She shot a quick suspicious look at him and hurried along the deck.
"I can't make that child out," said Mrs Allerton. "She varies so.
One day she's friendly; the next day she's positively rude."
"Thoroughly spoilt and bad-tempered," said Tim.
Mrs Allerton shook her head.
"No. I don't think it's that.
I think she's unhappy."
Tim shrugged his shoulders.
"Oh, well, I suppose we've all got our private troubles." His voice sounded hard and curt.
A booming noise was heard.
"Lunch," cried Mrs Allerton delightedly. "I'm starving."
That evening, Poirot noticed that Mrs Allerton was sitting talking to Miss Van Schuyler.
As he passed, Mrs Allerton closed one eye and opened it again.
She was saying, "Of course at Calfries Castle the dear Duke -" Cornelia, released from attendance, was out on the deck.
She was listening to Dr Bessner, who was instructing her somewhat ponderously in Egyptology as culled from the pages of Baedeker. Cornelia listened with rapt attention.
Leaning over the rail Tim Allerton was saying,
"Anyhow, it's a rotten world..."
Rosalie Otterbourne answered,
"It's unfair; some people have everything."
Poirot sighed.
He was glad that he was no longer young.
Chapter 9
On the monday morning various expressions of delight and appreciation were heard on the deck of the Karnak.
The steamer was moored to the bank and a few hundred yards away, the morning sun just striking it, was a great temple carved out of the face of the rock.
Four colossal figures, hewn out of the cliff, look out eternally over the Nile and face the rising sun.
Cornelia Robson said incoherently:
"Oh, Monsieur Poirot, isn't it wonderful?
I mean they're so big and so peaceful - and looking at them makes one feel that one's so small and - and rather like an insect - and that nothing matters very much really, does it?"
Mr Fanthorp, who was standing near by, murmured,
"Very - er - impressive."
"Grand, isn't it?" said Simon Doyle, strolling up.
He went on confidentially to Poirot: "You know, I'm not much of a fellow for temples and sight-seeing and all that, but a place like this sort of gets you, if you know what I mean.
Those old Pharaohs must have been wonderful fellows."
The others had drifted away.
Simon lowered his voice.
"I'm no end glad we came on this trip.
It's - well, it's cleared things up.
Amazing why it should - but there it is.
Linnet's got her nerve back.
She says it's because she's actually faced the business at last."
"I think that is very probable," said Poirot.
"She says that when she actually saw Jackie on the boat she felt terrible - and then, suddenly, it didn't matter any more.
We're both agreed that we won't try and dodge her any more.
We'll just meet her on her own ground and show her that this ridiculous stunt of hers doesn't worry us a bit.
It's just damned bad form - that's all.
She thought she'd got us badly rattled, but now, well, we just aren't rattled any more.
That ought to show her."
"Yes," said Poirot thoughtfully.
"So that's splendid, isn't it?"
"Oh, yes, yes."