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?"

Colonel Carbury did not reply to that question directly. "Unpleasant old woman, it seems. No loss. General feeling all around that her popping off was a good thing. Anyway, very difficult to prove anything so long as the family stick together and if necessary lie like hell. One doesn't want complications—or international unpleasantness. Easiest thing to do—let it go! Nothing really to look upon. Knew a doctor chap once. He told me—often had suspicions in cases of his patients—hurried into the next world a little ahead of time! He said—best thing to do keep quiet unless you really had something damned good to go upon! Otherwise beastly stink, case not proved, black mark against an earnest hard-working G.P.. Something in that. All the same—" He scratched his head again. "I'm a tidy man," he said unexpectedly.

Colonel Carbury's tie was under his left ear, his socks were wrinkled, his coat was stained and torn. Yet Hercule Poirot did not smile. He saw, clearly enough, the inner neatness of Colonel Carbury's mind, his neatly docketed facts, his carefully sorted impressions.