Смерть на Ниле / Death on the Nile

‘I think that’s true – yes, you’re quite right.’

She was silent a minute or two, then she said, smiling:

‘I’m trying to imagine motives for crime suitable for everyone in the hotel. It’s quite entertaining. Simon Doyle, for instance?’

Poirot said, smiling:

‘A very simple crime – a direct short cut to his objective. No subtlety about it.’

‘And therefore very easily detected?’

‘Yes; he would not be ingenious.’

‘And Linnet?’

‘That would be like the Queen in your Alice in Wonderland, “Off with her head.” ’

‘Of course. The divine right of monarchy! Just a little bit of the Naboth’s vineyard touch. And the dangerous girl – Jacqueline de Bellefort – could she do a murder?’

Poirot hesitated for a minute or two, then he said doubtfully:

‘Yes, I think she could.’

‘But you’re not sure?’

‘No. She puzzles me, that little one.’

‘I don’t think Mr Pennington could do one, do you? He looks so desiccated and dyspeptic – with no red blood in him.’

‘But possibly a emphasis sense of self-preservation.’

‘Yes, I suppose so. And poor Mrs Otterbourne in her turban?’

‘There is always vanity.’

‘As a motive for murder?’ Mrs Allerton asked doubtfully.

‘Motives for murder are sometimes very trivial, Madame.’

‘What are the most usual motives, Monsieur Poirot?’

‘Most frequent – money. That is to say, gain in its various ramifications. Then there is revenge, and love, and fear – and pure hate, and beneficence-’

‘Monsieur Poirot!’

‘Oh, yes, Madame. I have known of – shall we say A? – being removed by B solely in order to benefit C. Political murders often come under that heading. Someone is considered to be harmful to civilization and is removed on that account. Such people forget that life and death are the affair of the good God.’

He spoke gravely.

Mrs Allerton said quietly:

‘I am glad to hear you say that. All the same, God chooses his instruments.’

‘There is a danger in thinking like that, Madame.’

She adopted a lighter tone:

‘After this conversation, Monsieur Poirot, I shall wonder that there is anyone left alive!’ She got up. ‘We must be getting back. We have to start immediately after lunch.’

When they reached the landing stage they found the young man in the polo jumper just taking his place in the boat. The Italian was already waiting. As the boatman cast the sail loose and they started, Poirot addressed a polite remark to the stranger:

‘There are very wonderful things to be seen in Egypt, are there not?’

The young man was now smoking a somewhat noisome pipe. He removed it from his mouth and remarked briefly and emphatically in astonishingly well-bred accents:

‘They make me sick.’

Mrs Allerton put on her pince-nez and surveyed him with pleasurable interest. Poirot said:

‘Indeed? And why is that?’

‘Take the Pyramids. Great blocks of useless masonry put up to minister to the egoism of a despotic bloated king. Think of the sweated masses who toiled to build them and died doing it. It makes me sick to think of the suffering and torture they represent.’

Mrs Allerton said cheerfully:

‘You’d rather have no Pyramids, no Parthenon, no beautiful tombs or temples – just the solid satisfaction of knowing that people got three meals a day and died in their beds.’

The young man directed his scowl in her direction.

‘I think human beings matter more than stones.’

‘But they do not endure as well,’ remarked Hercule Poirot.

‘I’d rather see a well fed worker than any so-called work of art. What matters is the future – not the past.’

This was too much for Signor Richetti, who burst into a torrent of impassioned speech not too easy to follow.

The young man retorted by telling everybody exactly what he thought of the capitalist system. He spoke with the utmost venom.

When the tirade was over they had arrived at the hotel landing-stage.

Mrs Allerton murmured cheerfully: ‘Well, well,’ and stepped ashore.

The young man directed a baleful glance after her.

In the hall of the hotel Poirot encountered Jacqueline de Bellefort. She was dressed in riding clothes. She gave him an ironical little bow.

‘I’m going donkey-riding. Do you recommend the local villages, Monsieur Poirot?’