Old Bessner's one of the best, even though he is a kind of Boche."
Dr Bessner reappeared suddenly.
"Will you be so kind as to leave me now my cabin?
I have to do the dressing of my patient's leg."
Miss Bowers had entered with him and stood, brisk and professional, waiting for the others to go.
Race and Poirot crept out meekly.
Race muttered something and went off.
Poirot turned to his left.
He heard scraps of girlish conversation, a little laugh.
Jacqueline and Rosalie were together in the latter's cabin.
The door was open and the two girls were standing near it.
As his shadow fell on them they looked up.
He saw Rosalie Otterbourne smile at him for the first time - a shy welcoming smile - a little uncertain in its lines, as of one who does a new and unfamiliar thing.
"You talk the scandal, Mesdemoiselles?" he accused them.
"No, indeed," said Rosalie. "As a matter of fact we were just comparing lipsticks."
Poirot smiled.
"Les chiffons d'aujourd hui," he murmured.
But there was something a little mechanical about his smile, and Jacqueline de Bellefort, quicker and more observant than Rosalie, saw it.
She dropped the lipstick she was holding and came out upon the deck.
"Has something - what has happened now?"
"It is as you guess, Mademoiselle; something has happened."
"What?" Rosalie came out too.
"Another death," said Poirot.
Rosalie caught her breath sharply.
Poirot was watching her narrowly.
He saw alarm and something more - consternation - show for a minute or two in her eyes.
"Madame Doyle's maid has been killed," he told them bluntly.
"Killed?" cried Jacqueline. "Killed, do you say?"
"Yes, that is what I said." Though his answer was nominally to her, it was Rosalie whom he watched. It was Rosalie to whom he spoke as he went on: "You see, this maid she saw something she was not intended to see.
And so - she was silenced, in case she should not hold her tongue."
"What was it she saw?"
Again it was Jacqueline who asked, and again Poirot's answer was to Rosalie.
It was an odd little three-cornered scene.
"There is, I think, very little doubt what it was she saw," said Poirot. "She saw someone enter and leave Linnet Doyle's cabin on that fatal night."
His ears were quick. He heard the sharp intake of breath and saw the eyelids flicker.
Rosalie Otterbourne had reacted just as he had intended she should.
"Did she say who it was she saw?" Rosalie asked.
Gently - regretfully - Poirot shook his head.
Footsteps pattered up the deck.
It was Cornelia Robson, her eyes wide and startled.
"Oh, Jacqueline," she cried, "something awful has happened!
Another dreadful thing!"
Jacqueline turned to her. The two moved a few steps forward.
Almost unconsciously Poirot and Rosalie Otterbourne moved in the other direction.
Rosalie said sharply: "Why do you look at me? What have you got in your mind?"
"That is two questions you ask me.
I will ask you only one in return. Why do you not tell me all the truth, Mademoiselle?"
"I don't know what you mean.
I told you - everything - this morning."
"No, there were things you did not tell me.