Agatha Christie - Death On The Nile

"Cornelia," she snapped. "You've behaved outrageously, 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 to get 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's not 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?" said 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've always been interested in sick folks and clinics, and I shall have just a wonderful life with him."

"Do you mean to say," said Mr. Ferguson incredulously, "that you'd rather marry that disgusting old man than me?"

"Yes, I would. You're not reliable! You wouldn't be at all a comfortable sort of person to live with. 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," said Cornelia. "What one looks like doesn't matter. He says I really could help him in his work, and he's going to teach me all about neuroseses."

She moved away. Ferguson said to Poirot.

"Do you think she really means that?"

"Certainly."

"She prefers that pompous old bore to me?"

"Undoubtedly."

"The girl's mad," said Ferguson. o

Poirot's eyes twinkled.

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

The boat drew in to the landing stage. A cordon had been drawn round the passengers. They had been asked to wait before disembarking.

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

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

He looked a different man--cringing, frightened, all his boyish insouciance vanished.

Jacqueline de Bellefort followed. A stewardess walked beside her.

She was pale but otherwise looked much as usual.

She came up to the stretcher.

"Hallo, 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, Jaekie. I've let you down."

She smiled at him then.

"It's all right, Simon," she said. "A fool's game and we've lost. That's all." She stood aside. The bearer picked up the handles of the stretcher.

Jacqueline bent down and tied the lace of her shoe. Then her hand went to her stocking top and she straightened up with something in her hand.

There was a sharp explosive "pop."

Simon Doyle gave one convulsed shudder and then lay still.

Jacqueline de Bellefort nodded. She stood for a minute, pistol in hand. She gave a fleeting smile at Poirot.

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

She sank down in a soft huddled 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 those pistols. I realised that when I heard that one had been found in Rosalie Otterbourne's handbag the day of the search. Jacqueline sat at the same table as they did. When she realised that there was going to be a search she slipped it into the other girl's handbag. Later she went to Rosalie's cabin and got it back after having distracted her attention with a comparison of lipsticks. As both she and her cabin had been searched yesterday it wasn't thought 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 than he 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 standing side by side in the sunlight and she said suddenly and passionately: "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 of Mrs. Otterbourne were carried off the Karmak.

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

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

And Mr. Burnaby's lean friend said: "Well, it didn't seem fair, her having everything." 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 the Grand National. For, as Mr. Ferguson was saying at that minute in Luxor, it is not the past that matters but the future.