Death on the Nile - Agatha Christie [62]
“That is all you have to say, Miss Van Schuyler?”
“I have nothing to add to what I have told you. Linnet Ridgeway was brought up in England and I never saw her till I came aboard this boat.”
She rose. Poirot opened the door and she marched out.
The eyes of the two men met.
“That’s her story,” said Race, “and she’s going to stick to it! It may be true. I don’t know. But—Rosalie Otterbourne? I hadn’t expected that.”
Poirot shook his head in a perplexed manner. Then he brought down his hand on the table with a sudden bang.
“But it does not make sense,” he cried. “Nom d’un nom d’un nom! It does not make sense.”
Race looked at him.
“What do you mean exactly?”
“I mean that up to a point it is all the clear sailing. Someone wished to kill Linnet Doyle. Someone overheard the scene in the saloon last night. Someone sneaked in there and retrieved the pistol—Jacqueline de Bellefort’s pistol, remember. Somebody shot Linnet Doyle with that pistol and wrote the letter J on the wall…All so clear, is it not? All pointing to Jacqueline de Bellefort as the murderess. And then what does the murderer do? Leave the pistol—the damning pistol—Jacqueline de Bellefort’s pistol, for everyone to find? No, he—or she—throws the pistol, that particularly damning bit of evidence, overboard. Why, my friend, why?”
Race shook his head. “It’s odd.”
“It is more than odd—it is impossible!”
“Not impossible, since it happened!”
“I do not mean that. I mean the sequence of events is impossible. Something is wrong.”
Seventeen
Colonel Race glanced curiously at his colleague. He respected—he had reason to respect—the brain of Hercule Poirot. Yet for the moment he did not follow the other’s process of thought. He asked no question, however. He seldom did ask questions. He proceeded straightforwardly with the matter in hand.
“What’s the next thing to be done? Question the Otterbourne girl?”
“Yes, that may advance us a little.”
Rosalie Otterbourne entered ungraciously. She did not look nervous or frightened in any way—merely unwilling and sulky.
“Well,” she asked, “what is it?”
Race was the spokesman.
“We’re investigating Mrs. Doyle’s death,” he explained.
Rosalie nodded.
“Will you tell me what you did last night?”
Rosalie reflected a minute.
“Mother and I went to bed early—before eleven. We didn’t hear anything in particular, except a bit of fuss outside Dr. Bessner’s cabin. I heard the old man’s German voice booming away. Of course I didn’t know what it was all about till this morning.”
“You didn’t hear a shot?”
“No.”
“Did you leave your cabin at all last night?”
“No.”
“You are quite sure of that?”
Rosalie stared at him.
“What do you mean? Of course I’m sure of it.”
“You did not, for instance, go round to the starboard side of the boat and throw something overboard?”
The colour rose in her face.
“Is there any rule against throwing things overboard?”
“No, of course not. Then you did?”
“No, I didn’t. I never left my cabin, I tell you.”
“Then if anyone says that they saw you—?”
She interrupted him. “Who says they saw me?”
“Miss Van Schuyler.”
“Miss Van Schuyler?” She sounded genuinely astonished.
“Yes. Miss Van Schuyler says she looked out of her cabin and saw you throw something over the side.”
Rosalie said clearly, “That’s a damned lie.” Then, as though struck by a sudden thought, she asked: “What time was this?”
It was Poirot who answered.
“It was ten minutes past one, Mademoiselle.”
She nodded her head thoughtfully. “Did she see anything else?”
Poirot looked at her curiously. He stroked his chin.
“See—no,” he replied, “but she heard something.”
“What did she hear?”
“Someone moving about in Madame Doyle’s cabin.”
“I see,” muttered Rosalie.
She was pale now—deadly pale.
“And you persist in saying that you threw nothing overboard, Mademoiselle?”
“What on earth should I run about throwing things overboard for in the middle of the night?”
“There