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?’
But her well-meant banter only seemed to annoy her son anew. He scowled and Mrs Allerton hurried on.
‘Mr Richetti. Our Italian archaeological friend. Then Miss Robson and last of all Miss Van Schuyler. The last’s easy. The very ugly old American lady who obviously feels herself the queen of the boat and who is clearly going to be very exclusive and speak to nobody who doesn’t come up to the most exacting standards! She’s rather marvellous, isn’t she, really? A kind of period piece. The two women with her must be Miss Bowers and Miss Robson – perhaps a secretary, the thin one with pince-nez, and a poor relation, the rather pathetic young woman who is obviously enjoying herself in spite of being treated like a slave. I think Robson’s the secretary woman and Bowers is the poor relation.’