Appointment with Death Page #9

of torn and patched breeches...

and his puttees were wound most untidily.

But Lady Westholme was sitting at her tent

200 yards away.

She said she didn't see the face.

How could she possibly have seen

the detail of clothing at such a distance?

There was no Arab who had an argument

with Mrs. Boynton.

The person who killed Mrs. Boynton

was the same as the one that stood...

behind Dr. King in Jerusalem.

Dr. King.

And it was the same one

who was standing behind me...

when I was waiting for the only witness

of the murder to meet me.

Oh, it was no coincidence.

Lady Westholme's window

gave onto the very alley...

where the boy had asked me to meet him

the night before.

She overheard, but she had no way

of finding him before our actual meeting.

After that she took to the streets

like a hunter...

and did not rest

until she had killed her quarry.

But just a minute. Miss Quinton said

that Mrs. Boynton was still alive...

when she and Lady Westholme

started out on their walk...

and she was certainly dead

by the time they got back.

Miss Quinton agreed with Lady Westholme.

She grunted like a pig.

Most offensive.

But Miss Quinton is easily suggestible.

Only yesterday in the lobby, I said...

That is the largest spider I have ever seen.

Oh, yes. Spiders do not frighten me.

There was, of course, no spider...

and Mrs. Boynton at no time

grunted like a pig.

I invented the spider.

And as for Mrs. Boynton, oh, she was dead.

What happened was that Lady Westholme

went back to her tent.

She made herself

a headdress out of a sheet...

and a duster, in this manner here...

and some kind of a cord.

Like this.

Then she went into Ginny's tent by mistake,

hence the story of the sheik.

She came out

and went into the tent of Dr. King.

Here she finds the hypodermic and fills it.

Then she goes out...

to where Mrs. Boynton is sitting,

grabs her wrist, and injects the poison.

She leaves her sitting there

until Miss Quinton returns...

when Lady Westholme

invites her to go for a walk.

But why should Lady Westholme,

of all people, want to murder Mrs. Boynton?

Lady Westholme was born an American...

but, of course,

she became more English than any native.

Mrs. Boynton said she never forgot a face.

Consider she was a wardress in a prison...

and your adjutant, Colonel,

has confirmed my suspicion...

in a telephone call to

the American police...

that Lady Westholme, prior to her marriage,

was a criminal...

who served a prison sentence

in that very same prison.

So Stepmother was going to blackmail

Lady Westholme?

Well, not conventional blackmail.

No, there was no money involved.

It just gave her the opportunity

of torturing her victim for a while.

Then she'd enjoy revealing the truth.

In the most spectacular way.

Precisely.

Lady Westholme knew that the days

of her influence were numbered...

if Mrs. Boynton could not be silenced.

Ladies and gentlemen...

if you would care to go out to the terrace,

the fireworks await you.

Fireworks, we've had them already.

I'll see you later.

Do you know what it is

to come from nothing?

To climb inch by inch to respectability...

to hear acclaim, to have position...

to see all that turning to dust?

She's better dead.

The family rejoice.

Should I be the only one to suffer?

Will you arrest me, Monsieur Poirot?

That is up to Colonel Carbury, Madame.

Damn you.

Oh, I love that visual opulence.

God bless the King.

Oh, look. The royal crown,

can you see it over there?

Yes, how nice and royal.

It gives you confidence, I always think.

Lady Westholme's room.

- Excuse me. Excuse me.

- Come on.

What was that?

What's going on?

She died while cleaning her gun.

What?

Suicide would mean another investigation.

She had trouble enough while alive.

Give her peace in death.

A terrible accident, Lord Peel.

There's nothing more that we could do.

"The tragic death of Lady Westholme

occurred in Jerusalem yesterday. "

While cleaning her gun as I deduced.

She was ever a woman who knew her duty.

How British for a woman

to take the gentleman's way out.

She was American.

Oh, hello.

Good-bye, Hercule.

Good-bye, Colonel Carbury.

You're going to America

with this young man?

Oh, Ray's asked me to stay in America.

Only briefly, of course.

Of course.

I'm going digging in America,

Monsieur Poirot.

- Good-bye!

- Bye-bye.

- Have a good time.

- Bon voyage!

Good-bye, Monsieur Poirot!

Good-bye, Colonel Carbury!

Well, I hope they realize,

as Andr Gide did...

that to free oneself is nothing.

The really arduous task is to know

what to do with one's freedom.

- Good-bye.

- Good-bye.

- Good-bye.

- Au revoir.

Well, I think they'll be all right.

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