Смерть на Ниле / Death on the Nile

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.

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.