Death on the Nile

Death on the Nile

by

Agatha Christie

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Chapter One Quotes

“Ridgeway!”

“That’s her!” said Mr. Burnaby, the landlord of the Three Crowns.

He nudged his companion.

The two men stared with round bucolic eyes and slightly open mouths.
A big scarlet Rolls-Royce had just stopped in front of the local post office.

Related Characters: Mr. Burnaby (speaker), Linnet Doyle
Related Symbols: The Nile
Page Number: 1
Explanation and Analysis:

“She cares too much, that little one,” he said to himself. It is not safe. No, it is not safe.”

Related Characters: Hercule Poirot (speaker), Jacqueline De Bellefort, Simon Doyle
Page Number: 15
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter Two Quotes

Hercule Poirot made vague gestures to rid himself of this human cluster of flies. Rosalie stalked through them like a sleepwalker. “It’s best to pretend to be deaf and blind,” she remarked.

The infantile riff-raff ran alongside murmuring plaintively:

“Bakshish? Bakshish? Hip hip hurrah-very good, very nice. . . .”

Related Characters: Hercule Poirot (speaker), Rosalie Otterbourne (speaker)
Page Number: 39
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter Three  Quotes

Poirot signalled to a passing waiter.

“A liqueur, Madame? A chartreuse? A creme de menthe?” Mrs. Otterbourne shook her head vigorously.

“No, no. I am practically a teetotaller. You may have noticed I never drink anything but water-or perhaps lemonade. I cannot bear the taste of spirits.”

Related Characters: Hercule Poirot (speaker), Mrs. Salome Otterbourne, Rosalie Otterbourne
Page Number: 49
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter Four  Quotes

“No, Madame.” His tone was firm. “I will not accept a commission from you. I will do what I can in the interests of humanity.”

Related Characters: Hercule Poirot (speaker), Linnet Doyle, Jacqueline De Bellefort, Colonel Race
Page Number: 62-63
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter Five  Quotes

“It is deeper than that. Do not open your heart to evil.”

Related Characters: Hercule Poirot (speaker), Linnet Doyle, Jacqueline De Bellefort, Simon Doyle
Page Number: 69
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter Six  Quotes

“My dear Monsieur Poirot—how can I put it? It’s like the moon when the sun comes out. You don’t know it’s there anymore. When once I’d met Linnet—Jackie didn’t exist.”

Related Characters: Simon Doyle (speaker), Hercule Poirot, Linnet Doyle, Jacqueline De Bellefort
Page Number: 73
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter Seven  Quotes

“Monsieur Poirot, I’m afraid—I’m afraid of everything. I’ve never felt like this before. All these wild rocks and the awful grimness and starkness. Where are we going? What’s going to happen? I’m afraid, I tell you. Everyone hates me. I’ve never felt like that before. I’ve always been nice to people—I’ve done things for them—and they hate me—lots of people hate me. Except for Simon, I’m surrounded by enemies . . . It’s terrible to feel—that there are people who hate you. . . .”

Related Characters: Linnet Doyle (speaker), Hercule Poirot, Jacqueline De Bellefort, Simon Doyle
Related Symbols: The Nile
Page Number: 93
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter Ten  Quotes

Simon’s eyes were open. They too held contentment. What a fool he’d been to be rattled that first night . . . There was nothing to be rattled about. . . Everything was all right . . . After all, one could trust Jackie—

There was a shout-people running towards him waving their arms-shouting. . . .

Simon stared stupidly for a moment. Then he sprang to his feet and dragged Linnet with him.

Not a minute too soon. A big boulder hurtling down the cliff crashed past them. If Linnet had remained where she was she would have been crushed to atoms.

Related Characters: Linnet Doyle, Jacqueline De Bellefort, Simon Doyle
Page Number: 120
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter Eleven  Quotes

“A telegram for me.”

She snatched it off the board and tore it open.

“Why—I don’t understand—potatoes, beetroots—what does it mean, Simon?"

Simon was just coming to look over her shoulder when a furious voice said: “Excuse me, that telegram is for me,” and Signor Richetti snatched it rudely from her hand, fixing her with a furious glare as he did so.

Related Characters: Linnet Doyle (speaker), Signor Richetti (speaker), Simon Doyle , Mrs. Salome Otterbourne
Page Number: 127
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter Twelve  Quotes

Jacqueline hummed a little tune to herself. When the drink came, she picked it up, said: “Well, here’s to crime,” drank it off and ordered another.

Related Characters: Jacqueline De Bellefort (speaker), Linnet Doyle, Simon Doyle
Page Number: 137
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter Thirteen  Quotes

Hercule Poirot was just wiping the lather from his freshly shaved face when there was a quick tap on the door, and hard on top of it Colonel Race entered unceremoniously. He closed the door behind him.

He said: “Your instinct was quite correct. It’s happened.”

Poirot straightened up and asked sharply: “What has happened?”

“Linnet Doyle’s dead—shot through the head last night.”

Related Characters: Hercule Poirot (speaker), Colonel Race (speaker), Linnet Doyle
Page Number: 148
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter Fourteen  Quotes

Hercule Poirot nodded his head.

“You did not look. But I, I have the eyes which notice, and there were no pearls on the table beside the bed this morning.”

Related Characters: Hercule Poirot (speaker), Linnet Doyle, Tim Allerton, Miss Marie Van Schuyler
Related Symbols: Pearls
Page Number: 174
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter Eighteen  Quotes

Poirot picked up the handkerchief and examined it.

“A man’s handkerchief-but not a gentleman’s handkerchief. Ce cher Woolworth, I imagine. Threepence at most.”

Related Characters: Hercule Poirot (speaker), Linnet Doyle, Jacqueline De Bellefort, Simon Doyle , Colonel Race, Miss Marie Van Schuyler, Fleetwood
Related Symbols: The Nile
Page Number: 209
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter Nineteen  Quotes

“People think I’m awful. Stuck-up and cross and bad-tempered. I can’t help it. I’ve forgotten how to be-to be nice.”

“That is what I said to you; you have carried your burden by yourself too long.”

Related Characters: Hercule Poirot (speaker), Rosalie Otterbourne (speaker), Jacqueline De Bellefort, Simon Doyle , Mrs. Salome Otterbourne, Signor Richetti
Page Number: 217
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter Twenty-Two  Quotes

Finally he turned his attention to the washstand. There were various creams, powders, face lotions. But the only thing that seemed to interest Poirot were two little bottles labelled Nailex. He picked them up at last and brought them to the dressing table. One, which bore the inscription Nailex Rose, was empty but for a drop or two of dark red fluid at the bottom. The other, the same size, but labelled Nailex Cardinal, was nearly full. Poirot uncorked first the empty, then the full one, and sniffed them both delicately.

Related Characters: Colonel Race (speaker), Hercule Poirot, Linnet Doyle, Simon Doyle , Miss Bowers
Related Symbols: Pearls
Page Number: 237
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter Twenty-Three  Quotes

The body of the dead woman, who in life had been Louise Bourget, lay on the floor of her cabin. The two men bent over it.

Race straightened himself first.

“Been dead close on an hour, I should say. We’ll get Bessner on to it. Stabbed to the heart. Death pretty well instantaneous, I should imagine. She doesn’t look pretty, does she?”

“No.”

Poirot shook his head with a slight shudder.

The dark feline face was convulsed, as though with surprise and fury, the lips drawn back from the teeth.

Poirot bent again gently and picked up the right hand. Something just showed within the fingers. He detached it and held it out to Race, a little sliver of flimsy paper coloured a pale mauvish pink.

“You see what it is?”

“Money,” said Race.

“The corner of a thousand-franc note, I fancy.”

Related Characters: Hercule Poirot (speaker), Colonel Race (speaker), Linnet Doyle, Jacqueline De Bellefort, Simon Doyle , Mrs. Salome Otterbourne, Rosalie Otterbourne, Tim Allerton, Louise Bourget, Dr. Bessner
Related Symbols: Pearls
Page Number: 246
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter Twenty-Four  Quotes

Mrs. Otterbourne continued: “The arrangement was that I should go round to the stern on the deck below this, and there I should find the man waiting for me. As I went along the deck a cabin door opened and somebody looked out. It was this girl-Louise Bourget, or whatever her name is. She seemed to be expecting someone. When she saw it was me, she looked disappointed and went abruptly inside again. I didn’t think anything of it, of course. I went along just as I had said I would and got the-the stuff from the man. I paid him and-er-just had a word with him. Then I started back. Just as I came around the corner I saw someone knock on the maid’s door and go into the cabin.”

Race said, “And that person was—?"

Bang!

The noise of the explosion filled the cabin. There was an acrid sour smell of smoke. Mrs. Otterbourne turned slowly sideways, as though in supreme inquiry, then her body slumped forward and she fell to the ground with a crash. From just behind her ear the blood flowed from a round neat hole.

Related Characters: Colonel Race (speaker), Mrs. Salome Otterbourne (speaker), Hercule Poirot, Jacqueline De Bellefort, Simon Doyle , Louise Bourget, Dr. Bessner
Page Number: 263
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter Twenty-Six  Quotes

“Perhaps not, but the custom, it still remains. The Old School Tie is the Old School Tie, and there are certain things (I know this from experience) that the Old School Tie does not do! One of those things, Monsieur Fanthorp, is to butt into a private conversation unasked when one does not know the people who are conducting it.”

Related Characters: Hercule Poirot (speaker), Linnet Doyle, Jacqueline De Bellefort, Simon Doyle , Andrew Pennington, James Fanthorp
Page Number: 280
Explanation and Analysis:

“That was an accident. I swear it was an accident!” The man leant forward, his face working, his eyes terrified. “I stumbled and fell against it. I swear it was an accident. . . .”

The two men said nothing.

Pennington suddenly pulled himself together. He was still a wreck of a man, but his fighting spirit had returned in a certain measure. He moved towards the door.

“You can’t pin that on me, gentlemen. It was an accident. And it wasn’t I who shot her. D’you hear? You can’t pin that on me either—and you never will.”

He went out.

Related Characters: Andrew Pennington (speaker), Hercule Poirot, Linnet Doyle, Simon Doyle , Colonel Race
Page Number: 291
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter Twenty-Seven  Quotes

“Well, sir, where do we go from here? I admit taking the pearls from Linnet’s cabin and you’ll find them just where you say they are. I’m guilty all right. But as far as Miss Southwood is concerned, I’m not admitting anything. You’ve no evidence whatever against her. How I got hold of the fake necklace is my own business.”

Poirot murmured: “A very correct attitude.”

Related Characters: Hercule Poirot (speaker), Tim Allerton (speaker), Linnet Doyle, Colonel Race, Joanna Southwood
Related Symbols: Pearls
Page Number:  298
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter Twenty-Nine  Quotes

Poirot was silent. But it was not a modest silence. His eyes seemed to be saying: “You are wrong. They didn’t allow for Hercule Poirot.”

Aloud he said, “And now, Doctor we will go and have a word with your patient.”

Related Characters: Hercule Poirot (speaker), Jacqueline De Bellefort, Simon Doyle , Cornelia Robson, Dr. Bessner
Page Number: 321
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter Thirty  Quotes

“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. . . .”

Related Characters: Jacqueline De Bellefort (speaker), Hercule Poirot, Linnet Doyle, Simon Doyle , Mrs. Allerton, Louise Bourget
Page Number: 327
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter Thirty-One  Quotes

Mrs. Allerton shivered. “Love can be a very frightening thing.”

“That is why most great love stories are tragedies.”

Mrs. Allerton’s eyes rested upon Tim and Rosalie, standing side by side in the sunlight, and she said suddenly and passionately: “But thank God, there is happiness in the world.”

Related Characters: Hercule Poirot (speaker), Mrs. Allerton (speaker), Jacqueline De Bellefort, Simon Doyle , Rosalie Otterbourne, Tim Allerton
Page Number: 333
Explanation and Analysis:

Lastly the body of Linnet Doyle was brought ashore, and all over the world wires began to hum, telling the public that Linnet Doyle, who had been Linnet Ridgeway, the famous, the beautiful, the wealthy Linnet Doyle was dead.

Sir George Wode read about it in his London club, and Sterndale Rockford in New York, and Joanna Southwood in Switzerland, and it was discussed in the bar of the Three Crowns in Malton-under-Wode.

And Mr. Burnaby said acutely: “Well, it doesn’t seem to have done her much good, poor lass.”

But after a while they stopped talking about her and discussed instead who was going to win the Grand National. For, as Mr. Ferguson was saying at that minute in Luxor, it is not the past that matters but the future.

Related Characters: Mr. Burnaby (speaker), Linnet Doyle, Jacqueline De Bellefort, Simon Doyle , Andrew Pennington, Tim Allerton, Mr. Ferguson (Lord Dawlish), Louise Bourget, James Fanthorp, Joanna Southwood , Sir George Wode, Sterndale Rockford
Page Number: 333
Explanation and Analysis:
No matches.