Race gave Poirot a glance of slightly malicious triumph.
“You see,” he said, “my idea was right. It was thrown overboard.”
He held the pistol out on the palm of his hand.
“What do you say, Monsieur Poirot? Is this the pistol you saw at the Cataract Hotel that night?”
Poirot examined it carefully; then he said quietly: “Yes—that is it. There is the ornamental work on it—and the initials J.B. It is an article de luxe, a very feminine production, but it is none the less a lethal weapon.”
“Twenty-two,” murmured Race. He took out the clip. “Two bullets fired. Yes, there doesn’t seem much doubt about it.”
Miss Van Schuyler coughed significantly.
“And what about my stole?” she demanded.
“Your stole, Mademoiselle?”
“Yes, that is my velvet stole you have there.”
Race picked up the dripping folds of material.
“This is yours, Miss Van Schuyler?”
“Certainly it’s mine!” the old lady snapped. “I missed it last night. I was asking everyone if they’d seen it.”
Poirot questioned Race with a glance, and the latter gave a slight nod of assent.
“Where did you see it last, Miss Van Schuyler?”
“I had it in the saloon yesterday evening. When I came to go to bed I could not find it anywhere.”
Race said quickly: “You realize what it’s been used for?” He spread it out, indicating with a finger the scorching and several small holes. “The murderer wrapped it round the pistol to deaden the noise of the shot.”
“Impertinence!” snapped Miss Van Schuyler. The colour rose in her wizened cheeks.
Race said: “I shall be glad, Miss Van Schuyler, if you will tell me the extent of your previous acquaintance with Mrs. Doyle.”
“There was no previous acquaintance.”
“But you knew of her?”
“I knew who she was, of course.”
“But your families were not acquainted?”
“As a family we have always prided ourselves on being exclusive, Colonel Race. My dear mother would never have dreamed of calling upon any of the Hartz family, who, outside their wealth, were nobodies.”
“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 might be a reason—an innocent reason.”
“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 be
lieve?”
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 the starboard side, is it not?”
“Yes, yes, that is so. And I heard the big splash.” His arms flew up once more to describe the bigness of the splash.
“Can you tell me at all what time that was?”
Signor Richetti reflected.
“It was one, two, three hours after I go to sleep. Perhaps two hours.”
“About ten minutes past one, for instance?”
“It might very well be, yes. Ah! But what a terrible crime—how inhuman…So charming a woman….”
Exit Signor Richetti, still gesticulating freely.
Race looked at Poirot. Poirot raised his eyebrows expressively, then shrugged his shoulders. They passed on to Mr. Ferguson.
Ferguson was difficult. He sprawled insolently in a chair.
“Grand to-do about this business!” he sneered. “What’s it really matter? Lots of superfluous women in the world!”
Race said coldly: “Can we have an account of your movements last night, Mr. Ferguson?”
“Don’t see why you should, but I don’t mind. I mooched around a good bit. Went ashore with Miss Robson. When she went back to the boat I mooched around by myself for a while. Came back and turned in round about midnight.”
“Your cabin is on the lower deck, starboard side?”
“Yes. I’m up among the nobs.”
“Did you hear a shot? It might only have sounded like the popping of a cork.”
Ferguson considered. “Yes, I think I did hear something like a cork…Can’t remember when—before I went to sleep. But there was still a lot of people about then—commotion, running about on the deck above.”
“That was probably the shot fired by Miss de Bellefort. You didn’t hear another?”
Ferguson shook his head.
“Nor a splash?”
“A splash? Yes, I believe I did hear a splash. But there was so much row going on I can’t be sure about it.”
“Did you leave your cabin during the night?”
Ferguson grinned. “No, I didn’t. And I didn’t participate in the good work, worse luck.”
“Come, come, Mr. Ferguson, don’t behave childishly.”
The young man reacted angrily.
“Why shouldn’t I say what I think? I believe in violence.”
“But you don’t practice what you preach?” murmured Poirot. “I wonder.”
He leaned forward.
“It was the man, Fleetwood, was it not, who told you that Linnet Doyle was one of the richest women in England?”
“What’s Fleetwood got to do with this?”
“Fleetwood, my friend, had an excellent motive for killing Linnet Doyle. He had a special grudge against her.”
Mr. Ferguson came up out of his seat like a jack-in-the-box.
“So that’s your dirty game, is it?” he demanded wrathfully. “Put it on to a poor devil like Fleetwood, who can’t defend himself, who’s got no money to hire lawyers. But I tell you this—if you try and saddle Fleetwood with this business you’ll have me to deal with.”
“And who exactly are you?” asked Poirot sweetly.
Mr. Ferguson got rather red.
“I can stick by my friends anyway,” he said gruffly.
“Well, Mr. Ferguson, I think that’s all we need for the present,” said Race.
As the door closed behind Ferguson he remarked unexpectedly: “Rather a likeable young cub, really.”
“You don’t think he is the man you are after?” asked Poirot.
“I hardly think so. I suppose he is on board. The information was very precise. Oh, well, one job at a time. Let’s have a go at Pennington.”
Eighteen
Andrew Pennington displayed all the conventional reactions of grief and shock. He was, as usual, carefully dressed. He had changed into a black tie. His long clean-shaven face bore a bewildered expression.
“Gentlemen,” he said sadly, “this business has got me right down! Little Linnet—why, I remember her as the cutest little thing you can imagine. How proud of her Melhuish Ridgeway used to be, too! Well, there’s no point in going into that. Just tell me what I can do; that’s all I ask.”
Race said: “To begin with, Mr. Pennington, did you hear anything last night?”
“No, sir, I can’t say I did. I have the cabin right next to Dr. Bessner’s number forty—forty-one, and I heard a certain commotion going on in there round about midnight or so. Of course I didn’t know what it was at the time.”
“You heard nothing else? No shots?”
Andrew Pennington shook his head.
“Nothing whatever of that kind.”
“And you went to bed at what time?”
“Must have been some time after eleven.”
He leant forward.
“I don’t suppose it’s news to you to know that there’s plenty of rumours going about the boat. That half-French girl—Jacqueline de Bellefort—there was something fishy there, you know. Linnet didn’t tell me anything, but naturally I wasn’t born blind and deaf. There’d been some affair between her and Simon, some time, hadn’t there—Cherchez la femme—that’s a pretty good sound rule, and I should say you wouldn’t have to cherchez far.”
“You mean that in your belief Jacqueline de Bellefort shot Madame Doyle?” Poirot asked.
“That’s what it looks like to me. Of course I don’t know anything….”
“Unfortunately we do know something!”
“Eh?” Mr. Pennington looked startled.
“We know that it is quite impossible for Mademoiselle de Bellefort to have shot Madame Doyle.”
He explained carefully the circumstances. Pennington seemed reluctant to accept them.
“I agree it looks all right on the face of it—but this hospital nurse woman, I’ll bet she didn’t stay awake all night. She dozed off and the girl slipped out and in again.”
“Hardly likely, Monsieur Pennington. She had administered a strong opiate, remember. And anyway a nurse is in the habit of sleeping lightly and waking when her patient wakes.”
“It all sounds rather fishy to me,” declared Pennington.
Race said in a gently authoritative manner: “I think you must take it from me, Mr. Pennington, that we have examined all the possibilities very carefully. The result is quite definite—Jacqueline de Bellefort did not shoot Mrs. Doyle. So we are forced to look elsewhere. That is where we hope you may be able to help us.”
“I?” Pennington gave a nervous start.
“Yes. You were an intimate friend of the dead woman. You know the circumstances of her life, in all probability, much better than her husband does, since he only made her acquaintance a few months ago. You would know, for instance, of anyone who had a grudge against her. You would know, perhaps, whether there was anyone who had a motive for desiring her death.”
Andrew Pennington passed his tongue over rather dry-looking lips.
“I assure you, I have no idea…You see Linnet was brought up in England. I know very little of her surroundings and associations.”