死亡约会 Part II Chapter 16（4）（在线收听）

 Continue, Mr Boynton.’

‘I hardly knew what I was doing…But as I got near, my brain seemed to clear. It flashed overme that I had only myself to blame! I’d been a miserable worm! I ought to have defied mystepmother 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 tohave 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 asMa’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 goingto shout out at her bottled up inside me—turning to lead—I can’t explain…Stone—that’s what itfelt like—being turned to stone. I did something mechanically—I picked up her wrist-watch—itwas lying in her lap—and put it round her wrist—her horrid limp dead wrist…’

He shuddered. ‘God—it was awful…Then I stumbled down, went into the marquee. I ought tohave 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, Mr Boynton,’ he said. ‘You were in a bad nervouscondition. Two severe shocks administered in rapid succession would be quite enough to put youin the condition you have described. It is the Weissenhalter reaction—best exemplified in the caseof a bird that has dashed its head against a window. Even after its recovery it refrains instinctivelyfrom all action—giving itself time to readjust the nerve centres—I do not express myself well inEnglish, but what I mean is this: You could not have acted any other way. Any decisive action ofany kind would have been quite impossible for you! You passed through a period of mentalparalysis.’

He turned to Poirot.

‘I assure you, my friend, that is so!’

‘Oh, I do not doubt it,’ said Poirot. ‘There was a little fact I had already noted—the fact that MrBoynton had replaced his mother’s wrist-watch—that was capable of two explanations—it mighthave been a cover for the actual deed, or it might have been observed and misinterpreted by MrsBoynton. She returned only five minutes after her husband. She must therefore have seen thataction. When she got up to her mother-in-law and found her dead with a mark of a hypodermicsyringe on her wrist she would naturally jump to the conclusion that her husband had committedthe deed—that her announcement of her decision to leave him had produced a reaction in himdifferent from that for which she had hoped. Briefly, Nadine Boynton believed that she hadinspired her husband to commit murder.’

He looked at Nadine. ‘That is so, madame?’

She bowed her head. Then she asked:

‘Did you really suspect me, M. Poirot?’

‘I thought you were a possibility, madame.’

She leaned forward.

‘And now? What really happened, M. Poirot?’