The poison administered to the victim is believed to be digitoxin, something that she already took medicinally. Attention is focused on a hypodermic syringe that has seemingly been stolen from Dr Gerard's tent and later replaced. During these interviews he establishes a timeline that seems impossible: Sarah King places the time of death considerably before the times at which various of the family members claim last to have seen the victim alive. Poirot claims that he can solve the mystery within twenty-four hours simply by interviewing the suspects.
Later, she is found dead with a needle puncture in her wrist. Having been thwarted in her desire to free the young Boyntons, Sarah confronts Mrs Boynton whose apparent reply is a strange threat: "I've never forgotten anything – not an action, not a name, not a face." When the party reaches Petra, Mrs Boynton uncharacteristically sends her family away from her for a period. Sarah is attracted to Raymond Boynton, while Jefferson Cope admits to wanting to take Nadine Boynton away from her husband, Lennox Boynton, and the influence of her mother-in-law. Mrs Boynton is sadistic and domineering, behaviours which she may have carried over from her original profession of prison warden. The novel opens as the family and the victim are introduced through the perspective of Sarah King and Dr Gerard, who discuss the behaviour of the family. When she is found dead on a trip to Petra, Poirot proposes to solve the case in twenty-four hours, even though he has no way of knowing whether it was murder. Holidaying in Jerusalem, Poirot overhears Raymond Boynton telling his sister, "You do see, don't you, that she's got to be killed?" Their stepmother, Mrs Boynton, is a sadistic tyrant who dominates her family. Crime map showing "Petra, the place of sacrifice" from Dell Mapback #105
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