Death on the Nile - Agatha Christie [63]
“Innocent?” repeated the girl sharply.
“That’s what I said. You see, Mademoiselle, something was thrown overboard last night—something that was not innocent.”
Race silently held out the bundle of stained velvet, opening it to display its contents.
Rosalie Otterbourne shrank back. “Was that—what—she was killed with?”
“Yes, Mademoiselle.”
“And you think that I—I did it? What utter nonsense! Why on earth should I want to kill Linnet Doyle? I don’t even know her!”
She laughed and stood up scornfully. “The whole thing is too ridiculous.”
“Remember, Miss Otterbourne,” said Race, “that Miss Van Schuyler is prepared to swear she saw your face quite clearly in the moonlight.”
Rosalie laughed again. “That old cat? She’s probably half blind anyway. It wasn’t me she saw.” She paused. “Can I go now?”
Race nodded and Rosalie Otterbourne left the room.
The eyes of the two men met. Race lighted a cigarette.
“Well, that’s that. Flat contradiction. Which of ’em do we believe?”
Poirot shook his head. “I have a little idea that neither of them was being quite frank.”
“That’s the worst of our job,” said Race despondently. “So many people keep back the truth for positively futile reasons. What’s our next move? Get on with the questioning of the passengers?”
“I think so. It is always well to proceed with order and method.”
Race nodded.
Mrs. Otterbourne, dressed in floating batik material, succeeded her daughter. She corroborated Rosalie’s statement that they had both gone to bed before eleven o’clock. She herself had heard nothing of interest during the night. She could not say whether Rosalie had left their cabin or not. On the subject of the crime she was inclined to hold forth.
“The crime passionel!” she exclaimed. “The primitive instinct—to kill! So closely allied to the sex instinct. That girl, Jacqueline, half Latin, hot-blooded, obeying the deepest instincts of her being, stealing forth, revolver in hand—”
“But Jacqueline de Bellefort did not shoot Madame Doyle. That we know for certain. It is proved,” explained Poirot.
“Her husband, then,” said Mrs. Otterbourne, rallying from the blow. “The blood lust and the sex instinct—a sexual crime. There are many well-known instances.”
“Mr. Doyle was shot through the leg and he was quite unable to move—the bone was fractured,” explained Colonel Race. “He spent the night with Dr. Bessner.”
Mrs. Otterbourne was even more disappointed. She searched her mind hopefully.
“Of course!” she said. “How foolish of me! Miss Bowers!”
“Miss Bowers?”
“Yes. Naturally. It’s so clear psychologically. Repression! The repressed virgin! Maddened by the sight of these two—a young husband and wife passionately in love with each other. Of course it was her! She’s just the type—sexually unattractive, innately respectable. In my book, The Barren Vine—”
Colonel Race interrupted tactfully: “Your suggestions have been most helpful, Mrs. Otterbourne. We must get on with our job now. Thank you so much.”
He escorted her gallantly to the door and came back wiping his brow.
“What a poisonous woman! Whew! Why didn’t somebody murder her!”
“It may yet happen,” Poirot consoled him.
“There might be some sense in that. Whom have we got left? Pennington—we’ll keep him for the end, I think. Richetti—Ferguson.”
Signor Richetti was very voluble, very agitated.
“But what a horror, what an infamy—a woman so young and so beautiful—indeed an inhuman crime!”
Signor Richetti’s hands flew expressively up in the air.
His answers were prompt. He had gone to bed early—very early. In fact immediately after dinner. He had read for a while—a very interesting pamphlet lately published—Prähistorische Forschung in Kleinasien—throwing an entirely new light on the painted pottery of the Anatolian foothills.
He had put out his light some time before eleven. No, he had not heard any shot. Not any sound like the pop of a cork. The only thing he had heard—but that was later, in the middle of the night—was a splash, a big splash, just near his porthole.
“Your cabin is on the lower deck, on