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Poirot stared at it, then he leaned over the dead girl and very gently picked up her right hand. One finger of it was stained a brownish-red.
‘Non d’un nom d’un nom!’ ejaculated Hercule Poirot.
‘Eh? What is that?’
Dr Bessner looked up.
‘Ach! That.’
Race said:
‘Well, I’m damned. What do you make of that, Poirot?’
Poirot swayed a little on his toes.
‘You ask me what I make of it. Eh bien, it is very simple, is it not? Madame Doyle is dying; she wishes to indicate her murderer, and so she writes with her finger, dipped in her own blood, the initial letter of her murderer’s name. Oh, yes, it is astonishingly simple.’
‘Ach, but-’
Dr Bessner was about to break out, but a peremptory gesture from Race silenced him.
‘So it strikes you that?’ he asked slowly.
Poirot turned round on him, nodding his head.
‘Yes, yes. It is, as I say, of an astonishing simplicity! It is so familiar, is it not? It has been done so often, in the pages of the romance of crime! It is now, indeed, a little vieux jeu! It leads one to suspect that our murderer is – old-fashioned!’
Race drew a long breath.
‘I see,’ he said. ‘I thought at first-’ He stopped.
Poirot said with a very faint smile:
‘That I believed in all the old clichés of melodrama? But pardon, Dr Bessner, you were about to say-?’
Bessner broke out gutturally:
‘What do I say? Pah! I say it is absurd – it is the nonsense! The poor lady she died instantaneously. To dip her finger in the blood (and as you see, there is hardly any blood) and write the latter J upon the wall. Bah – it is the nonsense – the melodramatic nonsense!’
‘C’est de l’enfantillage,’ agreed Poirot.
‘But it was done with a purpose,’ suggested Race.
‘That – naturally,’ agreed Poirot, and his face was grave.
Race said. ‘What does J stand for?’
Poirot replied promptly:
‘J stands for Jacqueline de Bellefort, a young lady who declared to me less than a week ago that she would like nothing better than to-’ he paused and then deliberately quoted, ‘ “to put my dear little pistol close against her head and then just press with my finger…” ’
‘Gott im Himmel! exclaimed Dr Bessner.
There was a momentary silence. Then Race drew a deep breath and said:
‘Which is just what was done here?’
Bessner nodded.
‘That is so, yes. It was a pistol of very small calibre – as I say, probably a.22. The bullet has got to be extracted, of course, before we can say definitely.’
Race nodded in swift comprehension. Then he said:
‘What about time of death?’
Bessner stroked his jaw again. His finger made a rasping sound.
‘I would not care to be too precise. It is now eight o’clock. I will say, with due regard to the temperature last night, that she has been dead certainly six hours and probably not longer than eight.’
‘That puts it between midnight and two a. m.’
‘That is so.’
There was a pause. Race looked around.
‘What about her husband? I suppose he sleeps in the cabin next door.’
‘At the moment,’ said Dr Bessner, ‘he is asleep in my cabin.’
Both men looked very surprised.
Bessner nodded his head several times.
‘Ach, so. I see you have not been told about that. Mr Doyle was shot last night in the saloon.’
‘Shot? By whom?’
‘By the young lady, Jacqueline de Bellefort.’
Race asked sharply: ‘Is he badly hurt?’
‘Yes, the bone was splintered. I have done all that is possible at the moment, but it is necessary, you understand, that the fracture should be X-rayed as soon as possible and proper treatment given, such as is impossible on this boat.’
Poirot murmured:
‘Jacqueline de Bellefort.’
His eyes went again to the J on the wall.
Race said abruptly: ‘If there is nothing more we can do here for the moment, let’s go below. The management has put the smoking room at our disposal. We must get the details of what happened last night.’
They left the cabin. Race locked the door and took the key with him.
‘We can come back later,’ he said. ‘The first thing to do is to get all the facts clear.’
They went down to the deck below, where they found the manager of the Karnak waiting uneasily in the doorway of the smoking room.
The poor man was terribly upset and worried over the whole business, and was eager to leave everything in Colonel Race’s hands.
‘I feel I can’t do better than leave it to you, sir, seeing your official position. I’d had orders to put myself at your disposal in the – er – other matter. If you will take charge, I’ll see that everything is done as you wish.’
‘Good man! To begin with I’d like this room kept clear for me and Monsieur Poirot during this inquiry.’
‘Certainly, sir.’
‘That’s all at present. Go on with your own work. I know where to find you.’
Looking slightly relieved, the manager left the room.
Race said:
‘Sit down, Bessner, and let’s have the whole story of what happened last night.’
They listened in silence to the doctor’s rumbling voice.
‘Clear enough,’ said Race, when he had finished. ‘The girl worked herself up, helped by a drink or two, and finally took a pot shot at the man with a.22 pistol. Then she went along to Li
But Dr Bessner was shaking his head.
‘No, no, I do not think so. I do not think that was possible. For one thing she would not write her own initial on the wall – it would be ridiculous, nicht wahr?’
‘She might,’ Race declared, ‘if she were as blindly mad and jealous as she sounds; she might want to – well – sign her name to the crime, so to speak.’
Poirot shook his head.
‘No, no, I do not think she would be as – as crude as that.’
‘Then there’s only one reason for that J. It was put there by someone else deliberately to throw suspicion on her.’
The doctor said:
‘Yes, and the criminal was unlucky, because, you see, it is not only unlikely that the young Fräulein did the murder – it is also I think impossible.’
‘How’s that?’
Bessner explained Jacqueline’s hysterics and the circumstances which had led Miss Bowers to take charge of her.
‘And I think – I am sure – that Miss Bowers stayed with her all night.’
Race said: ‘If that’s so, it’s going to simplify matters very much.’
Poirot asked: ‘Who discovered the crime?’
‘Mrs Doyle’s maid, Louise Bourget. She went to call her mistress as usual, found her dead, and came out and flopped into the steward’s arms in a dead faint. He went to the manager, who came to me. I got hold of Bessner and then came for you.’
Poirot nodded.
Race said:
‘Doyle’s got to know. You say he’s asleep still?’
The doctor said:
‘Yes, he’s still asleep in my cabin. I gave him a emphasis opiate last night.’
Race turned to Poirot.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘I don’t think we need detain the doctor any longer, eh? Thank you, Doctor.’
Bessner rose.
‘I will have my breakfast, yes. And then I will go back to my cabin and see if Mr Doyle is ready to wake.’
‘Thanks.’
Bessner went out. The two men looked at each other.
‘Well, what about it, Poirot?’ Race asked. ‘You’re the man in charge. I’ll take my orders from you. You say what’s to be done.’