Mrs. Allerton said cheerfully: “You’d rather have no Pyramids, no Parthenon, no beautiful tombs or temples—just the solid satisfaction of knowing that people got three meals a day and died in their beds.”
The young man directed his scowl in her direction.
“I think human beings matter more than stones.”
“But they do not endure as well,” remarked Hercule Poirot.
“I’d rather see a well fed worker than any so-called work of art. What matters is the future—not the past.”
This was too much for Signor Richetti, who burst into a torrent of impassioned speech not too easy to follow.
The young man retorted by telling everybody exactly what he thought of the capitalist system. He spoke with the utmost venom.
When the tirade was over they had arrived at the hotel landing stage.
Mrs. Allerton murmured cheerfully: “Well, well,” and stepped ashore. The young man directed a baleful glance after her.
In the hall of the hotel Poirot encountered Jacqueline de Bellefort. She was dressed in riding clothes. She gave him an ironical little bow.
“I’m going donkey-riding. Do you recommend the native villages, Monsieur Poirot?”
“Is that your excursion today, Mademoiselle? Eh bien, they are picturesque—but do not spend large sums on native curios.”
“Which are shipped here from Europe? No, I am not so easy to deceive as that.”
With a little nod she passed out into the brilliant sunshine.
Poirot completed his packing—a very simple affair, since his possessions were always in the most meticulous order. Then he repaired to the dining room and ate an early lunch.
After lunch the hotel bus took the passengers for the Second Cataract to the station where they were to catch the daily express from Cairo to Shellal—a ten-minute run.
The Allertons, Poirot, the young man in the dirty flannel trousers and the Italian were the passengers. Mrs. Otterbourne and her daughter had made the expedition to the Dam and to Philae and would join the steamer at Shellal.
The train from Cairo and Luxor was about twenty minutes late. However, it arrived at last, and the usual scenes of wild activity occurred. Native porters taking suitcases out of the train collided with other porters putting them in.
Finally, somewhat breathless, Poirot found himself, with an assortment of his own, the Allertons’, and some totally unknown luggage, in one compartment, while Tim and his mother were elsewhere with the remains of the assorted baggage.
The compartment in which Poirot found himself was occupied by an elderly lady with a very wrinkled face, a stiff white stock, a good many diamonds and an expression of reptilian contempt for the majority of mankind.
She treated Poirot to an aristocratic glare and retired behind the pages of an American magazine. A big, rather clumsy young woman of under thirty was sitting opposite her. She had eager brown eyes, rather like a dog’s, untidy hair, and a terrific air of willingness to please. At intervals the old lady looked over the top of her magazine and snapped an order at her.
“Cornelia, collect the rugs.” “When we arrive look after my dressing-case. On no account let anyone else handle it.” “Don’t forget my paper-cutter.”
The train run was brief. In ten minutes’ time they came to rest on the jetty where the S.S. Karnak was awaiting them. The Otterbournes were already on board.
The Karnak was a smaller steamer than the Papyrus and the Lotus, the First Cataract steamers, which are too large to pass through the locks of the Assuan dam. The passengers went on board and were shown their accommodation. Since the boat was not full, most of the passengers had accommodation on the promenade deck. The entire forward part of this deck was occupied by an observation saloon, all glass-enclosed, where the passengers could sit and watch the river unfold before them. On the deck below were a smoking room and a small drawing room and on the deck below that, the dining saloon.
Having seen his possessions disposed in his cabin, Poirot came out on the deck again to watch the process of departure. He joined Rosalie Otterbourne, who was leaning over the side.
“So now we journey into Nubia. You are pleased, Mademoiselle?”
The girl drew a deep breath.
“Yes. I feel that one’s really getting away from things at last.”
She made a gesture with her hand. There was a savage aspect about the sheet of water in front of them, the masses of rock without vegetation that came down to the water’s edge—here and there a trace of houses, abandoned and ruined as a result of the damming up of the waters. The whole scene had a melancholy, almost sinister charm.
“Away from people,” said Rosalie Otterbourne.
“Except those of our own number, Mademoiselle?”
She shrugged her shoulders. Then she said: “There’s something about this country that makes me feel—wicked. It brings to the surface all the things that are boiling inside one. Everything’s so unfair—so unjust.”
“I wonder. You cannot judge by material evidence.”
Rosalie muttered: “Look at—at some people’s mothers—and look at mine. There is no God but Sex, and Salome Otterbourne is its Prophet.” She stopped. “I shouldn’t have said that, I suppose.”
Poirot made a gesture with his hands.
“Why not say it—to me? I am one of those who hear many things. If, as you say, you boil inside—like the jam—eh bien, let the scum come to the surface, and then one can take it off with a spoon, so.”
He made a gesture of dropping something into the Nile.
“Then, it has gone.”
“What an extraordinary man you are!” Rosalie said. Her sulky mouth twisted into a smile. Then she suddenly stiffened as she exclaimed: “Well, here are Mrs. Doyle and her husband! I’d no idea they were coming on this trip!”
Linnet had just emerged from a cabin halfway down the deck. Simon was behind her. Poirot was almost startled by the look of her—so radiant, so assured. She looked positively arrogant with happiness. Simon Doyle, too, was a transformed being. He was grinning from ear to ear and looking like a happy schoolboy.
“This is grand,” he said as he too leaned on the rail. “I’m really looking forward to this trip, aren’t you, Linnet? It feels, somehow, so much less touristy—as though we were really going into the heart of Egypt.”
His wife responded quickly: “I know. It’s so much—wilder, somehow.”
Her hand slipped through his arm. He pressed it close to his side.
“We’re off, Lin,” he murmured.
The steamer was drawing away from the jetty. They had started on their seven-day journey to the Second Cataract and back.
Behind them a light silvery laugh rang out. Linnet whipped round.
Jacqueline de Bellefort was standing there. She seemed amused.
“Hullo, Linnet! I didn’t expect to find you here. I thought you said you were staying in Assuan another ten days. This is a surprise!”
“You—you didn’t—” Linnet’s tongue stammered. She forced a ghastly conventional smile. “I—I didn’t expect to see you either.”
“No?”
Jacqueline moved away to the other side of the boat. Linnet’s grasp on her husband’s arm tightened.
“Simon—Simon—”
All Doyle’s good-natured pleasure had gone. He looked furious. His hands clenched themselves in spite of his effort at self-control.
The two of them moved a little away. Without turning his head Poirot caught scraps of disjointed words:
“…turn back…impossible…we could…” and then, slightly louder, Doyle’s voice, despairing but grim: “We can’t run away forever, Lin. We’ve got to go through with it now….”
It was some hours later. Daylight was just fading. Poirot stood in the glass-enclosed saloon looking straight ahead. The Karnak was going through a narrow gorge. The rocks came down with a kind of sheer ferocity to the river flowing deep and swift between them. They were in Nubia now.
&nb
sp; He heard a movement and Linnet Doyle stood by his side. Her fingers twisted and untwisted themselves; she looked as he had never yet seen her look. There was about her the air of a bewildered child. She said:
“Monsieur Poirot, I’m afraid—I’m afraid of everything. I’ve never felt like this before. All these wild rocks and the awful grimness and starkness. Where are we going? What’s going to happen? I’m afraid, I tell you. Everyone hates me. I’ve never felt like that before. I’ve always been nice to people—I’ve done things for them—and they hate me—lots of people hate me. Except for Simon, I’m surrounded by enemies…It’s terrible to feel—that there are people who hate you….”
“But what is all this, Madame?”
She shook her head.
“I suppose—it’s nerves…I just feel that—everything’s unsafe all round me.”
She cast a quick nervous glance over his shoulder Then she said abruptly: “How will all this end? We’re caught here. Trapped! There’s no way out. We’ve got to go on. I—I don’t know where I am.”
She slipped down on to a seat. Poirot looked down on her gravely; his glance was not untinged with compassion.
“How did she know we were coming on this boat?” she said. “How could she have known?”
Poirot shook his head as he answered: “She has brains, you know.”
“I feel as though I shall never escape from her.”
Poirot said: “There is one plan you might have adopted. In fact I am surprised that it did not occur to you. After all, with you, Madame, money is no object. Why did you not engage in your own private dahabiyeh?”
“If we’d known about all this—but you see we didn’t—then. And it was difficult…” She flashed out with sudden impatience: “Oh! you don’t understand half my difficulties. I’ve got to be careful with Simon…He’s—he’s absurdly sensitive—about money. About my having so much! He wanted me to go to some little place in Spain with him—he—he wanted to pay all our honeymoon expenses himself. As if it mattered! Men are stupid! He’s got to get used to—to—living comfortably. The mere idea of a dahabiyeh upset him—the—the needless expense. I’ve got to educate him—gradually.”
She looked up, bit her lip vexedly, as though feeling that she had been led into discussing her difficulties rather too unguardedly.
She got up.
“I must change. I’m sorry, Monsieur Poirot. I’m afraid I’ve been talking a lot of foolish nonsense.”
Eight
Mrs. Allerton, looking quiet and distinguished in her simple black lace evening gown, descended two decks to the dining room. At the door of it her son caught her up.
“Sorry, darling. I thought I was going to be late.”
“I wonder where we sit.” The saloon was dotted with little tables. Mrs. Allerton paused till the steward, who was busy seating a party of people, could attend to them.
“By the way,” she added, “I asked little Hercule Poirot to sit at our table.”
“Mother, you didn’t!” Tim sounded really taken aback and annoyed.
His mother stared at him in surprise. Tim was usually so easy-going.
“My dear, do you mind?”
“Yes, I do. He’s an unmitigated little bounder!”
“Oh, no, Tim! I don’t agree with you.”
“Anyway, what do we want to get mixed up with an outsider for? Cooped up like this on a small boat, that sort of thing is always a bore. He’ll be with us morning, noon, and night.”
“I’m sorry, dear.” Mrs. Allerton looked distressed. “I thought really it would amuse you. After all, he must have had a varied experience. And you love detective stories.”
Tim grunted.
“I wish you wouldn’t have these bright ideas, Mother. We can’t get out of it now, I suppose?”
“Really, Tim, I don’t see how we can.”
“Oh, well, we shall have to put up with it, I suppose.”
The steward came to them at this minute and led them to a table. Mrs. Allerton’s face wore rather a puzzled expression as she followed him. Tim was usually so easy-going and good-tempered. This outburst was quite unlike him. It wasn’t as though he had the ordinary Britisher’s dislike—and mistrust—of foreigners. Tim was very cosmopolitan. Oh, well—she sighed. Men were incomprehensible! Even one’s nearest and dearest had unsuspected reactions and feelings.
As they took their places, Hercule Poirot came quickly and silently into the dining saloon. He paused with his hand on the back of the third chair.
“You really permit, Madame, that I avail myself of your kind suggestion?”
“Of course. Sit down, Monsieur Poirot.”
“You are most amiable.”
She was uneasily conscious that, as he seated himself, he shot a swift glance at Tim, and that Tim had not quite succeeded in masking a somewhat sullen expression.
Mrs. Allerton set herself to produce a pleasant atmosphere. As they drank their soup, she picked up the passenger list which had been placed beside her plate.
“Let’s try and identify everybody,” she suggested cheerfully. “I always think that’s rather fun.”
She began reading: “Mrs. Allerton, Mr. T. Allerton. That’s easy enough! Miss de Bellefort. They’ve put her at the same table as the Otterbournes, I see. I wonder what she and Rosalie will make of each other. Who comes next? Dr. Bessner. Dr. Bessner? Who can identify Dr. Bessner?”
She bent her glance on a table at which four men sat together.
“I think he must be the fat one with the closely shaved head and the moustache. A German, I should imagine. He seems to be enjoying his soup very much.” Certain succulent noises floated across to them.
Mrs. Allerton continued: “Miss Bowers? Can we make a guess at Miss Bowers? There are three or four women—no, we’ll leave her for the present. Mr. and Mrs. Doyle. Yes, indeed, the lions of this trip. She really is very beautiful, and what a perfectly lovely frock she is wearing.”
Tim turned round in his chair. Linnet and her husband and Andrew Pennington had been given a table in the corner. Linnet was wearing a white dress and pearls.
“It looks frightfully simple to me,” said Tim. “Just a length of stuff with a kind of cord round the middle.”
“Yes, darling,” said his mother. “A very nice manly description of an eighty-guinea model.”
“I can’t think why women pay so much for their clothes,” Tim said. “It seems absurd to me.”
Mrs. Allerton proceeded with her study of her fellow passengers.
“Mr. Fanthorp must be one of the four at that table. The intensely quiet young man who never speaks. Rather a nice face, cautious and intelligent.”
Poirot agreed.
“He is intelligent—yes. He does not talk, but he listens very attentively, and he also watches. Yes, he makes good use of his eyes. Not quite the type you would expect to find travelling for pleasure in this part of the world. I wonder what he is doing here.”
“Mr. Ferguson,” read Mrs. Allerton. “I feel that Ferguson must be our anti-capitalist friend. Mrs. Otterbourne, Miss Otterbourne. We know all about them. Mr. Pennington? Alias Uncle Andrew. He’s a good-looking man, I think—”
“Now, Mother,” said Tim.
“I think he’s very good-looking in a dry sort of way,” said Mrs. Allerton. “Rather a ruthless jaw. Probably the kind of man one reads about in the paper, who operates on Wall Street—or is it in Wall Street? I’m sure he must be extremely rich. Next—Monsieur Hercule Poirot—whose talents are really being wasted. Can’t you get up a crime for Monsieur Poirot, Tim?”
But her well-meant banter only seemed to annoy her son anew. He scowled and Mrs. Allerton hurried on: “Mr. Richetti. Our Italian archaeological friend. Then Miss Robson and last of all Miss Van Schuyler. The last’s easy. The very ugly old American lady who is clearly going to be very exclusive and speak to nobody who doesn’t come up to the most exacting standards! She’s rather marvellous, isn’t she, really? A kind of period piece. The two women
with her must be Miss Bowers and Miss Robson—perhaps a secretary, the thin one with pince-nez, and a poor relation, the rather pathetic young woman who is obviously enjoying herself in spite of being treated like a black slave. I think Robson’s the secretary woman and Bowers is the poor relation.”
“Wrong, Mother,” said Tim, grinning. He had suddenly recovered his good humour.
“How do you know?”
“Because I was in the lounge before dinner and the old bean said to the companion woman: ‘Where’s Miss Bowers? Fetch her at once, Cornelia.’ And away trotted Cornelia like an obedient dog.”
“I shall have to talk to Miss Van Schuyler,” mused Mrs. Allerton.
Tim grinned again.
“She’ll snub you, Mother.”
“Not at all. I shall pave the way by sitting near her and conversing, in low (but penetrating), well-bred tones, about any titled relations and friends I can remember. I think a casual mention of your second cousin, once removed, the Duke of Glasgow, would probably do the trick.”
“How unscrupulous you are, Mother!”
Events after dinner were not without their amusing side to a student of human nature.
The socialistic young man (who turned out to be Mr. Ferguson as deduced) retired to the smoking room, scorning the assemblage of passengers in the observation saloon on the top deck.
Miss Van Schuyler duly secured the best and most undraughty position there by advancing firmly on a table at which Mrs. Otterbourne was sitting and saying, “You’ll excuse me, I am sure, but I think my knitting was left here!”
Fixed by a hypnotic eye, the turban rose and gave ground. Miss Van Schuyler established herself and her suite. Mrs. Otterbourne sat down nearby and hazarded various remarks, which were met with such chilling politeness that she soon gave up. Miss Van Schuyler then sat in glorious isolation. The Doyles sat with the Allertons. Dr. Bessner retained the quiet Mr. Fanthorp as a companion. Jacqueline de Bellefort sat by herself with a book. Rosalie Otterbourne was restless. Mrs. Allerton spoke to her once or twice and tried to draw her into their group, but the girl responded ungraciously.
M. Hercule Poirot spent his evening listening to an account of Mrs. Otterbourne’s mission as a writer.
Death on the Nile Page 8