Death On The Nile

The chapter opens with a conversation between the optimistic Cornelia, who does not think of people as being created equal and has learned to accept that she will never be “elegant and beautiful like Mrs. Doyle” (169), and Mr. Ferguson, who is upset about what he perceives as Cornelia’s apathy toward and resignation to a deep social injustice. Cornelia attributes Mr. Ferguson’s agitation to a digestive problem and offers him some medicine. Frustrated, he ends the conversation, but then returns to tell her she is “the nicest person on the boat” (169).

When Cornelia returns to Miss Van Schuyler, Miss Van Schuyler orders her to look for a velvet stole. Cornelia looks, but cannot find it. Poirot, who has spent the unusually hot afternoon lounging in the saloon, is overcome with sleepiness. On the way back to his room, he runs into Jackie, who says, “It’s been the sort of day when things—snap! Break! When one can’t go on…” (171). Poirot continues to his cabin, and later reflects that the look in Jackie’s eyes was one of “appeal” (171).

After attending to Miss Van Schuyler’s whims, Cornelia returns to the saloon with some needlework. Soon Jackie enters and begins to drink a great deal of alcohol while taunting and provoking Simon, who is also in the saloon with Linnet. Linnet goes to bed, followed by Race and Pennington; Cornelia, too, begins to leave, but Jackie insists she stay and tell her about herself. Cornelia obediently tells Jackie all the mundane details of her life, aware that Jackie seems not to be paying attention. Cornelia feels as if Jackie is “listening to something else—or, perhaps, for something else” and wishes that “something definite would happen” (175).

At last, something definite does happen: Jackie demands that Simon order her another drink. The two begin to argue, and Jackie says that Simon must be afraid that Jackie is going to tell Cornelia the story of her life, including the way Simon has wronged her. Cornelia, embarrassed, tries to leave, but Jackie insists she stay. Fanthorp makes a decorous exit and Simon, Jackie, and Cornelia are left alone in the saloon. Jackie repeats her threat to Simon: “I’ll shoot you like a dog” (178) and pulls the trigger of the small gun she keeps in her bag.

Simon falls, and Cornelia runs to fetch Fanthorp. When they return to the saloon, Simon is lying in a chair, holding a red-stained handkerchief over his leg. Jackie, evidently in shock, says that she didn’t really mean to shoot him. She drops the pistol and kicks it away, under one of the couches. Simon asks Fanthorp to help the hysterical and repentant Jackie back to her room, instructs Cornelia to send Miss Bowers to Jackie and Dr. Bessner to him, and impresses on everyone present that Linnet is not to be disturbed, as learning of the incident will merely upset her, and it is better that she find out in the morning.

Miss Bowers tends to Jackie, administering a morphine injection and promising to stay with her all night. When Bessner confirms that Simon’s leg is very badly broken and that he has lost a great deal of blood; Cornelia helps Dr. Bessner to set the leg. Simon asks Fanthorp to retrieve Jackie’s gun, but Fanthorp is unable to find it—someone has taken it from under the settee. 

Race bursts into Poirot’s room with shocking news: Linnet Doyle was shot dead the previous night. Poirot immediately remembers Jackie telling him how much she would love to shoot Linnet through the head, as well as Jackie’s statement that yesterday was “the kind of day when something breaks” (187) and the look of appeal in her eyes as he passed her on his way to bed. Race, due to his military rank, has been placed in charge of the investigation; he, in turn, places Poirot in charge of solving the murder.

Poirot and Race meet Bessner at the crime scene. Bessner explains that Linnet was shot in the head at close range with a .22 pistol sometime between midnight and 2 a.m. There are no signs of struggle, so the murderer must have shot her in the dark as she slept. She was discovered in the morning by her maid, Louise Bourget. Linnet’s index finger is stained red, and the letter “J” is scrawled on the wall in what appears to be blood. Poirot observes that the “J” is meant to be interpreted as an accusation: “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” (190).

Poirot’s “sense of psychology [is] outraged”: Jackie de Bellefort, the obvious suspect, who has motive and has expressed the desire to shoot Linnet in the head, is not the sort of person to cold-bloodedly sneak into a dark cabin and shoot a sleeping victim (189). She seems more likely to commit murder in a fit of rage. Moreover, the “J” on the wall seems too simple, a pulp fiction cliché designed by someone else to implicate Jackie in a murder she did not commit.

Bessner informs Race and Poirot that Simon was shot the previous night; Poirot immediately infers that Jackie has shot him. Race and Poirot retire to their makeshift office in the smoking-room to go over the facts of the case with Bessner.

Bessner tells them of the events in the saloon last night and Race ventures an explanation of Linnet’s murder: “The girl worked herself up, helped by a drink or two, and finally took a pot shot at the man with a twenty-two pistol. Then she went along to Linnet Doyle’s cabin and shot her as well” (193). However, Bessner points out that this seems impossible: after shooting Simon, the hysterical Jackie spent the rest of the night under sedation and in the care of Miss Bowers, who would have known if Jackie had left her room.

Poirot and Race dismiss Bessner and set out to verify his account with Fanthorp and Cornelia. Poirot admits to being unsure what to think of the situation: on the one hand, Jackie hates Linnet and wanted to kill her, and Poirot thinks she is capable of murder; on the other hand, the cold-blooded way in which the murder was carried out seems out of keeping with Jackie’s character. Moreover, if Bessner is correct, Jackie physically could not have carried out the murder.

Poirot and Race question Cornelia and Fanthorp about the previous night’s events, and they confirm what they have already heard from Bessner and pieced together themselves: Linnet was the first of the saloon’s occupants to go to bed, retiring at 11:20 p.m., before Simon, Jackie, Cornelia, Fanthorp, Race and Pennington. Pennington went to bed just before 11:30 p.m. Jackie did not leave the saloon at all until escorted by Miss Bowers, who both administered a sedative and stayed with her all night. This leaves Jackie with a perfect alibi for Linnet’s murder. 

Fanthorp and Cornelia confirm that Jackie was drinking heavily that night. After Fanthorp’s departure from the saloon, Cornelia recounts, Jackie took out the pistol, and while Simon was trying to take it from her “it went off and shot him through the leg; and then [Jackie] began to sob and cry” (198). Jackie then dropped the pistol and kicked it under a settee, and had no opportunity to retrieve it after that. Subsequently the pistol was removed by someone other than Jackie, whom Poirot infers was probably Linnet’s murderer, and probably had witnessed some of the events in the saloon.

Fanthorp says that Simon appeared concerned that Jackie, who was ridden with remorse, might attempt suicide. Around 12:20 a.m., Fanthorp and Cornelia went about their respective duties, securing medical help for Simon and supervision for Jackie and agreeing not to disturb Linnet, leaving Simon alone in the saloon. Fanthorp retired to his cabin around 12:30 a.m. Around 1 a.m., as he was falling asleep, he thought he heard a splash, but cannot be sure now whether the splash really occurred, and, if so, whether it was near his room or far away.

Race and Poirot agree that Jackie couldn’t have retrieved her pistol from under the settee, that someone else must have done so, and that someone also overheard the scene in the saloon.

Miss Bowers confirms that she found Jackie in “a condition of morbid self-reproach” (2016) and gave her a shot of morphine, then sat with her in her cabin all night. Since Jackie could not have killed Linnet, the question is: who did?