynton reminds me of someone from a horror movie where a mother sadistically dominates her children and isolates them from the rest of the world --Psycho, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Friday the 13th or that epitome of matriarchal terror Mommie Dearest. The Boynton family is rich, thanks to the dear departed father Elmer who was a shrewd and well-liked businessman, but you'd never know it by the way Mrs. Boynton tightly knots the purse strings. This trip to the Holy Land seems to be an unusual instance of the adult children being allowed out of the house. Here's how Mr. Cope describes the domestic history to Dr. Gerard:"Mrs. Boynton shielded these children from the outside world and never let them make any outside contacts. The result of that is that they've grown up—well, kind of nervy. They're jumpy, if you know what I mean. Can't make friends with strangers…She's encouraged them to live at home and not go out and look for jobs….They've none of them got any hobbies. They don't play golf. They don't belong to any country club. They don't go around to dances or do anything with the other young people. They live in a great barrack of a house way down in the country, miles from anywhere. I tell you, Dr. Gerard, it seems all wrong to me."Later, Dr. Gerard will deliver this armchair analysis about why the family members cannot break the old woman's grip:"Have you ever seen the old experiment with a cock? You chalk a line on the floor and put the cock's beak to it. The cock believes he is tied there. He cannot raise his head. So with these unfortunates. She has worked on them, remember, since they were children. She has hypnotized them to believe that they cannot disobey her….She has made them believe that utter dependence on her is inevitable. They have been in prison so long that if the prison door stood open they would no longer notice!....They would all be afraid of freedom."In that first opening scene when Carol asks Raymond if he thinks killing their stepmother would be morally wrong, he replies, "No. I think it's just like killing a mad dog—something that's doing harm in the world and must be stopped. This is the only way of stopping it."Eventually, Mrs. Boynton is stopped—when her black heart suddenly ceases to beat as she's sitting on a perch overlooking a campsite at Petra while on a tour to the holy site. All throughout the camp, there is a feeling of relief that the old lady's grip has finally been loosened. At first, it seems that Mrs. Boynton died of natural causes, but then little suspicions start to build as more details come to light—a hypodermic needle is missing, along with a bottle of the deadly drug digitoxin; and then someone notices a tiny puncture mark on the stepmother's wrist.Despite this long build-up about the vividly evil character of Mrs. Boynton, none of it really matters to Poirot during his investigation into her murder. "The moral character of the victim has nothing to do with it! A human being who has exercised the right of private judgment and taken the life of another human being is not safe to exist amongst the community." Mrs. Boynton may have been Hitler's twin sister, but that wouldn't matter one speck to Poirot in his hermetically sanitized world view. There has been a crime and the criminal, no matter how justified, must be held accountable.The Belgian detective promises to catch the murderer in twenty-four hours or less and he spends the rest of the day interviewing those in the tour group about the events leading up to Her sudden death. Unlike the average Christie mystery, Appointment With Death depends more on psychological profiling than it does physical evidence. As he talks to the family members and others who were there at the Petra camp, Poirot carefully studies their reactions, their verbal tap dances around the truth, their interior psychological makeup. While he doesn't completely dispense with the physical evidence—note the detailed timelines he is always compiling—Poirot is more keenly interested in why Mrs. Boynton was killed than how.While I applaud Agatha for stretching into new territory, Appointment With Death doesn't possess the usual sprightly zing of her other novels. For my taste, there are far too many pages devoted to psychobabble—especially when you get Dr. Gerard and Sarah King together in the same room—which hang like a millstone around the novel's neck, dragging it down to the watery depths. It's as if Agatha got her hands on some dusty volumes of Freud and/or Jung, and just couldn't wait to share everything she'd learned. While psychology is central to the book—as, indeed, it is to most mystery novels—Agatha just doesn't integrate it seamlessly into the scenes here in the Holy Land.To continue in my nitpicking rant, I had trouble envisioning the murder scene (the camp the tourists arrive at midway through the plot). As frequent readers of Christie novels can attest, the geography of the murders is important to visualize (at least if you want to keep up with Poirot or Miss Marple). In some cases, an actual floor plan is included in the pages of the book. Sadly, that is not the case here, and we're left trying to visualize the rows of pitched tents, the trail up the mountainside, and the perch at the mouth of the cave where Mrs. Boynton met her end.In the end, Appointment With Death plods along to its typical Christie denouement and the revelation of a killer, which actually turns out to be rather lackluster. The one thing you'll carry away from the novel, however, is that fascinatingly cruel woman who commandeers events from the center of her selfish universe. Yes, Mrs. Boynton must die, but when she exits the book some of the spark goes along with her.
    • 4/5
      This is one of several of Christie's mysteries that show some of the influence of her archeologist husband.

    Book preview

    Appointment With Death - Agatha Christie

    Part I

    Chapter 1

    ‘You do see, don’t you, that she’s got to be killed?’

    The question floated out into the still night air, seemed to hang there a moment and then drift away down into the darkness towards the Dead Sea.

    Hercule Poirot paused a minute with his hand on the window catch. Frowning, he shut it decisively, thereby excluding any injurious night air! Hercule Poirot had been brought up to believe that all outside air was best left outside, and that night air was especially dangerous to the health.

    As he pulled the curtains neatly over the window and walked to his bed, he smiled tolerantly to himself.

    ‘You do see, don’t you, that she’s got to be killed?’

    Curious words for one Hercule Poirot, detective, to overhear on his first night in Jerusalem.

    ‘Decidedly, wherever I go, there is something to remind me of crime!’ he murmured to himself.

    His smile continued as he remembered a story he had once heard concerning Anthony Trollope the novelist. Trollope was crossing the Atlantic at the time and had overheard two fellow passengers discussing the last published installment of one of his novels.

    ‘Very good,’ one man had declared. ‘But he ought to kill off that tiresome old woman.’

    With a broad smile the novelist had addressed them:

    ‘Gentlemen, I am much obliged to you! I will go and kill her immediately!’

    Hercule Poirot wondered what had occasioned the words he had just overheard. A collaboration, perhaps, over a play or a book.

    He thought, still smiling: ‘Those words might be remembered, one day, and given a more sinister meaning.’

    There had been, he now recollected, a curious nervous intensity in the voice—a tremor that spoke of some intense emotional strain. A man’s voice—or a boy’s…

    Hercule Poirot thought to himself as he turned out the light by his bed: ‘I should know that voice again…’

    II

    Their elbows on the window-sill, their heads close together, Raymond and Carol Boynton gazed out into the blue depths of the night. Nervously, Raymond repeated his former words: ‘You do see, don’t you, that she’s got to be killed?’

    Carol Boynton stirred slightly. She said, her voice deep and hoarse: ‘It’s horrible…’

    ‘It’s not more horrible than this!’

    ‘I suppose not…’

    Raymond said violently: ‘It can’t go on like this—it can’t…We must do something…And there isn’t anything else we can do…’

    Carol said—but her voice was unconvincing and she knew it: ‘If we could get away somehow—?’

    ‘We can’t.’ His voice was empty and hopeless. ‘Carol, you know we can’t…’

    The girl shivered. ‘I know, Ray—I know.’

    He gave a sudden short, bitter laugh.

    ‘People would say we were crazy—not to be able just to walk out—’

    Carol said slowly: ‘Perhaps we—are crazy!’

    ‘I dare say. Yes, I dare say we are. Anyway, we soon shall be…I suppose some people would say we are already—here we are calmly planning, in cold blood, to kill our own mother!’

    Carol said sharply: ‘She isn’t our own mother!’

    ‘No, that’s true.’

    There was a pause and then Raymond said, his voice now quietly matter-of-fact: ‘You do agree, Carol?’

    Carol answered steadily: ‘I think she ought to die—yes…’

    Then she broke out suddenly: ‘She’s mad…I’m quite sure she’s mad…She—she couldn’t torture us like she does if she were sane. For years we’ve been saying: "This can’t go on!" and it has gone on! We’ve said, "She’ll die some time"—but she hasn’t died! I don’t think she ever will die unless—’

    Raymond said steadily: ‘Unless we kill her…’

    ‘Yes.’

    She clenched her hands on the window-sill in front of her.

    Her brother went on in a cool, matter-of-fact tone, with just a slight tremor denoting his deep underlying excitement.

    ‘You see why it’s got to be one of us, don’t you? With Lennox, there’s Nadine to consider. And we couldn’t bring Jinny into it.’

    Carol shivered.

    ‘Poor Jinny…I’m so afraid…’

    ‘I know. It’s getting pretty bad, isn’t it? That’s why something’s got to be done quickly—before she goes right over the edge.’

    Carol stood up suddenly, pushing back the tumbled chestnut hair from her forehead.

    ‘Ray,’ she said, ‘you don’t think it’s really wrong, do you?’

    He answered in that same would-be dispassionate tone. ‘No. I think it’s just like killing a mad dog—something that’s doing harm in the world and must be stopped. This is the only way of stopping it.’

    Carol murmured: ‘But they’d—they’d send us to the chair just the same…I mean we couldn’t explain what she’s like…It would sound fantastic…In a way, you know, it’s all in our own minds!’

    Raymond said: ‘Nobody will ever know. I’ve got a plan. I’ve thought it all out. We shall be quite safe.’

    Carol turned suddenly round on him.

    ‘Ray—somehow or another—you’re different. Something’s happened to you…What’s put all this into your head?’

    ‘Why should you think anything’s happened to me?’

    He turned his head away, staring out into the night.

    ‘Because it has…Ray, was it that girl on the train?’

    ‘No, of course not—why should it be? Oh, Carol, don’t talk nonsense. Let’s get back again to—to—’

    ‘To your plan? Are you sure it’s a—good plan?’

    ‘Yes. I think so…We must wait for the right opportunity, of course. And then—if it goes all right—we shall be free—all of us.’

    ‘Free?’ Carol gave a little sigh. She looked up at the stars. Then suddenly she shook from head to foot in a sudden storm of weeping.

    ‘Carol, what’s the matter?’

    She sobbed out brokenly: ‘It’s so lovely—the night and the blueness and the stars. If only we could be part of it all…If only we could be like other people instead of being as we are—all queer and warped and wrong.’

    ‘But we shall be—all right—when she’s dead!’

    ‘Are you sure? Isn’t it too late? Shan’t we always be queer and different?’

    ‘No, no, no.’

    ‘I wonder—’

    ‘Carol, if you’d rather not—’

    She pushed his comforting arm aside.

    ‘No, I’m with you—definitely I’m with you! Because of the others—especially Jinny. We must save Jinny!’

    Raymond paused a moment. ‘Then—we’ll go on with it?’

    ‘Yes!’

    ‘Good. I’ll tell you my plan…’

    He bent his head to hers.

    Chapter 2

    Miss Sarah King, M.B., stood by the table in the writing-room of the Solomon Hotel in Jerusalem, idly turning over the papers and magazines. A frown contracted her brows and she looked preoccupied.

    The tall middle-aged Frenchman who entered the room from the hall watched her for a moment or two before strolling up to the opposite side of the table. When their eyes met, Sarah made a little gesture of smiling recognition. She remembered that this man had come to help her when travelling from Cairo and had carried one of her suitcases at a moment when no porter appeared to be available.

    ‘You like Jerusalem, yes?’ asked Dr Gerard after they had exchanged greetings.

    ‘It’s rather terrible in some ways,’ said Sarah, and added: ‘Religion is very odd!’

    The Frenchman looked amused.

    ‘I know what you mean.’ His English was very nearly perfect. ‘Every imaginable sect squabbling and fighting!’

    ‘And the awful things they’ve built, too!’ said Sarah.

    ‘Yes, indeed.’

    Sarah sighed.

    ‘They turned me out of one place today because I had on a sleeveless dress,’ she said ruefully. ‘Apparently the Almighty doesn’t like my arms in spite of having made them.’

    Dr Gerard laughed. Then he said: ‘I was about to order some coffee. You will join me, Miss—?’

    ‘King, my name is. Sarah King.’

    ‘And mine—permit me.’ He whipped out a card. Taking it, Sarah’s eyes widened in delighted awe.

    ‘Dr Theodore Gerard? Oh! I am excited to meet you. I’ve read all your works, of course. Your views on schizophrenia are frightfully interesting.’

    ‘Of course?’ Gerard’s eyebrows rose inquisitively.

    Sarah explained rather diffidently.

    ‘You see—I’m by way of being a doctor myself. Just got my M.B.’

    ‘Ah! I see.’

    Dr Gerard ordered coffee and they sat down in a corner of the lounge. The Frenchman was less interested in Sarah’s medical achievements than in the black hair that rippled back from her forehead and the beautifully shaped red mouth. He was amused at the obvious awe with which she regarded him.

    ‘You are staying here long?’ he asked conversationally.

    ‘A few days. That is all. Then I want to go to Petra.’

    ‘Aha! I, too, was thinking of going there if it does not take too long. You see, I have to be back in Paris on the fourteenth.’

    ‘It takes about a week, I believe. Two days to go, two days there and two days back again.’

    ‘I must go to the travel bureau in the morning and see what can be arranged.’

    A party of people entered the lounge and sat down. Sarah watched them with some interest. She lowered her voice.

    ‘Those people who have just come in, did you notice them on the train the other night? They left Cairo the same time as we did.’

    Dr Gerard screwed in an eyeglass and directed his glance across the room. ‘Americans?’

    Sarah nodded.

    ‘Yes. An American family. But—rather an unusual one, I think.’

    ‘Unusual? How unusual?’

    ‘Well, look at them. Especially at the old woman.’

    Dr Gerard complied. His keen professional glance flitted swiftly from face to face.

    He noticed first a tall rather loose-boned man—age about thirty. The face was pleasant but weak and his manner seemed oddly apathetic. Then there were two good-looking youngsters—the boy had almost a Greek head. ‘Something the matter with him, too,’ thought Dr Gerard. ‘Yes—a definite state of nervous tension.’ The girl was clearly his sister, a strong resemblance, and she also was in an excitable condition. There was another girl younger still—with golden-red hair that stood out like a halo; her hands were very restless, they were tearing and pulling at the handkerchief in her lap. Yet another woman, young, calm, dark-haired with a creamy pallor, a placid face not unlike a Luini Madonna. Nothing jumpy about her! And the centre of the group—‘Heavens!’ thought Dr Gerard, with a Frenchman’s candid repulsion. ‘What a horror of a woman!’ Old, swollen, bloated, sitting there immovable in the midst of them—a distorted old Buddha—a gross spider in the centre of a web!

    To Sarah he said: ‘La Maman, she is not beautiful, eh?’ And he shrugged his shoulders.

    ‘There’s something rather—sinister about her, don’t you think?’ asked Sarah.

    Dr Gerard scrutinized her again. This time his eye was professional, not aesthetic.

    ‘Dropsy—cardiac—’ he added a glib medical phrase.

    ‘Oh, yes, that!’ Sarah dismissed the medical side.

    ‘But there is something odd in their attitude to her, don’t you think?’

    ‘Who are they, do you know?’

    ‘Their name is Boynton. Mother, married son, his wife, one younger son and two younger daughters.’

    Dr Gerard murmured: ‘La famille Boynton sees the world.’

    ‘Yes, but there’s something odd about the way they’re seeing it. They never speak to anyone else. And none of them can do anything unless the old woman says so!’

    ‘She is of the matriarchal type,’ said Gerard thoughtfully.

    ‘She’s a complete tyrant, I think,’ said Sarah.

    Dr Gerard shrugged his shoulders and remarked that the American woman ruled the earth—that was well known.

    ‘Yes, but it’s more than just that.’ Sarah was persistent. ‘She’s—oh, she’s got them all so cowed—so positively under her thumb—that it’s—it’s indecent!’

    ‘To have too much power is bad for women,’ Gerard agreed with sudden gravity. He shook his head.

    ‘It is difficult for a woman not to abuse power.’

    He shot a quick sideways glance at Sarah. She was watching the Boynton family—or rather she was watching one particular member of it. Dr Gerard smiled a quick comprehending Gallic smile. Ah! So it was like that, was it?

    He murmured tentatively: ‘You have spoken with them—yes?’

    ‘Yes—at least with one of them.’

    ‘The young man—the younger son?’

    ‘Yes. On the train coming here from Kantara. He was standing in the corridor. I spoke to him.’

    There was no self-consciousness in her attitude to life. She was interested in humanity and was of a friendly though impatient disposition.

    ‘What made you speak to him?’ asked Gerard.

    Sarah shrugged her shoulders.

    ‘Why not? I often speak to people travelling. I’m interested in people—in what they do and think and feel.’

    ‘You put them under the microscope, that is to say.’

    ‘I suppose you might call it that,’ the girl admitted.

    ‘And what were your impressions in this case?’

    ‘Well,’ she hesitated, ‘it was rather odd…To begin with, the boy flushed right up to the roots of his hair.’

    ‘Is that so remarkable?’ asked Gerard drily.

    Sarah laughed.

    ‘You mean that he thought I was a shameless hussy making advances to him? Oh, no, I don’t think he thought that. Men can always tell, can’t they?’

    She gave him a frank questioning glance. Dr Gerard nodded his head.

    ‘I got the impression,’ said Sarah, speaking slowly and frowning a little, ‘that he was—how shall I put it?—both excited and appalled. Excited out of all proportion—and quite absurdly apprehensive at the same time. Now that’s odd, isn’t it? Because I’ve always found Americans unusually self-possessed. An American boy of twenty, say, has infinitely more knowledge of the world and far more savoir-faire than an English boy of the same age. And this boy must be over twenty.’

    ‘About twenty-three or four, I should say.’

    ‘As much as that?’

    ‘I should think so.’

    ‘Yes…perhaps you’re right…Only, somehow, he seems very young…’

    ‘Maladjustment mentally. The child factor persists.’

    ‘Then I am right? I mean, there is something not quite normal about him?’

    Dr Gerard shrugged his shoulders, smiling a little at her earnestness.

    ‘My dear young lady, are any of us quite normal? But I grant you that there is probably a neurosis of some kind.’

    ‘Connected with that horrible old woman, I’m sure.’

    ‘You seem to dislike her very much,’ said Gerard, looking at her curiously.

    ‘I do. She’s got a—oh, a malevolent eye!’

    Gerard murmured: ‘So have many mothers when their sons are attracted to fascinating young ladies!’

    Sarah shrugged an impatient shoulder. Frenchmen were all alike, she thought, obsessed by sex! Though, of course, as a conscientious psychologist she herself was bound to admit that there was always an underlying basis of sex to most phenomena. Sarah’s thoughts ran along a familiar psychological track.

    She came out of her meditations with a start. Raymond Boynton was crossing the room to the centre table. He selected a magazine. As he passed her chair on his return journey she looked at him and spoke.

    ‘Have you been busy sightseeing today?’

    She selected her words at random, her real interest was to see how they would be received.

    Raymond half stopped, flushed, shied like a nervous horse and his eyes went apprehensively to the centre of his family group. He muttered: ‘Oh—oh, yes—why, yes, certainly. I—’

    Then, as suddenly as though he had received the prick of a spur, he hurried back to his family, holding out the magazine.

    The grotesque Buddha-like figure held out a fat hand for it, but as she took it her eyes, Dr Gerard noticed, were on the boy’s face. She gave a grunt, certainly no audible thanks. The position of her head shifted very slightly. The doctor saw that she was now looking hard at Sarah. Her face was quite impassive, it had no expression in it. Impossible to tell what was passing in the woman’s mind.

    Sarah looked at her watch and uttered an exclamation.

    ‘It’s much later than I thought.’ She got up. ‘Thank you so much, Dr Gerard, for standing me coffee. I must write some letters now.’

    He rose and took her hand.

    ‘We shall meet again, I hope,’ he said.

    ‘Oh, yes! Perhaps you will come to Petra?’

    ‘I shall certainly try to do so.’

    Sarah smiled at him and turned away. Her way out of the room led her past the Boynton family.

    Dr Gerard, watching, saw Mrs Boynton’s gaze shift to her son’s face. He saw the boy’s eyes meet hers. As Sarah passed, Raymond Boynton half turned his head—not towards her, but away from her…It was a slow, unwilling motion and conveyed the idea that old Mrs Boynton had pulled an invisible string.

    Sarah King noticed the avoidance, and was young enough and human enough to be annoyed by it. They had had such a friendly talk together in the swaying corridor of the wagons-lits. They had compared notes on Egypt, had laughed at the ridiculous language of the donkey boys and street touts. Sarah had described how a camel man when he had started hopefully and impudently, ‘You English lady or American?’ had received the answer: ‘No, Chinese.’ And her pleasure in seeing the man’s complete bewilderment as he stared at her. The boy had been, she thought, like a nice eager schoolboy—there had been, perhaps, something almost pathetic about his eagerness. And now, for no reason at all, he was shy, boorish—positively rude.

    ‘I shan’t take any more trouble with him,’ said Sarah indignantly.

    For Sarah, without being unduly conceited, had a fairly good opinion of herself. She knew herself to be definitely attractive to the opposite sex, and she was not one to take a snubbing lying down!

    She had been, perhaps, a shade over-friendly to this boy because, for some obscure reason, she had felt sorry for him.

    But now, it was apparent, he was merely a rude, stuck-up, boorish young American!

    Instead of writing the letters she had mentioned, Sarah King sat down in front of her dressing-table, combed the hair back from her forehead, looked into a pair of troubled hazel eyes in the glass, and took stock of her situation in life.

    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

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