If only I had the nerve - Can I do it?
Can I bluff it out?
My nerves are all to pieces!
That's the coke.
Why did I ever take to coke?
My face looks awful - simply awful. That cat, Venetia Kerr, being here makes it worse.
She always looks at me as though I were dirt.
Wanted Stephen herself. Well, she didn't get him!
That long face of hers gets on my nerves.
It's exactly like a horse.
I hate these county women. What shall I do?
I've got to make up my mind.
The old hag meant what she said."
She fumbled in her vanity bag for her cigarette case and fitted a cigarette into a long holder.
Her hands shook slightly.
The Honorable Venetia Kerr thought:
"Little tart!
That's what she is.
Poor old Stephen! If he only could get rid of her!"
She, in turn, felt for her cigarette case. She accepted Cicely Horbury's match.
The steward said: "Excuse me, ladies; no smoking."
Cicely Horbury said, "Hell!"
M. Hercule Poirot thought:
"She is pretty, that little one over there. There is determination in that chin.
Why is she so worried over something?
Why is she so determined not to look at the handsome young man opposite her?
She is very much aware of him and he of her."
The plane dropped slightly.
"Mon estomac!" thought Hercule Poirot, and closed his eyes determinedly.
Beside him, Doctor Bryant, caressing his flute with nervous hands, thought:
"I can't decide.
I simply cannot decide.
This is the turning point of my career."
Nervously he drew out his flute from its case, caressingly, lovingly.
Music - in music there was an escape from all your cares.
Half smiling, he raised the flute to his lips; then put it down again.
The little man with the mustaches beside him was fast asleep.
There had been a moment, when the plane had bumped a little, when he had looked distinctly green.
Doctor Bryant was glad he himself became neither train-sick nor sea-sick nor air-sick.
M. Dupont pere turned excitedly in his seat and shouted at M. Dupont fils, sitting beside him:
"There is no doubt about it!
They are all wrong - the Germans, the Americans, the English!
They date the prehistoric pottery all wrong!
Take the Samarra ware -"
Jean Dupont, tall, fair, with a false air of indolence, said: "You must take the evidences from all sources. There is Tall Halaf, and Sakje Geuze -"
They prolonged the discussion.
Armand Dupont wrenched open a battered attache case.
"Take these Kurdish pipes, such as they make today.
The decoration on them is almost exactly similar to that on the pottery of 5000 b.c."
An eloquent gesture almost swept away the plate that a steward was placing in front of him.