it was very much later that evening that hercule poirot came and knocked on the door of a cabin.

a voice said "come in" and he entered.

jacqueline de bellefort was sitting in a chair. in another chair, close against the wall, sat the big

stewardess.

jacqueline's eyes surveyed poirot thoughtfully. she made a gesture toward the stewardess.

"can she go?"

poirot nodded to the woman and she went out. poirot drew up her chair and sat down near

jacqueline. neither of them spoke. poirot's face was unhappy. in the end it was the girl who spoke

first.

"well," she said, "it is all over! you were too clever for us, monsieur poirot."

poirot sighed. he spread out his hands. he seemed strangely dumb.

"all the same," said jacqueline reflectively, "i can't really see that you had much proof. you were

quite right, of course, but if we'd bluffed you out -"

"in no other way, mademoiselle, could the thing have happened."

"that's proof enough for a logical mind, but i don't believe it would have convinced a jury. oh,

well - it can't be helped. you sprang it all on simon, and he went down like a ninepin. he just lost

his head utterly, poor lamb, and admitted everything."

she shook her head. "he's a bad loser."

"but you, mademoiselle, are a good loser."

she laughed suddenly - a queer, gay, defiant little laugh.

"oh, yes, i'm a good loser all right." she looked at him.

she said suddenly and impulsively: "don't mind so much, monsieur poirot! about me, i mean.

you do mind, don't you?"

"yes, mademoiselle."

"but it wouldn't have occurred to you to let me off?"

hercule poirot said quietly, "no."

she nodded her head in quiet agreement.

"no, it's no use being sentimental. i might do it again... i'm not a safe person any longer. i can feel

that myself..."

she went on broodingly: "it's so dreadfully easy - killing people. and you begin to feel that it

doesn't matter! it's dangerous - that."

she paused, then said with a little smile: "you did your best for me, you know. that night at

assuan - you told me not to open my heart to evil... did you realize then what was in my mind?"

he shook his head.

"i only knew that what i said was true."

"it was true. i could have stopped, then, you know. i nearly did... i could have told simon that i

wouldn't go on with it... but then perhaps -"

she broke off. she said: "would you like to hear about it? from the beginning?"

"if you care to tell me, mademoiselle."

"i think i want to tell you. it was all very simple really. you see, simon and i loved each other..."

it was a matter-of-fact statement, yet, underneath the lightness of her tone, there were echoes...

poirot said simply, "and for you love would have been enough, but not for him."

"you might put it that way, perhaps. but you don't quite understand simon. you see, he's always

wanted money so dreadfully. he likes all the things you get with money - horses and yachts and

sport - nice things, all of them, things a man ought to be keen about. and he'd never been able to

have any of them. he's awfully simple, simon is. he wants things just as a child wants them - you

know - terribly.

"all the same he never tried to marry anybody rich and horrid. he wasn't that sort. and then we

met - and - and that sort of settled things. only we didn't see when we'd be able to marry. he'd had

rather a decent job, but he'd lost it. in a way it was his own fault. he tried to do something smart

over money, and got found out at once. i don't believe he really meant to be dishonest. he just

thought it was the sort of thing people did in the city."

a flicker passed over her listener's face, but he guarded his tongue.

"there we were, up against it; and then i thought of linnet and her new country house, and i

rushed off to her. you know, monsieur poirot, i loved linnet, really i did. she was my best friend,

and i never dreamed that anything would ever come between us. i just thought how lucky it was

she was rich. it might make all the difference to me and simon if she'd give him a job. and she

was awfully sweet about it and told me to bring simon down to see her. it was about then you saw

us that night at chez ma tante. we were making whoopee, although we couldn't really afford it."

she paused, sighed, then went on: "what i'm going to say now is quite true, monsieur poirot. even

though linnet is dead, it doesn't alter the truth. that's why i'm not really sorry about her, even

now. she went all out to get simon away from me. that's the absolute truth! i don't think she even

hesitated for more than about a minute. i was her friend, but she didn't care. she just went bald-

headed for simon...

"and simon didn't care a damn about her! i talked a lot to you about glamour, but of course that

wasn't true. he didn't want linnet. he thought her good-looking but terribly bossy, and he hated

bossy women! the whole thing embarrassed him frightfully. but he did like the thought of her

money.

"of course i saw that... and at last i suggested to him that it might be a good thing if he - got rid of

me and married linnet. but he scorned the idea. he said, money or no money, it would be hell to

be married to her. he said his idea of having money was to have it himself - not to have a rich wife

holding the purse strings. 'i'd be a kind of damned prince consort,' he said to me. he said, too, that

he didn't want anyone but me...

"i think i know when the idea came into his head. he said one day, 'if i'd any luck, i'd marry her

and she'd die in about a year and leave me all the boodle.' and then a queer startled look came into

his eyes. that was when he first thought of it...

"he talked about it a good deal, one way and another - about how convenient it would be if linnet

died. i said it was an awful idea, and then he shut up about it. then, one day, i found him reading

up all about arsenic. i taxed him with it then, and he laughed and said: 'nothing venture, nothing

have! it's about the only time in my life i shall be near to touching a fat lot of money.'

"after a bit i saw that he'd made up his mind. and i was terrified - simply terrified. because, you

see, i realized that he'd never pull it off. he's so childishly simple. he'd have no kind of subtlety

about it - and he's got no imagination. he would probably have just bunged arsenic into her and

assumed the doctor would say she'd died of gastritis. he always thought things would go right.

"so i had to come into it, too, to look after him."

she said it very simply but in complete good faith. poirot had no doubt whatever that her motive

had been exactly what she said it was. she herself had not coveted linnet ridgeway's money, but

she had loved simon doyle, had loved him beyond reason and beyond rectitude and beyond pity.

"i thought and i thought - trying to work out a plan. it seemed to me that the basis of the idea ought

to be a kind of two-handed alibi. you know - if simon and i could somehow or other give

evidence against each other, but actually that evidence would clear us of everything. it would be

easy enough for me to pretend to hate simon. it was quite a likely thing to happen under the

circumstances. then, if linnet was killed, i should probably be suspected, so it would be better if i

was suspected right away. we worked out details little by little. i wanted it to be so that, if

anything went wrong, they'd get me and not simon. but simon was worried about me.

"the only thing i was glad about was that i hadn't got to do it. i simply couldn't have! not go along

in cold blood and kill her when she was asleep! you see, i hadn't forgiven her - i think i could

have killed her face to face, but not the other way...

"we worked everything out carefully. even then, simon went and wrote a j in blood, which was a

silly melodramatic thing to do. it's just the sort of thing he would think of! but it went off all

right."

poirot nodded.

"yes. it was not your fault that louise bourget could not sleep that night... and afterward,

mademoiselle?"

she met his eyes squarely.

"yes," she said, "it's rather horrible, isn't it? i can't believe that i did that! i know now what you

meant by opening your heart to evil... you know pretty well how it happened. louise made it clear

to simon that she knew. simon got you to bring me to him. as soon as we were alone together he

told me what had happened. he told me what i'd got to do. i wasn't even horrified. i was so afraid -

so deadly afraid... that's what murder does to you. simon and i were safe - quite safe - except for

this miserable blackmailing french girl. i took her all the money we could get hold of. i pretended

to grovel. and then, when she was counting the money, i - did it! it was quite easy. that's what's

so horribly, horribly frightening about it... it's so terribly easy...

"and even then we weren't safe. mrs otterbourne had seen me. she came triumphantly along the

deck looking for you and colonel race. i'd no time to think. i just acted like a flash. it was almost

exciting. i knew it was touch or go that time. that seemed to make it better..."

she stopped again.

"do you remember when you came into my cabin afterward? you said you were not sure why you

had come. i was so miserable - so terrified. i thought simon was going to die..."

"and i - was hoping it," said poirot.

jacqueline nodded.

"yes, it would have been better for him that way."

"that was not my thought."

jacqueline looked at the sternness of his face.

she said gently: "don't mind so much for me, monsieur poirot. after all, i've lived hard always,

you know. if we'd won out, i'd have been very happy and enjoyed things and probably should

never have regretted anything. as it is - well, one goes through with it."

she added: "i suppose the stewardess is in attendance to see i don't hang myself or swallow a

miraculous capsule of prussic acid as people always do in books. you needn't be afraid! i shan't do

that. it will be easier for simon if i'm standing by."

poirot got up. jacqueline rose also. she said with a sudden smile: "do you remember when i said i

must follow my star? you said it might be a false star. and i said, 'that very bad star, that star fall

down.'"

he went out onto the deck with her laughter ringing in his ears.