They were all there on the verandah at Shepheard's. The Count and Countess Zizinia, M. and Mme. Tatarachi, Judge Van Ash van Wyck, Mlle Poinzetta and M. and Mme. Theodorachi.
Talk was of war.
One had to be careful. Dangerous people were in Cairo at that time. They were all dangerous people.
Perhaps even Mlle Poinzetta who had forgotten to grow old.
Poor Heatherington-Smith talked of the Nile fishery until one's brain bled with boredom.
The Theodorachis had lost a tanker. Simply disappeared from the face of the ocean. No trace. No oil slick on the empty sea. The new Liberian registry complicated things, they said.
Heatherington-Smith thought the Theodorachis seemed oddly composed in the face of such disaster. He wondered where the tanker was.
One would never know.
As darkness arrived the group melted into the night until only Mlle Poinzetta and Heatherington-Smith remained. He offered her a cigarette from his silver case but he did not look at her.
``And what have we in store to-night?'' he murmured. She was pushing fifty but somehow managed still to exert a certain attraction. Thin and olive complexioned with enormous black eyes and a radiant smile. Skin gone to hell of course.
``Unless I am much mistaken room 72 should be - in for the night - by ten. I must go. No, no - the light.'' He put out his lighter and bowed slightly.
Such a simple thing.
Shoes left outside the room door at night to be cleaned and replaced by morning.
A little curare. A little ground glass.
A simple thing.