Linnet Ridgeway was brought up in England and I never saw her till I came aboard this boat."
She rose.
Poirot opened the door for her and she marched out.
The eyes of the two men met.
"That's her story," said Race, "and she's going to stick to it!
It may be true.
I don't know.
But - Rosalie Otterbourne?
I hadn't expected that."
Poirot shook his head in a perplexed manner.
Then he brought down his hand on the table with a sudden bang.
"But it does not make sense," he cried. "Nom d'un nom d'un nom!
It does not make sense."
Race looked at him.
"What do you mean exactly?"
"I mean that up to a point it is all the clear sailing.
Someone wished to kill Linnet Doyle.
Someone overheard the scene in the saloon last night.
Someone sneaked in there and retrieved the pistol - Jacqueline de Bellefort's pistol, remember.
Somebody shot Linnet Doyle with that pistol and wrote the letter J on the wall...
All so clear, is it not?
All pointing to Jacqueline de Bellefort as the murderess.
And then what does the murderer do.
Leave the pistol - the damning pistol - Jacqueline de Bellefort's pistol, for everyone to find?
No, he - or she - throws the pistol, that particularly damning bit of evidence, overboard.
Why, my friend, why?"
Race shook his head.
"It's odd."
"It is more than odd - it is impossible!"
"Not impossible, since it happened?"
"I do not mean that.
I mean that the sequence of events is impossible.
Something is wrong."
Chapter 16
Colonel Race glanced curiously at his colleague.
He respected - he had reason to respect - the brain of Hercule Poirot.
Yet for the moment he did not follow the other's process of thought.
He asked no question, however.
He seldom did ask questions.
He proceeded straightforwardly with the matter in hand.
"What's the next thing to be done?
Question the Otterbourne girl?"
"Yes, that may advance us a little."
Rosalie Otterbourne entered ungraciously.
She did not look nervous or frightened in any way - merely unwilling and sulky.
"Well," she asked, "what is it?"
Race was the spokesman.
"We're investigating Mrs Doyle's death," he explained.
Rosalie nodded.
"Will you tell me what you did last night?"