Christine said despairingly:
"She's dying - and it's my fault..."
Kenneth Marshall stirred in his chair. He said: "No, you can't blame yourself.
Linda knew what she was doing.
She took them deliberately.
Perhaps - perhaps it was best."
He looked down at the crumpled note in his hand - the note that Poirot had silently handed to him.
Rosamund Darnley cried out:
"I don't believe it.
I don't believe Linda killed her.
Surely it's impossible - on the evidence!"
Christine said eagerly: "Yes, she can't have done it!
She must have got overwrought and imagined it all."
The door opened and Colonel Weston came in.
He said: "What's all this I hear?"
Dr Neasdon look the note from Marshall's hand and handed it to the Chief Constable.
The latter read it. He exclaimed incredulously:
"What?
But this is nonsense - absolute nonsense!
It's impossible."
He repeated with assurance.
"Impossible!
Isn't it, Poirot?"
Hercule Poirot moved for the first time. He said in a slow sad voice: "No, I'm afraid it is not impossible."
Christine Redfern said:
"But I was with her, M. Poirot.
I was with her up to a quarter to twelve.
I told the police so."
Poirot said: "Your evidence gave her an alibi - yes.
But what was your evidence based on?
It was based on Linda Marshall's own wrist-watch.
You did not know of your own knowledge that it was a quarter to twelve when you left her - you only know that she told you so.
You said yourself the time seemed to have gone very fast."
She stared at him stricken.
He said: "Now think, Madame, when you left the beach, did you walk back to the hotel fast or slow?"
"I - well, fairly slowly, I think."
"Do you remember much about that walk back?"
"Not very much, I'm afraid.
I - I was thinking."
Poirot said: "I am sorry to ask you this, but will you tell just what you were thinking about during that walk?"
Christine flushed.
"I suppose - if it is necessary - I was considering the question of - of leaving here.
Just going away without telling my husband.
I - I was very unhappy just then, you see."
Patrick Redfern cried: "Oh, Christine! I know... I know..."
Poirot's precise voice cut in: "Exactly.
You were concerned over taking a step of some importance. You were, I should say, deaf and blind to your surroundings.
You probably walked very slowly and occasionally stopped for some minutes whilst you puzzled things out."
Christine nodded.
"How clever you are.