Lady Westholme went on to explain that she was staying at the Solomon Hotel so as to remain unhampered. She added that she had made several suggestions to the manager for the more competent running of his hotel.
‘Efficiency,’ said Lady Westholme, ‘is my watchword.’
It certainly seemed to be! In a quarter of an hour a large and extremely comfortable car arrived and in due course—after advice from Lady Westholme as to how the luggage should be stowed—the party set off.
Their first halt was the Dead Sea. They had lunch at Jericho. Afterwards when Lady Westholme, armed with a Baedeker, had gone off with Miss Pierce, the doctor and the fat dragoman, to do a tour of old Jericho, Sarah remained in the garden of the hotel.
Her head ached slightly and she wanted to be alone. A deep depression weighed her down—a depression for which she found it hard to account. She felt suddenly listless and uninterested, disinclined for sightseeing, bored by her companions. She wished at this moment that she had never committed herself to this Petra tour. It was going to be very expensive and she felt quite sure she wasn’t going to enjoy it! Lady Westholme’s booming voice, Miss Pierce’s endless twitterings, and the anti-Zionist lamentation of the dragoman, were already fraying her nerves to a frazzle. She disliked almost as much Dr Gerard’s amused air of knowing exactly how she was feeling.
She wondered where the Boyntons were now—perhaps they had gone on to Syria—they might be at Baalbek or Damascus. Raymond—she wondered what Raymond was doing. Strange how clearly she could see his face—its eagerness—its diffidence—its nervous tension…
Oh, hell! Why go on thinking of people she would probably never see again? That scene the other day with the old woman—what could have possessed her to march up to the old lady and spurt out a lot of nonsense. Othe
r people must have heard some of it. She fancied that Lady Westholme had been quite close by. Sarah tried to remember exactly what it was she had said. Something that probably sounded quite absurdly hysterical. Goodness, what a fool she had made of herself! But it wasn’t her fault really; it was old Mrs Boynton’s. There was something about her that made you lose your sense of proportion.
Dr Gerard entered and plumped down in a chair, wiping his hot forehead.
‘Phew! That woman should be poisoned!’ he declared.
Sarah started. ‘Mrs Boynton?’
‘Mrs Boynton! No, I meant that Lady Westholme! It is incredible to me that she has had a husband for many years and that he has not already done so. What can he be made of, that husband?’
Sarah laughed.
‘Oh, he’s the “huntin’, fishin’, shootin’ ” kind,’ she explained.
‘Psychologically that is very sound! He appeases his lust to kill on the (so-called) lower creations.’
‘I believe he is very proud of his wife’s activities.’
The Frenchman suggested:
‘Because they take her a good deal away from home? That is understandable.’ Then he went on, ‘What did you say just now? Mrs Boynton? Undoubtedly it would be a very good idea to poison her, too. Undeniably the simplest solution of that family problem! In fact a great many women would be better poisoned. All women who have grown old and ugly.’
He made an expressive face.
Sarah cried out, laughing:
‘Oh, you Frenchmen! You’ve got no use for any woman who isn’t young and attractive.’
Gerard shrugged his shoulders.
‘We are more honest about it, that is all. Englishmen, they do not get up in tubes and trains for ugly women—no, no.’
‘How depressing life is,’ said Sarah with a sigh.
‘There is no need for you to sigh, mademoiselle.’
‘Well, I feel thoroughly disgruntled today.’
‘Naturally.’
‘What do you mean—naturally?’ snapped Sarah.
‘You could find the reason very easily if you examine your state of mind honestly.’
‘I think it’s our fellow travelers who depress me,’ said Sarah. ‘It’s awful, isn’t it, but I do hate women! When they’re inefficient and idiotic like Miss Pierce, they infuriate me—and, when they’re efficient like Lady Westholme, they annoy me more still.’