thought of them.’
The girl sighed. She said: ‘One place is very like another. I wish we could get right away.’
‘And this morning,’ went on Mrs Otterbourne, ‘the manager actually had the impertinence to tell me that all the rooms had been booked in advance and that he would require ours in two days’ time.’
‘So we’ve got to go somewhere.’
‘Not at all. 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,’ agreed Mrs Otterbourne.
But there she was quite wrong–for a matter of life and death was exactly what it was.
‘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 Assuan. 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 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 sloughingly.
‘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 downward.
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. ‘The black rocks of Elephantine, and the sun, and the little boats on the river. Yes, it is good to be alive.’
He paused and then added: ‘You do not find it so, Mademoiselle?’
Rosalie Otterbourne said shortly: ‘It’s all right, I suppose. I think Assuan’s a gloomy sort of place. The hotel’s half empty, and everyone’s about a hundred–’
She stopped–biting her lip.
Hercule Poirot’s eyes twinkled.
‘It is true, yes, I have one leg in the grave.’
‘I–I wasn’t thinking of you,’ said the girl. ‘I’m sorry. That sounded rude.’
‘Not at all. It is natural you should wish for companions of your own age. Ah, well, there is one young man, at least.’
‘The one who sits with his mother all the time? I like her–but I think he looks dreadful–so conceited!’
Poirot smiled.
‘And I–am I conceited?’
‘Oh, I don’t think so.’
She was obviously uninterested–but the fact did not seem to annoy Poirot. He merely remarked with placid satisfaction:
‘My best friend says that I am very conceited.’
‘Oh, well,’ said Rosalie vaguely, ‘I suppose you have something to be conceited about. Unfortunately crime doesn’t interest me in the least.’
Poirot said solemnly, ‘I am delighted to learn that you have no guilty secret to hide.’
Just for a moment the sulky mask of her face was transformed as she shot him a swift questioning glance. Poirot did not seem to notice it as he went on:
‘Madame, your mother, was not at lunch today. She is not indisposed, I trust?’
‘This place doesn’t suit her,’ said Rosalie briefly. ‘I shall be glad when we leave.’
‘We are fellow passengers, are we not? We both make the excursion up to Wadi Half a and the Second Cataract?’
‘Yes.’
They came out from the shade of the gardens on to a dusty stretch of road bordered by the river. Five watchful bead-sellers, two vendors of postcards, three sellers of plaster scarabs, a couple of donkey boys and some detached but hopeful infantile riff-raff closed in upon them. ‘You want beads, sir? Very good, sir. Very cheap…’
‘Lady, you want scarab? Look–great queen–very lucky…’
‘You look, sir–real lapis. Very good, very cheap…’
‘You want ride donkey, sir? This very good donkey. This donkey Whiskey and Soda, sir…’
‘You want to go granite quarries, sir? This very good donkey. Other donkey very bad, sir, that donkey fall down…’
‘You want postcard–very cheap–very nice…’
‘Look, lady…Only ten piastres–very cheap–lapis–this ivory…’
‘This very good fly whisk–this all-amber…’
‘You go out in boat, sir? I got very good boat, sir…’
‘You go back to hotel, lady? This first-class donkey…’
Hercule Poirot made
