Part II Chapter 1
　　Colonel Carbury smiled across the table at his guest and raised his glass. ‘Well, here’s to crime!’
　　Hercule Poirot’s eyes twinkled in acknowledgement of the aptness of the toast.
　　He had come to Amman with a letter of introduction to Colonel Carbury from Colonel Race.
　　Carbury had been interested to see this world-famous person to whose gifts his old friend andally in the Intelligence had paid such unstinting tribute.
　　‘As neat a bit of psychological deduction¹ as you’ll ever find!’ Race had written of the solutionof the Shaitana murder.
　　‘We must show you all we can of the neighbourhood,’ said Carbury, twisting a somewhatragged brindled² moustache. He was an untidy stocky man of medium height with a semibald headand vague, mild, blue eyes. He did not look in the least like a soldier. He did not look evenparticularly alert. He was not in the least one’s idea of a disciplinarian. Yet in Transjordania he was apower.
　　‘There’s Jerash,’ he said. ‘Care about that sort of thing?’
　　‘I am interested in everything!’
　　‘Yes,’ said Carbury. ‘That’s the only way to react to life.’ He paused.
　　‘Tell me, d’you ever find your own special job has a way of following you round?’
　　‘Pardon?’
　　‘Well—to put it plainly—do you come to places expecting a holiday from crime—and findinstead bodies cropping up?’
　　‘It has happened, yes; more than once.’
　　‘H’m,’ said Colonel Carbury and looked particularly abstracted.
　　Then he roused himself with a jerk. ‘Got a body now I’m not very happy about,’ he said.
　　‘Indeed?’
　　‘Yes. Here in Amman. Old American woman. Went to Petra with her family. Trying journey,unusual heat for time of year, old woman suffered from heart trouble, difficulties of the journey a bitharder for her than she imagined, extra strain on heart—she popped off!’
　　‘Here—in Amman?’
　　‘No, down at Petra. They brought the body here today.’
　　‘Ah!’
　　‘All quite natural. Perfectly³ possible. Likeliest thing in the world to happen. Only—’
　　‘Yes? Only—?’

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