The film opens with Simon Doyle and his fiance, Jaqueline De Bellfort, making out in a bedroom. Afterward, it cuts to the rich Linnet Ridgeway's mansion. Inside Linnet and her Friend Johanna Southwood talk when Louise Bourget, the maid, says that Jaqueline De Bellfort, Linnet's poor friend from Paris, will be arriving. Jaqueline, or Jackie for short, says that she's engaged and has Linnet meet with him in the foyer. Three months later: There is a party in egypt and it seems now that Linnet has married Simon (Later explained that Simon broke up with Jackie to marry Linnet). Hercule Poirot is shown arriving to the party and dances with the struggling author, Salome Otterbourne. Her daughter Rosalie apologizes for her mother's behaviors.Jackie is there and calls out to Linnet which upsets her and Simon. Poirot goes outside for a smoke when Linnet speaks to him about Jackie now stalking them because of the break-up. He sees Jackie standing below and tries to tell her to stop. She drops a pistol and tells Poirot that she would "like to put this pistol up against her head and gently pull the trigger." The next morning Simon and Linnet go on a cruise on the Karnak, hoping to have outwitted Jackie, but only to find that she is there.Linnet and Simon are Distraught at this. One of the Karnak's stop is at a port called Dendera. All passengers disembark and visit the temple of Hawthorne. Linnet is almost crushed when a stone dislodges and falls. Jackie is seen and Simon thought that she pushed it; but the assumption is wrong because Jackie came from a different building. Poirot meets his old friend and colleague, Colonel Race. Poirot being surprised tells him that he thinks something is already starting.
Back on the Karnak, that same night, Linnnet, Simon, Race and Linnet's Beneficiary (Andrew Pennigton) play poker when Jackie comes in. She is drunk. Another girl, Cornelia Robson, has decided not to go to bed yet. Jackie orders a server two Gin's altough Cornelia refuses. Linnet, Andrew and Race go to bed. Jackie, Simon, Cornelia, and Mr. Ferguson stay on the saloon. Jackie, after having drunk so much, takes her pistol and shoots Doyle in the leg, injuring him. She kicks the dreadful thing under the chair. Ferguson and Cornelia take Jackie to her room at Simon's insistence, Ferguson getting Dr. Bessner to assist. Dr. Bessner extracts the bullet and gives Simon something to help him sleep.
The next morning, Race tells Poirot that Linnet has been shot through the head in her sleep. In the bedroom, Poirot sees a red J on the head of the bed. He assumes that Jackie is the shooter and that as Linnet is dying, she dips her finger in her own blood and wanted to identify the killer(although this death was instant). Poirot now tries to deduce who the killer is.
Who tells Poirot that Linnet was shot?
Race