第8章

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.

On his way to his cabin that night he encountered Jacqueline de Bellefort. She was leaning over the rail and, as she turned her head, he was struck by the look of acute misery on her face. There was now no insouciance, no malicious defiance, no dark flaming triumph.

“Good night, Mademoiselle.”

“Good night, Monsieur Poirot.” She hesitated, then said: “You were surprised to find me here?”

“I was not so much surprised as sorry—very sorry….”

He spoke gravely.

“You mean sorry—for me?”

“That is what I meant. You have chosen, Mademoiselle, the dangerous course…As we here in this boat have embarked on a journey, so you too have embarked on your own private journey—a journey on a swift moving river, between dangerous rocks, and heading for who knows what currents of disaster….”

“Why do you say this?”

“Because it is true…You have cut the bonds that moored you to safety. I doubt now if you could turn back if you would.”

She said very slowly: “That is true….”

Then she flung her head back.

“Ah, well—one must follow one’s star, wherever it leads.”

“Beware, Mademoiselle, that it is not a false star….”

She laughed and mimicked the parrot cry of the donkey boys:

“That very bad star, sir! That star fall down….”

He was just dropping off to sleep when the murmur of voices awoke him. It was Simon Doyle’s voice he heard, repeating the same words he had used when the steamer left Shellal.

“We’ve got to go through with it now….”

“Yes,” thought Hercule Poirot to himself, “we have got to go through with it now….”

He was not happy.