Смерть на Ниле / Death on the Nile

‘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 that 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.

‘You don’t understand – or you won’t. Simon is my world.’

‘Love is not everything, Mademoiselle,’ Poirot said gently. ‘It is only when we are young that we think it is.’

But the girl still shook her head.

‘You don’t understand.

’ She shot him a quick look. ‘You know all about it, of course? You’ve talked to Linnet? And you were in the restaurant that night… Simon and I loved each other.’

‘I know that you loved him.’

She was quick to perceive the inflection of his words. She repeated with emphasis:

‘We loved each other. And I loved Linnet… I trusted her. She was my best friend. All her life Linnet has been able to buy everything she wanted. She’s never denied herself anything. When she saw Simon she wanted him – and she just took him.

’

‘And he allowed himself to be – bought?’

Jacqueline shook her dark head slowly.

‘No, it’s not quite like that. If it were, I shouldn’t be here now… You’re suggesting that Simon isn’t worth caring for… If he’d married Linnet for her money, that would be true. But he didn’t marry her for her money. It’s more complicated than that. There’s such a thing as glamour, Monsieur Poirot. And money helps that.