死亡约会 Part II Chapter 11（3）（在线收听）

Dr Gerard leaned forward excitedly.

‘But, mon vieux, that is just it! Old ladies are the same all the world over. They get bored! Iftheir specialty is playing patience, they sicken of the patience they know too well. They want tolearn a new patience. And it is just the same with an old lady whose recreation (incredible as itmay sound) is the dominating and tormenting of human creatures! Mrs Boynton—to speak of heras une dompteuse—had tamed her tigers. There was perhaps some excitement as they passedthrough the stage of adolescence. Lennox’s marriage to Nadine was an adventure. But then,suddenly, all was stale. Lennox is so sunk in melancholy that it is practically impossible to woundor distress him. Raymond and Carol show no signs of rebellion. Ginevra—ah! la pauvre Ginevra—she, from her mother’s point of view, gives the poorest sport of all. For Ginevra has found away of escape! She escapes from reality into fantasy. The more her mother goads her, the moreeasily she gets a secret thrill out of being a persecuted heroine! From Mrs Boynton’s point of viewit is all deadly dull. She seeks, like Alexander, new worlds to conquer. And so she plans thevoyage abroad. There will be the danger of her tamed beasts rebelling, there will be opportunitiesfor inflicting fresh pain! It sounds absurd, does it not, but it was so! She wanted a new thrill.’

Poirot took a deep breath. ‘It is perfect, that. Yes, I see exactly what you mean. It was so. It allfits 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 shedrove 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 ofher face.

He did not answer—was indeed saved from answering, for at that moment Gerard touched hisshoulder and said: ‘Look.’

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

He said: ‘How beautiful…How strangely movingly beautiful…That is how Ophelia should beplayed—like a young goddess straying from another world, happy because she has escaped out ofthe 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 myfever I opened my eyes 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.