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‘Didn’t you see the way he looked at her?’
‘Oh, yes, Mademoiselle. I saw all there was to see – indeed I saw something that you did not.’
‘What was that?’
Poirot said slowly:
‘I saw, Mademoiselle, dark lines below a woman’s eyes. I saw a hand that clutched a sunshade so tight that the knuckles were white…’
Rosalie was staring at him.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean that all is not the gold that glitters – I mean that though this lady is rich and beautiful and beloved, there is all the same something that is not right. And I know something else.’
‘Yes?’
‘I know,’ said Poirot, frowning, ‘that somewhere, at some time, I have heard that voice before – the voice of Monsieur Doyle – and I wish I could remember where.’
But Rosalie was not listening. She had stopped dead. With the point of her sunshade she was tracing patterns in the loose sand. Suddenly she broke out fiercely:
‘I’m odious. I’m quite odious. I’m just a beast through and through. I’d like to tear the clothes off her back and stamp on her lovely, arrogant, self-confident face. I’m just a jealous cat – but that’s what I feel like. She’s so horribly successful and poised and assured.’
Hercule Poirot looked a little astonished by the outburst. He took her by the arm and gave her a friendly little shake.
‘Tenez – you will feel better for having said that!’
‘I just hate her! I’ve never hated anyone so much at first sight.’
‘Magnificent!’
Rosalie looked at him doubtfully. Then her mouth twitched and she laughed.
‘Bien,’ said Poirot, and laughed too.
They proceeded amicably back to the hotel.
‘I must find Mother,’ said Rosalie, as they came into the cool dim hall.
Poirot passed out on the other side on to the terrace overlooking the Nile. Here were little tables set for tea, but it was early still. He stood for a few moments looking down on to the river, then strolled down through the gardens.
Some people were playing tennis in the hot sun. He paused to watch them for a while, then went on down the steep path. It was there, sitting on a bench overlooking the Nile, that he came upon the girl of Chez Ma Tante. He recognized her at once. Her face, as he had seen it that night, was securely etched upon his memory. The expression on it now was very different. She was paler, thinner, and there were lines that told of a great weariness and misery of spirit.
He drew back a little. She had not seen him, and he watched her for a while without her suspecting his presence. Her small foot tapped impatiently on the ground. Her eyes, dark with a kind of smouldering fire, had a queer kind of suffering dark triumph in them. She was looking out across the Nile where the white-sailed boats glided up and down the river.
A face – and a voice. He remembered them both. This girl’s face and the voice he had heard just now, the voice of a newly made bridegroom…
And even as he stood there considering the unconscious girl, the next scene in the drama was played.
Voices sounded above. The girl on the seat started to her feet. Linnet Doyle and her husband came down the path. Linnet’s voice was happy and confident. The look of strain and tenseness of muscle had quite disappeared, Linnet was happy.
The girl who was standing there took a step or two forward. The other two stopped dead.
‘Hallo, Linnet,’ said Jacqueline de Bellefort. ‘So here you are! We never seem to stop running into each other. Hallo, Simon, how are you?’
Linnet Doyle had shrunk back against the rock with a little cry. Simon Doyle’s good-looking face was suddenly convulsed with rage. He moved forward as though he would have liked to strike the slim girlish figure.
With a quick birdlike turn of her head she signalled her realization of a stranger’s presence. Simon turned his head and noticed Poirot.
He said awkwardly:
‘Hullo, Jacqueline; we didn’t expect to see you here.’
The words were unconvincing in the extreme. The girl flashed white teeth at them.
‘Quite a surprise?’ she asked. Then, with a little nod, she walked up the path.
Poirot moved delicately in the opposite direction. As he went, he heard Linnet Doyle say:
‘Simon – for God’s sake – Simon – what can we do?’
Chapter 2
Dinner was over. The terrace outside the Cataract Hotel was softly lit. Most of the guests staying at the hotel were there sitting at little tables.
Simon and Linnet Doyle came out, a tall distinguished looking grey-haired man with a keen clean-shaven American face beside them. As the little group hesitated for a moment in the doorway, Tim Allerton rose from his chair nearby and came forward.
‘You don’t remember me, I’m sure,’ he said pleasantly to Linnet, ‘but I’m Joanna Southwood’s cousin.’
‘Of course – how stupid of me. You’re Tim Allerton. This is my husband’-a faint tremor in the voice, pride, shyness? – ‘and this is my American trustee, Mr Pennington.’
Tim said:
‘You must meet my mother.’
A few minutes later they were sitting together in a party – Linnet in the corner, Tim and Pennington each side of her, both talking to her, vying for her attention. Mrs Allerton talked to Simon Doyle.
The swing doors revolved. A sudden tension came into the beautiful upright figure sitting in the corner between the two men. Then it relaxed as a small man came out and walked across the terrace.
Mrs Allerton said:
‘You’re not the only celebrity here, my dear. That funny little man is Hercule Poirot.’
She had spoken lightly, just out of instinctive social tact to bridge an awkward pause, but Linnet seemed struck by the information.
‘Hercule Poirot? Of course – I’ve heard of him…’
She seemed to sink into a fit of abstraction. The two men on either side of her were momentarily at a loss.
Poirot had strolled across to the edge of the terrace, but his attention was immediately solicited.
‘Sit down, Monsieur Poirot. What a lovely night!’
He obeyed.
‘Mais oui, Madame, it is indeed beautiful.’
He smiled politely at Mrs Otterbourne. What draperies of black ninon and that ridiculous turban effect! Mrs Otterbourne went on in her high complaining voice:
‘Quite a lot of notabilities here now, aren’t there? I expect we shall see a paragraph about it in the papers soon. Society beauties, famous novelists-’
She paused with a slight mock-modest laugh.
Poirot felt, rather than saw, the sulky frowning girl opposite him flinch and set her mouth in a sulkier line than before.
‘You have a novel on the way at present, Madame?’ he inquired.
Mrs Otterbourne gave her little self-conscious laugh again.
‘I’m being dreadfully lazy. I really must set to. My public is getting terribly impatient – and my publisher, poor man! Appeals by every post! Even cables!’
Again he felt the girl shift in the darkness.
‘I don’t mind telling you, Monsieur Poirot, I am partly here for local colour. Snow on the Desert’s Face – that is the title of my new book. Powerful – suggestive. Snow – on the desert – melted in the first flaming breath of passion.’
Rosalie got up, muttering something, and moved away down into the dark garden.
‘One must be emphasis,’ went on Mrs Otterbourne, wagging the turban emphatically. ‘emphasis meat – that is what my books are. Libraries may ban them – no matter! I speak the truth. Sex – ah! Monsieur Poirot – why is everyone so afraid of sex? The pivot of the universe! You have read my books?’
‘Alas, Madame! You comprehend, I do not read many novels. My work-’
Mrs Otterbourne said firmly:
‘I must give you a copy of Under the Fig Tree. I think you will find it significant. It is outspoken – but it is real!’
‘That is most kind of you, Madame. I will read it with pleasure.’
Mrs Otterbourne was silent a minute or two. She fidgeted with a long chain of beads that was wound twice round her neck. She looked swiftly from side to side.
‘Perhaps – I’ll just slip up and get it for you now.’
‘Oh, Madame, pray do not trouble yourself. Later-’
‘No, no. It’s no trouble.’ She rose. ‘I’d like to show you-’
‘What is it, Mother?’
Rosalie was suddenly at her side.
‘Nothing, dear. I was just going up to get a book for Monsieur Poirot.’
‘The Fig Tree? I’ll get it.’
‘You don’t know where it is, dear. I’ll go.’
‘Yes, I do.’
The girl went swiftly across the terrace and into the hotel.
‘Let me congratulate you, Madame, on a very lovely daughter,’ said Poirot, with a bow.
‘Rosalie? Yes, yes – she is good looking. But she’s very hard, Monsieur Poirot. And no sympathy with illness. She always thinks she knows best. She imagines she knows more about my health than I do myself-’
Poirot signalled to a passing waiter.
‘A liqueur, Madame? A chartreuse? A crеme de menthe?’
Mrs Otterbourne shook her head vigorously.
‘No, no. I am practically a teetotaller. You may have noticed I never drink anything but water – or perhaps lemonade. I cannot bear the taste of spirits.’
‘Then may I order you a lemon squash, Madame?’
He gave the order – one lemon squash and one benedictine.
The swing door revolved. Rosalie passed through and came towards them, a book in her hand.
‘Here you are,’ she said. Her voice was quite expressionless – almost remarkably so.
‘Monsieur Poirot has just ordered me a lemon squash,’ said her mother.
‘And you, Mademoiselle, what will you take?’
‘Nothing.’ She added, suddenly conscious of the curtness: ‘Nothing, thank you.’
Poirot took the volume which Mrs Otterbourne held out to him. It still bore its original jacket, a gaily coloured affair representing a lady with smartly shingled hair and scarlet fingernails sitting on a tiger skin in the traditional costume of Eve. Above her was a tree with the leaves of an oak, bearing large and improbably coloured apples.
It was entitled Under the Fig Tree, by Salome Otterbourne. On the inside was a publisher’s blurb. It spoke enthusiastically of the superb courage and realism of this study of a modern woman’s love life. Fearless, unconventional, realistic were the adjectives used.
Poirot bowed and murmured:
‘I am honoured, Madame.’
As he raised his head, his eyes met those of the authoress’s daughter. Almost involuntarily he made a little movement. He was astonished and grieved at the eloquent pain they revealed.
It was at that moment that the drinks arrived and created a welcome diversion.
Poirot lifted his glass gallantly.
