Death On The Nile - Christie Agatha. Страница 22

At that same moment Tim and Rosalie Otterbourne were talking of her.

Tim had just been halfjestingly abusing his luck. His rotten health, never bad enough to be really interesting-yet not good enough for him to have led the life he would have chosen. Very little money-no congenial occupation.

"A thoroughly lukewarm tame existence," he finished disconten…tedly.

Rosalie said abruptly: "You've got something heaps of people would envy you." "What's that?" "Your mother." Tim was surprised and pleased.

"Mother? Yes, of course she is quite unique. It's nice of you to see it." "I think she's marvellous. She looks so lovely-so composed and calm-as though nothing could ever touch her and yet-and yet somehow she's always ready to be funny about things too.

Rosalie was stammering slightly in her earnestness.

Tim felt a rising warmth towards the girl. He wished he could return the compliment, but lamentably Mrs. Otterbourne was his idea of the world's greatest menace. The inabfiity to respond in kind made him embarrassed.

Miss Van Schuyler had stayed in the launch. She could neither risk the ascent on a camel nor on her legs. She had said snappily: "I'm sorry to have to ask you to stay with me, Miss Bowers. I intended you to go and Cornelia to stay, but girls are so selfish. She rushed off without a word to me. And I actually saw her talking to that very unpleasant and ill-bred young man, Ferguson. Cornelia has disappointed me sadly. She has absolutely no social sense." Miss Bowers replied in her usual matter-of-fact fashion: "That's quite all right, Miss Van Schuyler. It would have been a hot walk up there and I don't fancy the look of those saddles on the camels. Fleas as likely as not." She adjusted her glasses, screwed up her eyes to look at the party descending the hill and remarked: "Miss Robson isn't with that young man any more. She's with Dr. Bessner." Miss Van Schuyler grunted.

Since she had discovered that Dr. Bessner had a large clinic in CzechoSlovakia and a European reputation as a fashionable physician she was disposed to be gracious to him. Besides, she might need his professional services before the journey was over.

When the party returned to the Karnak, Linnet gave a cry of surprise.

"A telegram for me." She snatched it off the board and tore it open.

"Why-I don't understand-potatoes-beetroots-what does it mean, Simon?'' Simon was just coming to look over her shoulder when a furious voice said: "Excuse me, that telegram is for me." And Signor Richetti snatched it rudely from her hand, fixing her with a furious glare as he did so.

Linnet stared in surprise for a moment, then turned over the envelope.

"Oh, Simon, what a fool I am. It's Richetti-not Ridgeway-and anyway, of course, my name isn't Ridgeway now. I must apologise." She followed the little archaeologist up to the stern of the boat.

"I am so sorry, Signor Richetti. You see my name was Ridgeway before I married and I haven't been married very long and so-" She paused, her face dimpled with smiles, inviting him to smile upon a young bride's faux pas.

But Richetti was obviously "not amused." Queen Victoria at her most disapproving could not have looked more grim.

"Names should be read carefully. It is inexcusable to be careless in these matters." Linnet bit her lip and her colour rose. She was not accustomed to have her apologies received in this fashion. She turned away and, rejoining Simon, she said angrily, "These Italians are really insupportable." "Never mind, darling, let's go and look at that big ivory crocodile you liked." They went ashore together.

Poirot, 'watching them walk up the landing-stage, heard a sharp indrawn breath. He turned to see Jacqueline de Bellefort at his side. Her hands were clenched on the rail. The expression on her face as she turned it towards him quite startled him. It was no longer gay or malicious. She looked devoured by some inner consuming fire.

"They don't care any more." The words came low and fast. "They've got beyond me. I can't reach them They don't mind if I'm here or not… I can't-I can't hurt them any more " Her hands on the rail trembled.

"Mademoiselle" She broke in.

"Oh, it's too late now-too late for warning… You were right. I ought not to have come. Not on this journey. What did you call it? A journey of the soul? I can't go back--I've got to go on. And I'm going on. They shan't be happy together-they shan't. I'd kill him sooner… "

She turned abruptly away. Poirot staring after her, felt a hand on his shoulder.

"Your girl friend seems a trifle upset, M. Poirot."

Poirot turned. He stared in surprise, seeing an old acquaintance.

"Colonel Race."

The tall bronzed man smiled.

"Bit of a surprise ch?"

Hercule Poirot had come across Colonel Race a year previously in London.

They had been fellow-guests at a very strange dinner party-a dinner party that had ended in death for that strange man, their host.

Poirot knew that Race was a man of unadvertised goings and comings. He was usually to be found in one of the outposts of Empire where trouble was brewing. "So you are here at Wadi Halfa," Poirot remarked thoughtfully. "I am here on this boat." "You mean?"

"That I am making the return journey with you to Shellal."

Hercule Poirot's eyebrows rose.

"That is very interesting. Shall we, perhaps, have a little drink."

They went into the observation saloon, now quite empty. Poirot ordered a whisky for the colonel and a double orangeade full of sugar for himself.

"So you make the return journey with us," said Poirot as he sipped. "You would go faster, would you not, on the Government steamer which travels by night as well as day?"

Colonel Race's face creased appreciatively.

"You're right on the spot as usual, M, Poirot,' he said pleasantly. "It is, then, the passengers?" "One of the passengers."

"Now which one, I wonder?" Hercule Poirot asked of the ornate ceiling.

"Unfortunately I don't know myself," said Race ruefully.

Poirot looked interested.

Race said:

"There's no need to be mysterious to you. We've had a good deal of trouble out hereone way and another. It isn't the people who ostensibly lead the rioters that we're after. It's the men who very cleverly put the match to the gunpowder.

There were three of them. One's dead. One's in prison. I want the third man-a man with five or six cold-blooded murders to his credit. He's one of the cleverest paid agitators that ever existed… He's on this boat. I know that from a passage in a letter that passed through our hands. Decoded it said: 'X will be on the Karnak trip Feb. 7th-13th… ' It didn't say under what name X would be passing." "Have you any description of him?"

"No. American, Irish and French descent. Bit of a mongrel. That doesn't help us much. Have you got any ideas?"

"An idea-it is all very well," said Poirot meditatively.

Such was the understanding betwen them that Race pressed him no further.

He knew that Hercule Poirot did not ever speak unless he were sure.

Poirot rubbed his nose and said unhappily:

"There passes itself something on this boat that causes me much inquietude." Race looked at him inquiringly.

"Figure to yourself," said Poirot, "a person A who has grievously wronged a person B. The person B desires the revenge. The person B makes the threats."

"A and B being both on this boat?"

Poirot nodded.

"Precisely."

"And B, I gather, being a woman?"

"Exactly."

Race lit a cigarette.

"I shouldn't worry. People who go about talking of what they are going to do don't usually do it."

"And particularly is that the case with lesfemmes, you would say! Yes, that is true.'

But he still did not look happy.

"Anything else?" asked Race.

"Yes, there is something. Yesterday the person A had a very near escape from death. The kind of death that might very conveniently be called an accident." "Engineered by B?'