Смерть на Ниле / Death on the Nile

Chapter 12

Hercule Poirot was just wiping the lather from his freshly shaved face when there was a quick tap on the door and hard on top of it Colonel Race entered unceremoniously. He closed the door behind him. He said:

‘Your instinct was quite correct. It’s happened.’

Poirot straightened up and asked sharply:

‘What has happened?’

‘Linnet Doyle’s dead – shot through the head last night.’

Poirot was silent for a minute, two memories vividly before him – a girl in a garden at Aswan saying in a hard breathless voice, ‘I’d like to put my dear little pistol against her head and just press the trigger,’ and another more recent memory, the same voice saying: ‘One feels one can’t go on – the kind of day when something breaks’-and that strange momentary flash of appeal in her eyes. What had been the matter with him not to respond to that appeal? He had been blind, deaf, stupid with his need for sleep…

Race went on:

‘I’ve got some slight official standing – they sent for me, put it in my hands. The boat’s due to start in half an hour, but it will be delayed till I give the word. There’s a possibility, of course, that the murderer came from the shore.’

Poirot shook his head.

Race acquiesced in the gesture.

‘I agree. One can pretty well rule that out. Well, man, it’s up to you. This is your show.’

Poirot had been attiring himself with a neat-fingered celerity. He said now:

‘I am at your disposal.’

‘Bessner should be there by now. I sent the steward for him.’

There were four cabins de luxe, with bathrooms, on the boat. Of the two on the port side one was occupied by Dr Bessner, the other by Andrew Pennington. On the starboard side the first was occupied by Miss Van Schuyler, and the one next to it by Linnet Doyle. Her husband’s dressing cabin was next door.

A steward was standing outside the door of Linnet Doyle’s cabin. He opened the door for them and they passed inside. Dr Bessner was bending over the bed. He looked up and grunted as the other two entered.

‘What can you tell us, Doctor, about this business?’ asked Race.

Bessner rubbed his unshaven jaw meditatively.

‘Ach! She was shot – shot at close quarters. See – here just above the ear – that is where the bullet entered. A very little bullet – I should say a.22. The pistol, it was held close against her head – see, there is blackening here, the skin is scorched.’

Again in a sick wave of memory Poirot thought of those words uttered in Aswan.

Bessner went on.

‘She was asleep – there was no struggle – the murderer crept up in the dark and shot her as she lay there.’

‘Ah! non!’ Poirot cried out. His sense of psychology was outraged. Jacqueline de Bellefort creeping into a darkened cabin, pistol in hand – no, it did not ‘fit’, that picture.

Bessner stared at him with his thick lenses.

‘But that is what happened, I tell you.’

‘Yes, yes. I did not mean what you thought. I was not contradicting you.’

Bessner gave a satisfied grunt.

Poirot came up and stood beside him. Linnet Doyle was lying on her side. Her attitude was natural and peaceful. But above the ear was a tiny hole with an incrustation of dried blood round it.

Poirot shook his head sadly. Then his gaze fell on the white painted wall just in front of him and he drew in his breath sharply. Its white neatness was marred by a big wavering letter J scrawled in some brownish-red medium.

Poirot stared at it, then he leaned over the dead girl and very gently picked up her right hand. One finger of it was stained a brownish-red.

‘Non d’un nom d’un nom!’ ejaculated Hercule Poirot.

‘Eh? What is that?’

Dr Bessner looked up.

‘Ach! That.’

Race said:

‘Well, I’m damned. What do you make of that, Poirot?’

Poirot swayed a little on his toes.

‘You ask me what I make of it. Eh bien, it is very simple, is it not? Madame Doyle is dying; she wishes to indicate her murderer, and so she writes with her finger, dipped in her own blood, the initial letter of her murderer’s name. Oh, yes, it is astonishingly simple.’

‘Ach, but-’

Dr Bessner was about to break out, but a peremptory gesture from Race silenced him.

‘So it strikes you that?’ he asked slowly.

Poirot turned round on him, nodding his head.

‘Yes, yes. It is, as I say, of an astonishing simplicity! It is so familiar, is it not? It has been done so often, in the pages of the romance of crime! It is now, indeed, a little vieux jeu! It leads one to suspect that our murderer is – old-fashioned!’

Race drew a long breath.

‘I see,’ he said. ‘I thought at first-’ He stopped.

Poirot said with a very faint smile:

‘That I believed in all the old clichés of melodrama? But pardon, Dr Bessner, you were about to say-?’

Bessner broke out gutturally:

‘What do I say? Pah! I say it is absurd – it is the nonsense! The poor lady she died instantaneously. To dip her finger in the blood (and as you see, there is hardly any blood) and write the latter J upon the wall. Bah – it is the nonsense – the melodramatic nonsense!’

‘C’est de l’enfantillage,’ agreed Poirot.

‘But it was done with a purpose,’ suggested Race.

‘That – naturally,’ agreed Poirot, and his face was grave.

Race said. ‘What does J stand for?’

Poirot replied promptly:

‘J stands for Jacqueline de Bellefort, a young lady who declared to me less than a week ago that she would like nothing better than to-’ he paused and then deliberately quoted, ‘ “to put my dear little pistol close against her head and then just press with my finger…” ’

‘Gott im Himmel! exclaimed Dr Bessner.

There was a momentary silence. Then Race drew a deep breath and said:

‘Which is just what was done here?’

Bessner nodded.

‘That is so, yes. It was a pistol of very small calibre – as I say, probably a.22. The bullet has got to be extracted, of course, before we can say definitely.’

Race nodded in swift comprehension. Then he said:

‘What about time of death?’

Bessner stroked his jaw again. His finger made a rasping sound.

‘I would not care to be too precise. It is now eight o’clock. I will say, with due regard to the temperature last night, that she has been dead certainly six hours and probably not longer than eight.’

‘That puts it between midnight and two a. m.’

‘That is so.’

There was a pause. Race looked around.

‘What about her husband? I suppose he sleeps in the cabin next door.’

‘At the moment,’ said Dr Bessner, ‘he is asleep in my cabin.’

Both men looked very surprised.

Bessner nodded his head several times.

‘Ach, so. I see you have not been told about that. Mr Doyle was shot last night in the saloon.’

‘Shot? By whom?’

‘By the young lady, Jacqueline de Bellefort.’

Race asked sharply: ‘Is he badly hurt?’

‘Yes, the bone was splintered. I have done all that is possible at the moment, but it is necessary, you understand, that the fracture should be X-rayed as soon as possible and proper treatment given, such as is impossible on this boat.’

Poirot murmured:

‘Jacqueline de Bellefort.’

His eyes went again to the J on the wall.

Race said abruptly: ‘If there is nothing more we can do here for the moment, let’s go below. The management has put the smoking room at our disposal. We must get the details of what happened last night.’

They left the cabin. Race locked the door and took the key with him.

‘We can come back later,’ he said. ‘The first thing to do is to get all the facts clear.’

They went down to the deck below, where they found the manager of the Karnak waiting uneasily in the doorway of the smoking room.

The poor man was terribly upset and worried over the whole business, and was eager to leave everything in Colonel Race’s hands.

‘I feel I can’t do better than leave it to you, sir, seeing your official position. I’d had orders to put myself at your disposal in the – er – other matter. If you will take charge, I’ll see that everything is done as you wish.’

‘Good man! To begin with I’d like this room kept clear for me and Monsieur Poirot during this inquiry.’

‘Certainly, sir.’

‘That’s all at present. Go on with your own work. I know where to find you.’

Looking slightly relieved, the manager left the room.

Race said:

‘Sit down, Bessner, and let’s have the whole story of what happened last night.’

They listened in silence to the doctor’s rumbling voice.

‘Clear enough,’ said Race, when he had finished. ‘The girl worked herself up, helped by a drink or two, and finally took a pot shot at the man with a.22 pistol. Then she went along to Linnet Doyle’s cabin and shot her as well.’

But Dr Bessner was shaking his head.

‘No, no, I do not think so. I do not think that was possible. For one thing she would not write her own initial on the wall – it would be ridiculous, nicht wahr?’

‘She might,’ Race declared, ‘if she were as blindly mad and jealous as she sounds; she might want to – well – sign her name to the crime, so to speak.’

Poirot shook his head.

‘No, no, I do not think she would be as – as crude as that.’

‘Then there’s only one reason for that J. It was put there by someone else deliberately to throw suspicion on her.’

The doctor said:

‘Yes, and the criminal was unlucky, because, you see, it is not only unlikely that the young Fräulein did the murder – it is also I think impossible.’

‘How’s that?’

Bessner explained Jacqueline’s hysterics and the circumstances which had led Miss Bowers to take charge of her.

‘And I think – I am sure – that Miss Bowers stayed with her all night.’

Race said: ‘If that’s so, it’s going to simplify matters very much.’

Poirot asked: ‘Who discovered the crime?’

‘Mrs Doyle’s maid, Louise Bourget. She went to call her mistress as usual, found her dead, and came out and flopped into the steward’s arms in a dead faint. He went to the manager, who came to me. I got hold of Bessner and then came for you.’

Poirot nodded.

Race said:

‘Doyle’s got to know. You say he’s asleep still?’

The doctor said:

‘Yes, he’s still asleep in my cabin. I gave him a emphasis opiate last night.’

Race turned to Poirot.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘I don’t think we need detain the doctor any longer, eh? Thank you, Doctor.’

Bessner rose.

‘I will have my breakfast, yes. And then I will go back to my cabin and see if Mr Doyle is ready to wake.’

‘Thanks.’

Bessner went out. The two men looked at each other.

‘Well, what about it, Poirot?’ Race asked. ‘You’re the man in charge. I’ll take my orders from you. You say what’s to be done.’

Poirot bowed.

‘Eh bien!’ he said, ‘we must hold the court of inquiry. First of all, I think we must verify the story of the affair last night. That is to say, we must question Fanthorp and Miss Robson, who were the actual witnesses of what occurred. The disappearance of the pistol is very significant.’

Race rang a bell and sent a message by the steward.

Poirot sighed and shook his head.

‘It is bad, this,’ he murmured. ‘It is bad.’

‘Have you any ideas?’ asked Race curiously.

‘My ideas conflict. They are not well arranged – they are not orderly. There is, you see, the big fact that this girl hated Linnet Doyle and wanted to kill her.’

‘You think she’s capable of it?’

‘I think so – yes.’ Poirot sounded doubtful.

‘But not in this way? That’s what’s worrying you, isn’t it? Not to creep into her cabin in the dark and shoot her while she was sleeping. It’s the cold-bloodedness that strikes you as not ringing true.’

‘In a sense, yes.’

‘You think that this girl, Jacqueline de Bellefort, is incapable of a premeditated cold-blooded murder.’

Poirot said slowly: ‘I am not sure, you see. She would have the brains – yes. But I doubt if, physically, she could bring herself to do the act