She went with him in a docile fashion, like a child, but like a puzzled child.
“I—yes, of course I will.”
Poirot passed into the cabin.
“Here is Mademoiselle.”
She stepped in after him, wavered, stood still…standing there mute and dumb, her eyes fixed on Simon’s face.
“Hullo, Jackie.” He, too, was embarrassed. He went on: “Awfully good of you to come. I wanted to say—I mean—what I mean is—”
She interrupted him then. Her words came out in a rush—breathless, desperate.
“Simon—I didn’t kill Linnet. You know I didn’t do that…I—I—was mad last night. Oh, can you ever forgive me?”
Words came more easily to him now.
“Of course. That’s all right! Absolutely all right! That’s what I wanted to say. Thought you might be worrying a bit, you know….”
“Worrying? A bit? Oh! Simon!”
“That’s what I wanted to see you about. It’s quite all right, see, old girl? You just got a bit rattled last night—a shade tight. All perfectly natural.”
“Oh, Simon! I might have killed you!”
“Not you. Not with a rotten little peashooter like that….”
“And your leg! Perhaps you’ll never walk again….”
“Now, look here, Jackie, don’t be maudlin. As soon as we get to Assuan they’re going to put the X-ray to work, and dig out that tin-pot bullet, and everything will be as right as rain.”
Jacqueline gulped twice, then she rushed forward and knelt down by Simon’s bed, burying her face and sobbing. Simon patted her awkwardly on the head. His eyes met Poirot’s and, with a reluctant sigh, the latter left the cabin.
He heard broken murmurs as he went:
“How could I be such a devil? Oh, Simon!…I’m so dreadfully sorry.”
Outside Cornelia Robson was leaning over the rail. She turned her head.
“Oh, it’s you, Monsieur Poirot. It seems so awful somehow that it should be such a lovely day.”
Poirot looked up at the sky.
“When the sun shines you cannot see the moon,” he said. “But when the sun is gone—ah, when the sun is gone.”
Cornelia’s mouth fell open.
“I beg your pardon?”
“I was saying, Mademoiselle, that when the sun has gone down, we shall see the moon. That is so, is it not?”
“Why—why, yes—certainly.”
She looked at him doubtfully.
Poirot lau
ghed gently.