Thirty-One

It was early dawn when they came into Shellal. The rocks came down grimly to the water’s edge.

Poirot murmured: “Quel pays sauvage!”

Race stood beside him. “Well,” he said, “we’ve done our job. I’ve arranged for Richetti to betaken ashore¹ first. Glad we’ve got him. He’s been a slippery customer, I can tell you. Given us theslip dozens of times.”

He went on: “We must get hold of a stretcher for Doyle. Remarkable² how he went to pieces.”

“Not really,” said Poirot. “That boyish type of criminal is usually intensely vain. Once prick³ thebubble of their self-esteem and it is finished! They go to pieces like children.”

“Deserves to be hanged,” said Race. “He’s a cold-blooded scoundrel. I’m sorry for the girl—butthere’s nothing to be done about it.”

Poirot shook his head.

“People say love justifies⁴ everything, but that is not true… Women who care for men asJacqueline cares for Simon Doyle are very dangerous. It is what I said when I saw her first. ‘Shecares too much, that little one!’ It is true.”

Cornelia Robson came up beside him.

“Oh,” she said, “we’re nearly in.” She paused a minute or two, then added, “I’ve been withher.”

“With Mademoiselle de Bellefort?”

“Yes. I felt it was kind of awful for her boxed up with that stewardess⁵. Cousin Marie’s veryangry, though, I’m afraid.”

Miss Van Schuyler was progressing slowly down the deck towards them. Her eyes werevenomous.

“Cornelia,” she snapped, “you’ve behaved outrageously⁶. I shall send you straight home.”

Cornelia took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Cousin Marie, but I’m not going home. I’m going toget married.”

“So you’ve seen sense at last,” snapped the old lady.

Ferguson came striding round the corner of the deck. He said: “Cornelia, what’s this I hear? It’snot true!”

“It’s quite true,” said Cornelia. “I’m going to marry Dr. Bessner. He asked me last night.”

“And why are you going to marry him?” asked Ferguson furiously. “Simply because he’s rich?”

“No, I’m not,” said Cornelia indignantly. “I like him. He’s kind, and he knows a lot. And I’vealways been interested in sick folks and clinics, and I shall have just a wonderful life with him.”

“Do you mean to say,” asked Mr. Ferguson incredulously, “that you’d rather marry thatdisgusting old man than Me?”

“Yes, I would. You’re not reliable! You wouldn’t be at all a comfortable sort of person to livewith. And he’s not old. He’s not fifty yet.”

“He’s got a stomach,” said Mr. Ferguson venomously.

“Well, I’ve got round shoulders,” retorted Cornelia. “What one looks like doesn’t matter. Hesays I really could help him in his work, and he’s going to teach me all about neurosis.”

She moved away.

Ferguson said to Poirot: “Do you think she really means that?”

“Certainly.”

“She prefers that pompous⁷ old bore to me?”

“Undoubtedly.”

“The girl’s mad,” declared Ferguson.

Poirot’s eyes twinkled.

“She is a woman of an original mind,” he said. “It is probably the first time you have met one.”

The boat drew in to the landing stage. A cordon⁸ had been drawn⁹ round the passengers. They hadbeen asked to wait before disembarking.

Richetti, dark-faced and sullen¹⁰, was marched ashore by two engineers.

Then, after a certain amount of delay, a stretcher was brought. Simon Doyle was carried alongthe deck to the gangway.

He looked a different man—cringing, frightened, all his boyish insouciance¹¹ vanished.

Jacqueline de Bellefort followed. A stewardess walked beside her. She was pale but otherwiselooked much as usual. She came up to the stretcher.

“Hullo, Simon!” she said.

He looked up at her quickly. The old boyish look came back to his face for a moment.

“I messed it up,” he said. “Lost my head and admitted everything! Sorry, Jackie. I’ve let youdown.”

She smiled at him then. “It’s all right, Simon,” she said. “A fool’s game, and we’ve lost. That’sall.”

She stood aside. The bearers picked up the handles of the stretcher. Jacqueline bent¹² down andtied the lace of her shoe. Then her hand went to her stocking top and she straightened up withsomething in her hand.

There was a sharp explosive “pop.”

Simon Doyle gave one convulsed shudder¹³ and then lay still.

Jacqueline de Bellefort nodded. She stood for a minute, pistol in hand. She gave a fleeting¹⁴ smileat Poirot.

Then, as Race jumped forward, she turned the little glittering toy against her heart and pressedthe trigger.

She sank down in a soft huddled¹⁵ heap.

Race shouted: “Where the devil did she get that pistol?”

Poirot felt a hand on his arm. Mrs. Allerton said softly, “You—knew?”

He nodded. “She had a pair of these pistols. I realized that when I heard that one had been foundin Rosalie Otterbourne’s handbag the day of the search. Jacqueline sat at the same table as theydid. When she realized that there was going to be a search, she slipped it into the other girl’shandbag. Later she went to Rosalie’s cabin and got it back, after having distracted her attentionwith a comparison of lipsticks¹⁶. As both she and her cabin had been searched yesterday, it wasn’tthought necessary to do it again.”

Mrs. Allerton said: “You wanted her to take that way out?”

“Yes. But she would not take it alone. That is why Simon Doyle has died an easier death thanhe deserved.”

Mrs. Allerton shivered. “Love can be a very frightening thing.”

“That is why most great love stories are tragedies.”

Mrs. Allerton’s eyes rested upon Tim and Rosalie, standing¹⁷ side by side in the sunlight, and shesaid suddenly and passionately¹⁸: “But thank God, there is happiness in the world.”

“As you say, Madame, thank God for it.”

Presently the passengers went ashore.

Later the bodies of Louise Bourget and Mrs. Otterbourne were carried off the Karnak.

Lastly the body of Linnet Doyle was brought ashore, and all over the world wires began to hum,telling the public that Linnet Doyle, who had been Linnet Ridgeway, the famous, the beautiful, thewealthy Linnet Doyle was dead.

Sir George Wode read about it in his London club, and Sterndale Rockford in New York, andJoanna Southwood in Switzerland, and it was discussed in the bar of the Three Crowns in Malton-under-Wode.

And Mr. Burnaby said acutely: “Well, it doesn’t seem to have done her much good, poor lass.”

But after a while they stopped talking about her and discussed instead who was going to win theGrand National. For, as Mr. Ferguson was saying at that minute in Luxor, it is not the past thatmatters but the future.

 

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