Смерть на Ниле / Death on the Nile - стр. 49

Mrs Allerton set herself to produce a pleasant atmosphere. As they drank their soup, she picked up the passenger list which had been placed beside her plate.

‘Let’s try and identify everybody,’ she suggested cheerfully. ‘I always think that’s rather fun.’ She began reading. ‘Mrs Allerton, Mr T. Allerton. That’s easy enough! Miss de Bellefort. They’ve put her at the same table as the Otterbournes, I see. I wonder what she and Rosalie will make of each other. Who comes next? Dr Bessner. Dr Bessner? Who can identify Dr Bessner?’ She bent her glance on a table at which four men sat together. ‘I think he must be the fat one with the closely shaved head and the moustache. A German, I should imagine. He seems to be enjoying his soup very much.’ Certain succulent noises floated across to them.

Mrs Allerton continued:

‘Miss Bowers? Can we make a guess at Miss Bowers? There are three or four women – no, we’ll leave her for the present. Mr and Mrs Doyle. Yes, indeed, the lions of this trip. She really is very beautiful, and what a perfectly lovely frock she is wearing.’

Tim turned round in his chair. Linnet and her husband and Andrew Pennington had been given a table in the corner. Linnet was wearing a white dress and pearls.

‘It looks frightfully simple to me,’ said Tim. ‘Just a length of stuff with a kind of cord round the middle.’

‘Yes, darling,’ said his mother. ‘A very nice manly description of an eighty-guinea model.’

‘I can’t think why women pay so much for their clothes,’ Tim said. ‘It seems absurd to me.’

Mrs Allerton proceeded with her study of her fellow passengers.

‘Mr Fanthorp must be the intensely quiet young man who never speaks, at the same table as the German. Rather a nice face, cautious but intelligent.’

Poirot agreed.

‘He is intelligent – yes. He does not talk, but he listens very attentively and he also watches. Yes, he makes good use of his eyes Not quite the type you would expect to find travelling for pleasure in this part of the world. I wonder what he is doing here.’

‘Mr Ferguson,’ read Mrs Allerton. ‘I feel that Ferguson must be our anti-capitalist friend. Mrs Otterbourne, Miss Otterbourne. We know all about them. Mr Pennington? Alias Uncle Andrew. He’s a good-looking man, I think-’

‘Now, Mother,’ said Tim.

‘I think he’s very good-looking in a dry sort of way,’ said Mrs Allerton. ‘Rather a ruthless jaw. Probably the kind of man one reads about in the paper, who operates on Wall Street – or is it in Wall Street? I’m sure he must be extremely rich. Next – Monsieur Hercule Poirot – whose talents are really being wasted. Can’t you get up a crime for Monsieur Poirot, Tim?’