"Ach, but I can have a guess.
There is certainly a young man with a grievance on board."
"You mean Ferguson?" asked Poirot.
"Yes.
He spoke against Mrs Doyle once or twice.
I myself have heard him."
"What can we do to find out?" asked Simon.
Poirot replied: "Colonel Race and I must interview all the passengers. Until we have got their stories it would be unwise to form theories.
Then there is the maid.
We ought to interview her first of all. It would, perhaps, be as well if we did that here.
Monsieur Doyle's presence might be helpful."
"Yes, that's a good idea," said Simon.
"Had she been with Mrs Doyle long?"
"Just a couple of months, that's all."
"Only a couple of months!" exclaimed Poirot.
"Why, you don't think -"
"Had Madame any valuable jewellery?"
"There were her pearls," said Simon. "She once told me they were worth forty or fifty thousand." He shivered. "My God, do you think those damned pearls -"
"Robbery is a possible motive," said Poirot. "All the same it seems hardly credible... Well, we shall see.
Let us have the maid here."
Louise Bourget was that same vivacious Latin brunette whom Poirot had seen one day and noticed.
She was anything but vivacious now. She had been crying and looked frightened.
Yet there was a kind of sharp cunning apparent in her face which did not prepossess the two men favourably toward her.
"You are Louise Bourget?"
"Yes, Monsieur."
"When did you last see Madame Doyle alive?"
"Last night, Monsieur.
I wait in her cabin to undress her."
"What time was that?"
"It was some time after eleven, Monsieur.
I cannot say exactly when.
I undress Madame and put her to bed, and then I leave."
"How long did all that take?"
"Ten minutes, Monsieur.
Madame was tired.
She told me to put the lights out when I went."
"And when you had left her, what did you do?"
"I went to my own cabin, Monsieur, on the deck below."
"And you heard or saw nothing more that can help us?"
"How could I, Monsieur?"
"That, Mademoiselle, is for you to say, not for us," Hercule Poirot retorted.
She stole a sideways glance at him.
"But, Monsieur, I was nowhere near... What could I have seen or heard?
I was on the deck below when it happened, on the other side of the boat, even.
It is impossible that I should have heard anything.
Naturally, if I had been unable to sleep, if I had mounted the stairs, then perhaps I might have seen this assassin, this monster, enter or leave Madame's cabin, but as it is -" She threw out her hands appealingly to Simon. "Monsieur, I implore you - you see how it is?
What can I say?"
"My good girl," said Simon harshly, "don't be a fool.
Nobody thinks you saw or heard anything.
You'll be quite all right.