Death on the Nile (Hercule Poirot 17)

“And Linnet?”

“That would be like the Queen in your Alice in Wonderland, ‘Off with her head.’”

“Of course. The divine right of monarchy! Just a little bit of the Naboth’s vineyard touch. And the dangerous girl—Jacqueline de Bellefort—could she do a murder?”

Poirot hesitated for a minute or two, then he said doubtfully, “Yes, I think she could.”

“But you’re not sure?”

“No. She puzzles me, that little one.”

“I don’t think Mr. Pennington could do one, do you? He looks so desiccated and dyspeptic—with no red blood in him.”

“But possibly a strong sense of self-preservation.”

“Yes, I sup

pose so. And poor Mrs. Otterbourne in her turban?”

“There is always vanity.”

“As a motive for murder?” Mrs. Allerton asked doubtfully.

“Motives for murder are sometimes very trivial, Madame.”

“What are the most usual motives, Monsieur Poirot?”

“Most frequent—money. That is to say, gain in its various ramifications. Then there is revenge—and love, and fear, and pure hate, and beneficence—”

“Monsieur Poirot!”

“Oh, yes, Madame. I have known of—shall we say A?—being removed by B solely in order to benefit C. Political murders often come under the same heading. Someone is considered to be harmful to civilization and is removed on that account. Such people forget that life and death are the affair of the good God.”

He spoke gravely.

Mrs. Allerton said quietly: “I am glad to hear you say that. All the same, God chooses his instruments.”

“There is a danger in thinking like that, Madame.”

She adopted a lighter tone.

“After this conversation, Monsieur Poirot, I shall wonder that there is anyone left alive!”

She got up.

“We must be getting back. We have to start immediately after lunch.”

When they reached the landing stage they found the young man in the polo jumper just taking his place in the boat. The Italian was already waiting. As the Nubian boatman cast the sail loose and they started, Poirot addressed a polite remark to the stranger.

“There are very wonderful things to be seen in Egypt, are there not?”

The young man was now smoking a somewhat noisome pipe. He removed it from his mouth and remarked briefly and very emphatically, in astonishingly well-bred accents: “They make me sick.”

Mrs. Allerton put on her pince-nez and surveyed him with pleasurable interest.

“Indeed? And why is that?” Poirot asked.

“Take the Pyramids. Great blocks of useless masonry, put up to minister to the egoism of a despotic bloated king. Think of the sweated masses who toiled to build them and died doing it. It makes me sick to think of the suffering and torture they represent.”