Poirot took a deep breath. "It is perfect, that. Yes, I see exactly what you mean. It was so. It all fits in. She chose to live dangerously, la Maman Boynton and she paid the penalty!"

Sarah leaned forward, her pale intelligent face very serious.

"You mean," she said, "that she drove her victims too far and—and they turned on her—or—or one of them did?"

Poirot bowed his head.

Sarah said, and her voice was a little breathless: "Which of them?"

Poirot looked at her, at her hands clenched fiercely on the wild flowers, at the pale rigidity of her face.

He did not answer—was indeed saved from answering—for at that moment Gerard touched his shoulder and said: "Look."

A girl was wandering along the side of the hill. She moved with a strange rhythmic grace that somehow gave the impression that she was not quite real. The gold-red of her hair shone in the sunlight, a strange secretive smile lifted the beautiful corners of her mouth.

Poirot drew in his breath. He said: "How beautiful. . . How strangely, movingly beautiful. That is how Ophelia should be played—like a young goddess straying from another world, happy because she has escaped out of the bondage of human joys and griefs."

"Yes, yes, you are right," said Gerard. "It is a face to dream of, is it not? I dreamt of it. In my fever I opened my eves and saw that face—with its sweet unearthly smile. . . . It was a good dream. I was sorry to wake. . . ."

Then, with a return to his commonplace manner: "That is Ginevra Boynton," he said.

12

In another minute the girl had reached them. Dr. Gerard performed the introduction.

"Miss Boynton, this is M. Hercule Poirot."

"Oh!" She looked at him uncertainly. Her fingers joined together, twined themselves uneasily in and out. The enchanted nymph had come back from the country of enchantment. She was now just an ordinary, awkward girl, slightly nervous and ill at ease.

Poirot said: "It is a piece of good fortune meeting you here, Mademoiselle. I tried to see you in the hotel."

"Did you?" Her smile was vacant. Her fingers began plucking at the belt of her dress.

He said gently: "Will you walk with me a little way?"

She moved docilely enough, obedient to his whim. Presently she said, rather unexpectedly, in a queer hurried voice: "You are—you are a detective, aren't you?"

"Yes, Mademoiselle,"

"A very well-known detective?"

"The best detective in the world," said Poirot, stating it as a simple truth, no more, no less.

Ginevra Boynton breathed very softly: "You have come here to protect me?"

Poirot stroked his moustache thoughtfully. He said: "Are you then in danger, Mademoiselle?"

"Yes. Yes!" She looked around with a quick suspicious dance. "I told Dr. Gerard about it in Jerusalem. He was very clever. He gave no sign at the time. But he followed me to that terrible place with the red rocks." She shivered. "They meant to kill me there. I have to be continually on my guard."