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 realisation of a stranger’s presence. Simon turned his head and noticed Poirot.
He said awkwardly:
“Hallo, 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 sakeSimon what can we do?”
CHAPTER 2
Dinner was over.
The terrace outside the Cataract Hotel was softly lit. Most of the guests staying at the hotel were there sitting at little tables.
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.”
“Of course–how stupid of me. You’re Tim Allerton. This is my husband” a faint tremor in the voicc prideshyness? “and this is my American trustee, Mr.
Pennington.”
Tim said:
“You must meet my mother.”
A few minutes later they were sitting together in a party. Linnet in the corner, Tim and Pennington each side of her, both talking to her, vying for her attention.
Mrs. Allerton talked to Simon Doyle.
The swing doors revolved. A sudden tension came into the beautiful upright figure sitting in the corner between the two men. Then it relaxed as a small man came out and walked across the terrace.
Mrs. Allerton said:
“You’re not the only celebrity here, my dear. That funny little man is Hercule Poirot.”
She had spoken lightly, just out of instinctive social tact to bridge an awkward pause, but Linnet seemed struck by the information.
“Hercule Poirot? Of courseI’ve heard of him …. ”
She seemed to sink into a fit of abstraction. The two men on either side of her were momentarily at a loss.
Poirot had strolled across to the edge of the terrace, but his attention was immediately solicited.
“Sit down, M. Poirot. What a lovely night.”
He obeyed.
“Mais oui, Madame, it is indeed beautiful.”
He smiled politely at Mrs. Otterbourne. What draperies .of black ninon and that ridiculous turban effect!
Mrs. Otterbourne went on in her high complaining voice.
“Quite a lot of notabilities here now, aren’t there? I expect we shall see a paragraph about it in the papers soon. Society beauties, famous novelists–” She paused with a slight mock modest laugh.
Poirot felt, rather than saw, the sulky frowning girl opposite him flinch and set her mouth in a sulkier line than before.
“You have a novel on the way at present, Madame?” he inquired.
Mrs. Otterbourne gave her little self-conscious laugh again.
“I’m being dreadfully lazy. I really must set to. My public is getting terribly impatient–and my publisher–poor man! Appeals by every post! Even cables!” Again he felt the girl shift in the darkness.
“I don’t mind telling you, M. Poirot, I am partly here for local colour. Snow On The Desert’s Face–that is the title of my new book. Powerful—Suggestive.
Snow—on the desert–melted in the first flaming breath of passion.”
Rosalie got up, muttering something, and moved away down into the dark garden.
“One must be strong,” went on Mrs. Otterbourne, wagging the turban emphatically. “Strong meat–that is what my books are. Libraries may ban them–no matter! I speak the truth. Sex–ah! M. Poirot–why is every one so afraid of sex?