She lifted the flap and looked in.
The doctor was lying motionless on his bed.
Sarah withdrew noiselessly, hoping he was asleep.
A servant came to her and pointed to the marquee.
Evidently supper was ready.
She strolled down again.
Everyone was assembled there around the table with the exception of Dr. Gerard and Mrs. Boynton.
A servant was dispatched to tell the old lady dinner was ready.
Then there was a sudden commotion outside. Two frightened servants came in and spoke excitedly to the dragoman in Arabic.
Mahmoud looked around him in a flustered manner and went outside.
On an impulse Sarah joined him.
"What's the matter?" she asked.
Mahmoud replied: "The old lady. Abdul says she is ill - cannot move." "I'll come and see."
Sarah quickened her step.
Following Mahmoud, she climbed the rocks and walked along until she came to the squat lounging chair, touched the puffy hand, felt for the pulse, bent over her...
When she straightened herself she was paler.
She re-trod her steps back to the marquee. In the doorway she paused a minute, looking at the group at the far end of the table.
Her voice when she spoke sounded to herself brusque and unnatural.
"I'm so sorry," she said. She forced herself to address the head of the family, Lennox. "Your mother is dead, Mr. Boynton."
And curiously, as though from a great distance, she watched the faces of five people to whom that announcement meant freedom...
Book Two
1
Colonel Carbury smiled across the table at his guest and lifted his glass.
"Well, to crime!"
Hercule Poirot's eyes twinkled in acknowledgment of the toast.
He had come to Amman with a letter of introduction to Colonel Carbury from Colonel Race.
Carbury seemed interested to see this world-famous investigator person [a few unreadable pages here] Yet in Transjordania he was a power.
"There s Jerash," he said. "Care about that sort of thing?"
"I am interested in everything!"
"Yes" said Carbury. "That's the only way to react to life." "Tell me, d'you ever find your own special job has a way of following you around?"
"Pardon?"
"Well - to put it plainly - do you come to places expecting a holiday from crime - and find instead bodies cropping up?"
"It has happened, yes - more than once."
"Hm," said Colonel Carbury, and looked particularly abstracted. Then he roused himself with a jerk. "Got a body now I'm not very happy about," he said.
"Indeed?"
"Yes.
Here in Amman.
Old American woman. Went to Petra with her family.
Trying journey, unusual heat for time of year, old woman suffered from heart trouble, difficulties of the journey a bit harder for her than she imagined, extra strain on heart - she popped off!"
"Here - in Amman?"
"No, down at Petra.
They brought the body here today."
"Ah!"
"All quite natural. Perfectly possible. Likeliest thing in the world to happen.
Only - "
"Yes? Only - ?"
Colonel Carbury scratched his bald head.
"I've got the idea," he said, "that her family did her in!"
"Aha!
And what makes you think that?"