Nadine did nothing. She couldn't have done anything.
My mother - my mother was already dead."
"Ah!" Poirot's eyes came gently around to him. "So, after all, it was you who killed her, M. Boynton?"
Again a moment's pause - then Lennox dropped back into his chair and raised trembling hands to his face.
"Yes - that's right - I killed her."
"You took the digitoxin from Dr. Gerard's tent?"
"Yes."
"When?"
"As - as - you said - in the morning."
"And the syringe?"
"The syringe?
Yes."
"Why did you kill her?"
"Can you ask?"
"I am asking, M. Boynton!"
"But you know my wife was leaving me - with Cope - "
"Yes, but you only learned that in the afternoon!"
Lennox stared at him.
"Of course. When we were out - "
"But you took the poison and the syringe in the morning - before you knew?"
"Why the hell do you badger me with questions?" He paused and passed a shaking hand across his forehead. "What does it matter, anyway?"
"It matters a great deal.
I advise you, M. Lennox Boynton, to tell me the truth."
"The truth?" Lennox stared at him. Nadine suddenly turned abruptly in her chair and gazed into her husband's face.
"That is what I said - the truth."
"By God, I will," said Lennox suddenly. "But I don't know whether you will believe me." He drew a deep breath. "That afternoon, when I left Nadine, I was absolutely all to pieces.
I'd never dreamed she'd go from me to someone else.
I was - I was nearly mad! I felt as though I was drunk or recovering from a bad illness."
Poirot nodded.
He said: "I noted Lady Westholme's description of your gait when you passed her.
That is why I knew your wife was not speaking the truth when she said she told you after you were both back at the camp.
Continue, M. Boynton."
"I hardly knew what I was doing... But as I got near, my brain seemed to clear.
It flashed over me that I had only myself to blame! I'd been a miserable worm!
I ought to have defied my stepmother and cleared out years ago.
And it came to me that it mightn't be too late even now.
There she was, the old devil, sitting up like an obscene idol against the red cliffs.
I went right up to have it out with her. I meant to tell her just what I thought and to announce that I was clearing out.
I had a wild idea I might get away at once that evening - clear out with Nadine and get as far as Ma'an anyway that night."
"Oh, Lennox - my dear - " It was a long soft sigh.
He went on: "And then, my God - you could have struck me down with a touch! She was dead. Sitting there - dead...
I - I didn't know what to do. I was dumb - dazed. Everything I was going to shout out at her bottled up inside me - turning to lead - I can't explain...
Stone - that's what it felt like - being turned to stone. I did something mechanically. I picked up her wristwatch (it was lying in her lap) and put it around her wrist - her horrid, limp, dead wrist..." He shuddered. "God! It was awful!
Then I stumbled down, went into the marquee. I ought to have called someone, I suppose but I couldn't. I just sat there, turning the pages - waiting..." He stopped. "You won't believe that - you can't.
Why didn't I call someone?
Tell Nadine?
I don't know."
Dr. Gerard cleared his throat.
"Your statement is perfectly plausible, M. Boynton," he said.
"You were in a bad nervous condition. Two severe shocks administered in rapid succession would be quite enough to put you in the condition you have described It is the Weissenhalter reaction - best exemplified in the case of a bird that has dashed its head against a window.