第3章

Dinner was over. The terrace outside the Cataract Hotel was softly lit. Most of the guests staying at the hotel were sitting at little tables.

Simon and Linnet Doyle came out, a tall, distinguished looking grey-haired man, with a keen, clean-shaven American face, beside them. As the little group hesitated in the doorway, Tim Allerton rose from his chair nearby and came forward.

“You don’t remember me I’m sure,” he said pleasantly to Linnet, “but I’m Joanna Southwood’s cousin.”

“Of course—how stupid of me! You’re Tim Allerton. This is my husband”—a faint tremor in the voice, pride, shyness?—“and this is my American trustee, Mr. Pennington.”

Tim said: “You must meet my mother.”

A few minutes later they were sitting together in a party—Linnet in the corner, Tim and Pennington each side of her, both talking to her, vying for her attention. Mrs. Allerton talked to Simon Doyle.

The swing doors revolved. A sudden tension came into the beautiful upright figure sitting in the corner between the two men. Then it relaxed as a small man came out and walked across the terrace.

Mrs. Allerton said: “You’re not the only celebrity here, my dear. That funny little man is Hercule Poirot.”

She had spoken lightly, just out of instinctive social tact to bridge an awkward pause, but Linnet seemed struck by the information.

“Hercule Poirot? Of course—I’ve heard of him….”

She seemed to sink into a fit of abstraction. The two men on either side of her were momentarily at a loss.

Poirot had strolled across to the edge of the terrace, but his attention was immediately solicited.

“Sit down, Monsieur Poirot. What a lovely night!”

He obeyed.

“Mais oui, Madame, it is indeed beautiful.”

He smiled politely at Mrs. Otterbourne. What draperies of black ninon and that ridiculous turban effect! Mrs. Otterbourne went on in her high complaining voice:

“Quite a lot of notabilities here now, aren’t there? I expect we shall see a paragraph about it in the papers soon. Society beauties, famous novelists—”

She paused with a slight mock-modest laugh.

Poirot felt, rather than saw, the sulky frowning girl opposite him flinch and set her mouth in a sulkier line than before.

“You have a novel on the way at present, Madame?” he inquired.

Mrs. Otterbourne gave her little self-conscious laugh again.

“I’m being dreadfully lazy. I really must set to. My public is getting terribly impatient—and my publisher, poor man! Appeals by every post! Even cables!”

Again he felt the girl shift in the darkness.

“I don’t mind telling you, Monsieur Poirot, I am partly here for local colour. Snow on the Desert’s Face—that is the title of my new book. Powerful—suggestive. Snow—on the desert—melted in the first flaming breath of passion.”

Rosalie got up, muttering something, and moved away down into the dark garden.

“One must be strong,” went on Mrs. Otterbourne, wagging the turban emphatically. “Strong meat—that is what my books are—all important. Libraries banned—no matter! I speak the truth. Sex—ah! Monsieur Poirot—why is everyone so afraid of sex? The pivot of the universe! You have read my books?”

“Alas, Madame! You comprehend, I do not read many novels. My work—”

Mrs. Otterbourne said firmly: “I must give you a copy of Under the Fig Tree. I think you will find it significant. It is outspoken—but it is real!”

“That is most kind of you, Madame. I will read it with pleasure.”

Mrs. Otterbourne was silent a minute or two. She fidgeted with a long chain of beads that was wound twice round her neck. She looked swiftly from side to side.

“Perhaps—I’ll just slip up and get it for you now.”

“Oh, Madame, pray do not trouble yourself. Later—”

“No, no. It’s no trouble.” She rose. “I’d like to show you—”

“What is it, Mother?”

Rosalie was suddenly at her side.

“Nothing, dear. I was just going up to get a book for Monsieur Poirot.”

“The Fig Tree? I’ll get it.”

“You don’t know where it is, dear. I’ll go.”

“Yes, I do.”

The girl went swiftly across the terrace and into the hotel.

“Let me congratulate you, Madame, on a very lovely daughter,” said Poirot, with a bow.

“Rosalie? Yes, yes—she is good-looking. But she’s very hard, Monsieur Poirot. And no sympathy with illness. She always thinks she knows best. She imagines she knows more about my health than I do myself—”

Poirot signalled to a passing waiter.

“A liqueur, Madame? A chartreuse? A crème de menthe?”

Mrs. Otterbourne shook her head vigorously.

“No, no. I am practically a teetotaller. You may have noticed I never drink anything but water—or perhaps lemonade. I cannot bear the taste of spirits.”

“Then may I order you a lemon squash, Madame?”

He gave the order—one lemon squash and one benedictine.

The swing door revolved. Rosalie passed through and came towards them, a book in her hand.

“Here you are,” she said. Her voice was quite expressionless—almost remarkably so.

“Monsieur Poirot has just ordered me a lemon squash,” said her mother.

“And you, Mademoiselle, what will you take?”

“Nothing.” She added, suddenly conscious of the curtness: “Nothing, thank you.”

Poirot took the volume which Mrs. Otterbourne held out to him. It still bore its original jacket, a gaily coloured affair representing a lady, with smartly shingled hair and scarlet fingernails, sitting on a tiger skin, in the traditional costume of Eve. Above her was a tree with the leaves of an oak, bearing large and improbably coloured apples.

It was entitled Under the Fig Tree, by Salome Otterbourne. On the inside was a publisher’s blurb. It spoke enthusiastically of the superb courage and realism of this study of a modern woman’s love life. “Fearless, unconventional, realistic,” were the adjectives used.

Poirot bowed and murmured: “I am honoured, Madame.”

As he raised his head, his eyes met those of the authoress’s daughter. Almost involuntarily he made a little movement. He was astonished and grieved at the eloquent pain they revealed.

It was at that moment that the drinks arrived and created a welcome diversion.

Poirot lifted his glass gallantly.

“A votre santé, Madame—Mademoiselle.”

Mrs. Otterbourne, sipping her lemonade, murmured, “So refreshing—delicious!”

Silence fell on the three of them. They looked down to the shining black rocks in the Nile. There was something fantastic about them in the moonlight. They were like vast prehistoric monsters lying half out of the water. A little breeze came up suddenly and as suddenly died away. There was a feeling in the air of hush—of expectancy.

Hercule Poirot brought his gaze back to the terrace and its occupants. Was he wrong, or was there the same hush of expectancy there? It was like a moment on the stage when one is waiting for the entrance of the leading lady.

And just at that moment the swing doors began to revolve once more. This time it seemed as though they did so with a special air of importance. Everyone had stopped talking and was looking towards them.

A dark slender girl in a wine-coloured evening frock came through. She paused for a minute, then walked deliberately across the terrace and sat down at an empty table. There was nothing flaunting, nothing out of the way about her demeanour, and yet it had somehow the studied effect of a stage entrance.

“Well,” said Mrs. Otterbourne. She tossed her turbaned head. “She seems to think she is somebody, that girl!”

Poirot did not answer. He was watching. The girl had sat down in a place where she could look deliberately across at Linnet Doyle. Presently, Poirot noticed, Linnet Doyle leant forward and said something and a moment later got up and changed her seat. She was now sitting facing in the opposite direction.

Poirot nodded thoughtfully to himself.

It was about five minutes later that the other girl changed her seat to the opposite side of the terrace. She sat smoking and smiling quietly, the picture of contented ease. But always, as though unconsciously, her meditative gaze was on Simon Doyle’s wife.

After a quarter of an hour Linnet Doyle got up abruptly and went into the hotel. Her husband followed her almost immediately.

Jacqueline de Bellefort smiled and twisted her chair round. She lit a cigarette and stared out over the Nile. She went on smiling to herself.