His eyes seemed to be saying:
"You are wrong.
They didn't allow for Hercule Poirot."
Aloud he said,
"And now, Doctor, we will go and have a word with your patient."
Chapter 29
It was very much later that evening that Hercule Poirot came and knocked on the door of a cabin.
A voice said
"Come in" and he entered.
Jacqueline de Bellefort was sitting in a chair. In another chair, close against the wall, sat the big stewardess.
Jacqueline's eyes surveyed Poirot thoughtfully. She made a gesture toward the stewardess.
"Can she go?"
Poirot nodded to the woman and she went out.
Poirot drew up her chair and sat down near Jacqueline.
Neither of them spoke.
Poirot's face was unhappy.
In the end it was the girl who spoke first.
"Well," she said, "it is all over! You were too clever for us, Monsieur Poirot."
Poirot sighed.
He spread out his hands.
He seemed strangely dumb.
"All the same," said Jacqueline reflectively, "I can't really see that you had much proof.
You were quite right, of course, but if we'd bluffed you out -"
"In no other way, Mademoiselle, could the thing have happened."
"That's proof enough for a logical mind, but I don't believe it would have convinced a jury.
Oh, well - it can't be helped.
You sprang it all on Simon, and he went down like a ninepin.
He just lost his head utterly, poor lamb, and admitted everything." She shook her head. "He's a bad loser."
"But you, Mademoiselle, are a good loser."
She laughed suddenly - a queer, gay, defiant little laugh.
"Oh, yes, I'm a good loser all right." She looked at him. She said suddenly and impulsively: "Don't mind so much, Monsieur Poirot! About me, I mean.
You do mind, don't you?"
"Yes, Mademoiselle."
"But it wouldn't have occurred to you to let me off?"
Hercule Poirot said quietly,
"No."
She nodded her head in quiet agreement.
"No, it's no use being sentimental.
I might do it again...
I'm not a safe person any longer. I can feel that myself..." She went on broodingly: "It's so dreadfully easy - killing people.
And you begin to feel that it doesn't matter!
It's dangerous - that." She paused, then said with a little smile: "You did your best for me, you know.
That night at Assuan - you told me not to open my heart to evil...
Did you realize then what was in my mind?"
He shook his head.
"I only knew that what I said was true."
"It was true.
I could have stopped, then, you know.
I nearly did... I could have told Simon that I wouldn't go on with it... But then perhaps -" She broke off. She said: "Would you like to hear about it? From the beginning?"
"If you care to tell me, Mademoiselle."