Jacqueline turned her head slightly. A faint smile played round her lips.
“Certainly,” she said. “You are Monsieur Hercule Poirot, I think? Shall I make a guess? You are acting for Mrs. Doyle, who has promised you a large fee if you succeed in your mission.”
Poirot sat down on the bench near her.
“Your assumption is partially correct,” he said, smiling. “I have just come from Madame Doyle, but I am not accepting any fee from her and, strictly speaking, I am not acting for her.”
“Oh!”
Jacqueline studied him attentively.
“Then why have you come?” she asked abruptly.
Hercule Poirot’s reply was in the form of another question.
“Have you ever seen me before, Mademoiselle?”
She shook her head.
“No, I do not think so.”
“Yet I have seen you. I sat next to you once at Chez Ma Tante. You were there with Monsieur Simon Doyle.”
A strange masklike expression came over the girl’s face. She said, “I remember that evening….”
“Since then,” said Poirot, “many things have occurred.”
“As you say, many things have occurred.”
Her voice was hard with an undertone of desperate bitterness.
“Mademoiselle, I speak as a friend. Bury your dead!”
She looked startled.
“What do you mean?”
“Give up the past! Turn to the future! What is done is done. Bitterness will not undo it.”
“I’m sure that that would suit dear Linnet admirably.”
Poirot made a gesture.
“I am not thinking of her at this moment! I am thinking of you. You have suffered—yes—but what you are doing now will only prolong the suffering.”
She shook her head.
“You’re wrong. There are times when I almost enjoy myself.”
“And that, Mademoiselle, is the worst of all.”
She looked up swiftly.
“You’re not stupid,” she said. She added slowly, “I believe you mean to be kind.”
“Go home, Mademoiselle. You are young; you have brains, the world is before you.”
Jacqueline shook her head slowly.