Смерть на Ниле / Death on the Nile

I’m quite prepared to fight for my rights.’

Rosalie murmured: ‘I suppose we might as well go on to Egypt. It doesn’t make any difference.’

‘It’s certainly not a matter of life or death,’ said Mrs Otterbourne.

But there she was quite wrong – for a matter of life and death was exactly what it was.

Part two

Egypt

Chapter 1

‘That’s Hercule Poirot, the detective,’ said Mrs Allerton.

She and her son were sitting in brightly painted scarlet basket chairs outside the Cataract Hotel in Aswan.

They were watching the retreating figures of two people – a short man dressed in a white silk suit and a tall slim girl.

Tim Allerton sat up in an unusually alert fashion.

‘That funny little man?’ he asked incredulously.

‘That funny little man!’

‘What on earth’s he doing out here?’ Tim asked.

His mother laughed.

‘Darling, you sound quite excited. Why do men enjoy crime so much? I hate detective stories and never read them. But I don’t think Monsieur Poirot is here with any ulterior motive.

He’s made a good deal of money and he’s seeing life, I fancy.’

‘Seems to have an eye for the best-looking girl in the place.’

Mrs Allerton tilted her head a little on one side as she considered the retreating backs of M. Poirot and his companion.

The girl by his side overtopped him by some three inches. She walked well, neither stiffly nor slouchingly.

‘I suppose she is quite good-looking,’ said Mrs Allerton.

She shot a little glance sideways at Tim. Somewhat to her amusement the fish rose at once.

‘She’s more than quite. Pity she looks so bad-tempered and sulky.’

‘Perhaps that’s just expression, dear.’

‘Unpleasant young devil, I think. But she’s pretty enough.’

The subject of these remarks was walking slowly by Poirot’s side. Rosalie Otterbourne was twirling an unopened parasol, and her expression certainly bore out what Tim had just said. She looked both sulky and bad-tempered.

Her eyebrows were drawn together in a frown, and the scarlet line of her mouth was drawn downwards.

They turned to the left out of the hotel gate and entered the cool shade of the public gardens.

Hercule Poirot was prattling gently, his expression that of beatific good humour. He wore a white silk suit, carefully pressed, and a panama hat, and carried a highly ornamental fly whisk with a sham amber handle.

‘-it enchants me,’ he was saying.