"Look here - you aren't thinking... It wasn't I who killed her! I'll swear that!
I've been in the most awful stew.
To have chosen that night of all others...
God, it's been awful!"
Poirot said: "Yes, you must have had uneasy moments.
But, now that the truth has come out, you may be able to help us.
Was Madame Doyle alive or dead when you stole the pearls?"
"I don't know," Tim said hoarsely. "Honest to God, Monsieur Poirot, I don't know!
I'd found out where she put them at night - on the little table by the bed.
I crept in, felt very softly on the table and grabbed 'em, put down the others and crept out again.
I assumed, of course, that she was asleep."
"Did you hear her breathing?
Surely you would have listened for that?"
Tim thought earnestly.
"It was very still - very still indeed. No, I can't remember actually hearing her breathe."
"Was there any smell of smoke lingering in the air, as there would have been if a firearm had been discharged recently?"
"I don't think so.
I don't remember it."
Poirot sighed.
"Then we are no further."
Tim asked curiously,
"Who was it saw me?"
"Rosalie Otterbourne.
She came round from the other side of the boat and saw you leave Linnet Doyle's cabin and go to your own."
"So it was she who told you."
Poirot said gently,
"Excuse me; she did not tell me."
"But then, how do you know?"
"Because I am Hercule Poirot!
I do not need to be told.
When I taxed her with it, do you know what she said?
She said,
'I saw nobody.'
And she lied."
"But why?"
Poirot said in a detached voice:
"Perhaps because she thought the man she saw was the murderer.
It looked like that, you know."
"That seems to me all the more reason for telling you."
Poirot shrugged his shoulders.
"She did not think so, it seems."
Tim said, a queer note in his voice:
"She's an extraordinary sort of a girl.
She must have been through a pretty rough time with that mother of hers."
"Yes, life has not been easy for her."
"Poor kid," Tim muttered. Then he looked toward Race. "Well, sir, where do we go from here?
I admit taking the pearls from Linnet's cabin and you'll find them just where you say they are.
I'm guilty all right.
But as far as Miss Southwood is concerned, I'm not admitting anything.
You've no evidence whatever against her.