“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.”
Poirot bowed.
“Eh bien!” he said, “we must hold the court of inquiry. First of all, I think we must verify the story of the affair last night. That is to say, we must question Fanthorp and Miss Robson, who were the actual witnesses of what occurred. The disappearance of the pistol is very significant.”
Race rang a bell and sent a message by the steward.
Poirot sighed and shook his head. “It is bad, this,” he murmured. “It is bad.”
“Have you any ideas?” asked Race curiously.
“My ideas conflict. They are not well arranged; they are not orderly. There is, you see, the big fact that this girl hated Linnet Doyle and wanted to kill her.”
“You think she’s capable of it?”
“I think so—yes.” Poirot sounded doubtful.
“But not in this way? That’s what’s worrying you, isn’t it? Not to creep into her cabin in the dark and shoot her while she was sleeping. It’s the cold-bloodedness that strikes you as not ringing true.”
“In a sense, yes.”
“You think that this girl, Jacqueline de Bellefort, is incapable of a premeditated cold-blooded murder?”
Poirot said slowly: “I am not sure, you see. She would have the brains—yes. But I doubt if, physically, she could bring herself to do the act….”
Race nodded. “Yes, I see…Well, according to Bessner’s story, it would also have been physically impossible.”
“If that is true it clears the ground considerably. Let us hope it is true.” Poirot paused and then added simply: “I shall be glad if it is so, for I have for that little one much sympathy.”
The door opened and Fanthorp and Cornelia came in. Bessner followed them.
Cornelia gasped out: “Isn’t this just awful? Poor, poor Mrs. Doyle! And she was so lovely too. It must have been a real fiend who could hurt her! And poor Mr. Doyle; he’ll go half crazy when he knows! Why, even last night he was so frightfully worried lest she should hear about his accident.”
“That is just what we want you to tell us about, Miss Robson,” said Race. “We want to know exactly what happened last night.”
Cornelia began a little confusedly, but a question or two from Poirot helped matters.
“Ah, yes, I understand. After the bridge, Madame Doyle went to her cabin. Did she really go to her cabin, I wonder?”
“She did,” said Race. “I actually saw her. I said good night to her at the door.”
“And the time?”
“Mercy, I couldn’t say,” replied Cornelia.
“It was twenty past eleven,” said Race.
“Bien. Then at twenty past eleven, Madame Doyle was alive and well. At that moment there was, in the saloon, who?”
Fanthorp answered: “Doyle was there. And Miss de Bellefort. Myself and Miss Robson.”