Смерть на Ниле / Death on the Nile

’

Joanna was polishing her deep blood-coloured nails with her friend’s nail pad. She leant back with her head on one side scrutinizing the effect.

‘Darling,’ she drawled, ‘won’t that be rather tiresome? If any misfortunes happen to my friends I always drop them at once! It sounds heartless, but it saves such a lot of trouble later! They always want to borrow money off you, or else they start a dressmaking business and you have to get the most terrible clothes from them. Or they paint lampshades, or do batik scarves.

‘So, if I lost all my money, you’d drop me tomorrow?’

‘Yes, darling, I would. You can’t say I’m not honest about it! I only like successful people. And you’ll find that’s true of nearly everybody – only most people won’t admit it. They just say that really they “can’t put up with Mary or Emily or Pamela any more! Her troubles have made her so bitter and peculiar, poor dear!” ’

‘How beastly you are, Joanna!’

‘I’m only on the make, like everyone else.’

‘I’m not on the make!’

‘For obvious reasons! You don’t have to be sordid when good-looking, middle-aged American trustees pay you over a vast allowance every quarter.

‘And you’re wrong about Jacqueline,’ said Linnet. ‘She’s not a sponge. I’ve wanted to help her, but she won’t let me. She’s as proud as the devil.’

‘What’s she in such a hurry to see you for? I’ll bet she wants something! You just wait and see.’

‘She sounded excited about something,’ admitted Linnet. ‘Jackie always did get frightfully worked up over things.

‘Darling, how thrilling!’

‘A boy who was teasing a dog. Jackie tried to get him to stop. He wouldn’t. She pulled him and shook him but he was much emphasiser than she was, and at last she whipped out a penknife and plunged it right into him. There was the most awful row!’

‘I should think so. It sounds most uncomfortable!’

Linnet’s maid entered the room. With a murmured word of apology, she took down a dress from the wardrobe and went out of the room with it.

‘What’s the matter with Marie?’ asked Joanna. ‘She’s been crying.’

‘Poor thing! You know I told you she wanted to marry a man who has a job in Egypt. She didn’t know much about him, so I thought I’d better make sure he was all right. It turned out that he had a wife already – and three children.’

‘What a lot of enemies you must make, Linnet.’

‘Enemies?’ Linnet looked surprised.