Death on the Nile - Agatha Christie [28]
“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 the same 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 Nubian 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 very emphatically, in astonishingly well-bred accents: “They make me sick.”
Mrs. Allerton put on her pince-nez and surveyed him with pleasurable interest.
“Indeed? And why is that?” Poirot asked.
“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 native villages, Monsieur Poirot?”
“Is that your excursion today, Mademoiselle? Eh bien, they are picturesque—but do not spend large sums on native curios.”
“Which are shipped here from Europe? No, I am not so easy to deceive as that.”
With a little nod she passed out into the brilliant sunshine.
Poirot completed his packing—a very simple affair, since his possessions were always in the most meticulous order. Then he repaired to the dining room and ate an early lunch.
After lunch the hotel bus took the passengers for the Second Cataract to the station where they were to catch the daily express from Cairo to Shellal—a ten-minute run.
The Allertons, Poirot, the young man in the dirty flannel trousers and the Italian were the passengers. Mrs. Otterbourne and her daughter had made the expedition to the Dam and to Philae and would join the steamer at Shellal.
The train from Cairo and Luxor was about twenty minutes late. However, it arrived at last, and the usual scenes of wild activity occurred.