Simon flushed with slight embarrassment.
“You see, Monsieur Poirot, it’s difficult for me to say…I—I—well, you see, I hadn’t known Linnet very long.”
“Ah, no, it was a quick romance—yours.”
Simon went on. “And so—really—I shouldn’t know a thing like that. But Linnet was awfully generous with her things. I should think she might have done.”
“She never, for instance”—Poirot’s voice was very smooth—“she never, for instance, lent them to Mademoiselle de Bellefort?”
“What d’you mean?” Simon flushed brick-red, tried to sit up and, wincing, fell back. “What are you getting at? That Jackie stole the pearls? She didn’t. I’ll swear she didn’t. Jackie’s as straight as a die. The mere idea of her being a thief is ridiculous—absolutely ridiculous.”
Poirot looked at him with gently twinkling eyes. “Oh, la! la! la!” he said unexpectedly. “That suggestion of mine, it has indeed stirred up the nest of hornets.”
Simon repeated doggedly, unmoved by Poirot’s lighter note, “Jackie’s straight!”
Poirot remembered a girl’s voice by the Nile in Assuan saying, “I love Simon—and he loves me….”
He had wondered which of the three statements he had heard that night was the true one. It seemed to him that it had turned out to be Jacqueline who had come closest to the truth.
The door opened and Race came in.
“Nothing,” he said brusquely. “Well, we didn’t expect it. I see the stewards coming along with their report as to the searching of the passengers.”
A steward and stewardess appeared in the doorway. The former spoke first. “Nothing, sir.”
“Any of the gentlemen make any fuss?”
“Only the Italian gentleman, sir. He carried on a good deal. Said it was a dishonour—something of that kind. He’d got a gun on him, too.”
“What kind of a gun?”
“Mauser automatic twenty-five, sir.”
“Italians are pretty hot-tempered,” said Simon. “Richetti got in no end of a stew at Wadi Halfa just because of a mistake over a telegram. He was darned rude to Linnet over it.”
Race turned to the stewardess. She was a big handsome-looking woman.
“Nothing on any of the ladies, sir. They made a good deal of fuss—except for Mrs. Allerton, who was as nice as nice could be. Not a sign of the pearls. By the way, the young lady, Miss Rosalie Otterbourne, had a little pistol in her handbag.”
“What kind?”
“It was a very small one, sir, with a pearl handle. A kind of toy.”
Race stared. “Devil take this case,” he muttered. “I thought we’d got her cleared of suspicion, and now—Does every girl on this blinking boat carry around pearl-handled toy pistols?”
He shot a question at the stewardess. “Did she show any feeling over your finding it?”
The woman shook her head. “I don’t think she noticed. I had my back turned whilst I was going through the handbag.”
“Still, she must have known you’d come across it. Oh, well, it beats me. What about the maid?”
“We’ve looked all over the boat, sir. We can’t find her anywhere.”
“What’s this?” asked Simon.
“Mrs. Doyle’s maid—Louise Bourget. She’s disappeared.”
“Disappeared?”
Race said thoughtfully: “She might have stolen the pearls. She is the one person who had ample opportunity to get a replica made.”
“And then, when she found a search was being instituted, she threw herself overboard?” Simon suggested.
“Nonsense,” replied Race, irritably. “A woman can’t throw herself overboard in broad daylight, from a boat like this, without somebody realizing the fact. She’s bound to be somewhere on board.” He addressed the stewardess once more. “When was she last seen?”
“About half an hour before the bell went for lunch, sir.”
“We’ll have a look at her cabin anyway,” said Race. “That may tell us something.”
He led the way to the deck below. Poirot followed him. They unlocked the door of the cabin and passed inside.
Louise Bourget, whose trade it was to keep other people’s belongings in order, had taken a holiday where her own were concerned. Odds and ends littered the top of the chest of drawers; a suitcase gaped open, with clothes hanging out of the side of it and preventing it shutting; underclothing hung limply over the sides of the chairs.
As Poirot, with swift neat fingers, opened the drawers of the dressing-chest, Race examined the suitcase.
Louise’s shoes were lined along by the bed. One of them, a black patent leather, seemed to be resting at an extraordinary angle, almost unsupported. The appearance of it was so odd that it attracted Race’s attention.
He closed the suitcase and bent over the line of shoes. Then he uttered a sharp exclamation.
“Qu’est-ce qu’il y a?”
Race said grimly: “She hasn’t disappeared. She’s here—under the bed….”
Twenty-Three
The body of the dead woman, who in life had been Louise Bourget, lay on the floor of her cabin. The two men bent over it.
Race straightened himself first.
“Been dead close on an hour, I should say. We’ll get Bessner on to it. Stabbed to the heart. Death pretty well instantaneous, I should imagine. She doesn’t look pretty, does she?”
“No.”
Poirot shook his head with a slight shudder.
The dark feline face was convulsed, as though with surprise and fury, the lips drawn back from the teeth.
Poirot bent again gently and picked up the right hand. Something just showed within the fingers. He detached it and held it out to Race, a little sliver of flimsy paper coloured a pale mauvish pink.
“You see what it is?”
“Money,” said Race.
“The corner of a thousand-franc note, I fancy.”
“Well, it’s clear what happened,” said Race. “She knew something—and she was blackmailing the murderer with her knowledge. We thought she wasn’t being quite straight this morning.”
Poirot cried out: “We have been idiots—fools! We should have known—then. What did she say? ‘What could I have seen or heard? I was on the deck below. Naturally, if I had been unable to sleep, if I had mounted the stairs, then perhaps I might have seen this assassin, this monster, enter or leave Madame’s cabin, but as it is—’ Of course, that is what did happen! She did come up. She did see someone gliding into Linnet Doyle’s cabin—or coming out of it. And, because of her greed, her insensate greed, she lies here—”
“And we are no nearer to knowing who killed her,” finished Race disgustedly.
Poirot shook his head. “No, no. We know much more now. We know—we know almost everything. Only what we know seems incredible…Yet it must be so. Only I do not see. Pah! What a fool I was this morning! We felt—both of us felt—that she was keeping something back, and yet we never realized that logical reason, blackmail.”
“She must have demanded hush money straight away,” said Race. “Demanded it with threats. The murderer was forced to accede to that request and paid her in French notes. Anything there?”
Poirot shook his head thoughtfully. “I hardly think so. Many people take a reserve of money with them when travelling—sometimes five-pound notes, sometimes dollars, but very often French notes as well. Possibly the murderer paid her all he had in a mixture of currencies. Let us continue our reconstruction.”
“The murderer comes to her cabin, gives her the money, and then—”
“And then,” said Poirot, “she counts it. Oh, yes, I know that class. She would count the money, and while she counted it she was completely off her guard. The murderer struck. Having done so successfully, he gathered up the money and fled—not noticing that the corner of one of the notes was torn.”
“We may get him that way,” suggested Race doubtfully.
“I doubt it,” said Poirot. “He will ex
amine those notes, and will probably notice the tear. Of course if he were of a parsimonious disposition he would not be able to bring himself to destroy a mille note—but I very much fear that his temperament is just the opposite.”
“How do you make that out?”
“Both this crime and the murder of Madame Doyle demanded certain qualities—courage, audacity, bold execution, lightning action; those qualities do not accord with a saving, prudent disposition.”
Race shook his head sadly. “I’d better get Bessner down,” he said.
The stout doctor’s examination did not take long. Accompanied by a good many Ach’s and So’s, he went to work.
“She has been dead not more than an hour,” he announced. “Death it was very quick—at once.”
“And what weapon do you think was used?”
“Ach, it is interesting that. It was something very sharp, very thin, very delicate. I could show you the kind of thing.”
Back again in his cabin he opened a case and extracted a long, delicate, surgical knife.
“It was something like that, my friend; it was not a common table knife.”
“I suppose,” suggested Race smoothly, “that none of your own knives are—er—missing, Doctor?”
Bessner stared at him; then his face grew red with indignation.
“What is that you say? Do you think I—I, Carl Bessner—who is so well-known all over Austria—I with my clients, my highly born patients—I have killed a miserable little femme de chambre? Ah, but it is ridiculous—absurd, what you say! None of my knives are missing—not one, I tell you. They are all here, correct, in their places. You can see for yourself. And this insult to my profession I will not forget.”
Dr. Bessner closed his case with a snap, flung it down, and stamped out on to the deck.
“Whew!” said Simon. “You’ve put the old boy’s back up.”
Poirot shrugged his shoulders. “It is regrettable.”
“You’re on the wrong tack. Old Bessner’s one of the best, even though he is a kind of Boche.”
Dr. Bessner reappeared suddenly.
“Will you be so kind as to leave me now my cabin? I have to do the dressing of my patient’s leg.”
Miss Bowers had entered with him and stood, brisk and professional, waiting for the others to go.
Race and Poirot crept out meekly. Race muttered something and went off. Poirot turned to his left. He heard scraps of girlish conversation, a little laugh. Jacqueline and Rosalie were together in the latter’s cabin.
The door was open and the two girls were standing near it. As his shadow fell on them they looked up. He saw Rosalie Otterbourne smile at him for the first time—a shy welcoming smile—a little uncertain in its lines, as of one who does a new and unfamiliar thing.
“You talk the scandal, Mesdemoiselles?” he accused them.
“No, indeed,” said Rosalie. “As a matter of fact we were just comparing lipsticks.”
Poirot smiled. “Les chiffons d’aujourd’hui,” he murmured.
But there was something a little mechanical about his smile, and Jacqueline de Bellefort, quicker and more observant than Rosalie, saw it. She dropped the lipstick she was holding and came out upon the deck.
“Has something—what has happened now?”
“It is as you guess, Mademoiselle; something has happened.”
“What?” Rosalie came out too.
“Another death,” said Poirot.
Rosalie caught her breath sharply. Poirot was watching her narrowly. He saw alarm and something more—consternation—show for a minute or two in her eyes.
“Madame Doyle’s maid has been killed,” he told them bluntly.
“Killed?” cried Jacqueline. “Killed, do you say?”
“Yes, that is what I said.” Though his answer was nominally to her, it was Rosalie whom he watched. It was Rosalie to whom he spoke as he went on: “You see, this maid she saw something she was not intended to see. And so—she was silenced, in case she should not hold her tongue.”
“What was it she saw?”
Again it was Jacqueline who asked, and again Poirot’s answer was to Rosalie. It was an odd little three-cornered scene.
“There is, I think, very little doubt what it was she saw,” said Poirot. “She saw someone enter and leave Linnet Doyle’s cabin on that fatal night.”
His ears were quick. He heard the sharp intake of breath and saw the eyelids flicker. Rosalie Otterbourne had reacted just as he intended she should.
“Did she say who it was she saw?” Rosalie asked.
Gently—regretfully—Poirot shook his head.
Footsteps pattered up the deck. It was Cornelia Robson, her eyes wide and startled.
“Oh, Jacqueline,” she cried, “something awful has happened! Another dreadful thing!”
Jacqueline turned to her. The two moved a few steps forward. Almost unconsciously Poirot and Rosalie Otterbourne moved in the other direction.
Rosalie said sharply: “Why do you look at me? What have you got in your mind?”
“That is two questions you ask me. I will ask you only one in return. Why do you not tell me all the truth, Mademoiselle?”
“I don’t know what you mean. I told you—everything—this morning.”
“No, there were things you did not tell me. You did not tell me that you carry about in your handbag a small-calibre pistol with a pearl handle. You did not tell me all that you saw last night.”
She flushed. Then she said sharply: “It’s quite untrue. I haven’t got a revolver.”
“I did not say a revolver. I said a small pistol that you carry about in your handbag.”
She wheeled round, darted into her cabin and out again and thrust her grey leather handbag into his hands.
“You’re talking nonsense. Look for yourself if you like.”
Poirot opened the bag. There was no pistol inside.
He handed the bag back to her, meeting her scornful triumphant glance.
“No,” he said pleasantly. “It is not there.”
“You see. You’re not always right, Monsieur Poirot. And you’re wrong about that other ridiculous thing you said.”
“No, I do not think so.”
“You’re infuriating!” She stamped an angry foot.
“You get an idea into your head, and you go on and on and on about it.”
“Because I want you to tell me the truth.”
“What is the truth? You seem to know it better than I do.”
Poirot said: “You want me to tell what it was you saw? If I am right, will you admit that I am right? I will tell you my little idea. I think that when you came round the stern of the boat you stopped involuntarily because you saw a man come out of a cabin about halfway down the deck—Linnet Doyle’s cabin, as you realized next day. You saw him come out, close the door behind him, and walk away from you down the deck and—perhaps—enter one of the two end cabins. Now, then, am I right, Mademoiselle?”
She did not answer.
Poirot said: “Perhaps you think it is wiser not to speak. Perhaps you are afraid that, if you do, you too will be killed.”
For a moment he thought she had risen to the easy bait, that the accusation against her courage would succeed where more subtle arguments would have failed.
Her lips opened—trembled—then, “I saw no one,” said Rosalie Otterbourne.
Twenty-Four
Miss Bowers came out of Dr. Bessner’s cabin, smoothing her cuffs over her wrists.
Jacqueline left Cornelia abruptly and accosted the hospital nurse.
“How is he?” she demanded.
Poirot came up in time to hear the answer. Miss Bowers was looking rather worried.
“Things aren’t going too badly,” she said.
Jacqueline cried: “You mean, he’s worse?”
“Well, I must say I shall be relieved when we get in and can get a proper X-ray done and the whole thing cleaned up under an anaesthetic. When do you think we shall get to S
hellal, Monsieur Poirot?”
“Tomorrow morning.”
Miss Bowers pursed her lips and shook her head.
“It’s very fortunate. We are doing all we can, but there’s always such a danger of septicæmia.”
Jacqueline caught Miss Bowers’ arm and shook it.
“Is he going to die? Is he going to die?”
“Dear me, no, Miss de Bellefort. That is, I hope not, I’m sure. The wound in itself isn’t dangerous, but there’s no doubt it ought to be X-rayed as soon as possible. And then, of course poor Mr. Doyle ought to have been kept absolutely quiet today. He’s had far too much worry and excitement. No wonder his temperature is rising. What with the shock of his wife’s death, and one thing and another—”
Jacqueline relinquished her grasp of the nurse’s arm and turned away. She stood leaning over the side, her back to the other two.
“What I say is, we’ve got to hope for the best always,” said Miss Bowers. “Of course Mr. Doyle has a very strong constitution—one can see that—probably never had a day’s illness in his life. So that’s in his favour. But there’s no denying that this rise in temperature is a nasty sign and—”
She shook her head, adjusted her cuffs once more, and moved briskly away.
Jacqueline turned and walked gropingly, blinded by tears, towards her cabin. A hand below her elbow steadied and guided her. She looked up through the tears to find Poirot by her side. She leaned on him a little and he guided her through the cabin door.
She sank down on the bed and the tears came more freely, punctuated by great shuddering sobs.
“He’ll die! He’ll die! I know he’ll die…And I shall have killed him. Yes, I shall have killed him….”
Poirot shrugged his shoulders. He shook his head a little, sadly. “Mademoiselle, what is done is done. One cannot take back the accomplished action. It is too late to regret.”
She cried out more vehemently: “I shall have killed him! And I love him so…I love him so.”
Poirot sighed. “Too much….”
It had been his thought long ago in the restaurant of M. Blondin. It was his thought again now.