Agatha Christie - Death in the Clouds

"Now then, No. 12, opposite. That's the dentist, Norman Gale. Very much the same applies to him. Small fry. I suppose he'd have a slightly better chance of getting hold of snake venom."

"It is not an injection favored by dentists," murmured Poirot gently. "It would be a case of kill rather than cure."

"A dentist has enough fun with his patients as it is," said Japp, grinning. "Still, I suppose he might move in circles where you could get access to some funny business in drugs. He might have a scientific friend. But as regards possibility, he's pretty well out of it. He did leave his seat, but only to go to the wash room – that's in the opposite direction. On his way back to his seat he couldn't be farther than the gangway here, and to shoot off a thorn from a blowpipe so as to catch the old lady in the neck, he'd have to have a kind of pet thorn that would do tricks and make a right-angle turn. So he's pretty well out of it."

"I agree," said Fournier. "Let us proceed."

"We'll cross the gangway now. No. 17."

"That was my seat originally," said Poirot. "I yielded it to one of the ladies, since she desired to be near her friend."

"That's the Honorable Venetia. Well, what about her? She's a big bug. She might have borrowed from Giselle. Doesn't look as though she had any guilty secrets in her life, but perhaps she pulled a horse in a point to point, or whatever they call it. We'll have to pay a little attention to her. The position's possible. If Giselle had got her head turned a little, looking out of the window, the Honorable Venetia could take a sporting shot – or do you call it a sporting puff? – diagonally across down the car, it would be a bit of a fluke, though. I rather think she'd have to stand up to do it. She's the sort of woman who goes out with the guns in the autumn. I don't know whether shooting with a gun is any help to you with a native blowpipe. I suppose it's a question of eye just the same. Eye and practice. And she's probably got friends – men – who've been big-game hunters in odd parts of the globe. She might have got hold of some queer native stuff that way. What balderdash it all sounds, though! It doesn't make sense."

"It does indeed seem unlikely," said Fournier. "Mademoiselle Kerr – I saw her at the inquest today." He shook his head. "One does not readily connect her with murder."

"Seat 13," said Japp. "Lady Horbury. She's a bit of a dark horse. I know something about her I'll tell you presently. I shouldn't be surprised if she had a guilty secret or two."

"I happen to know," said Fournier, "that the lady in question has been losing very heavily at the baccarat table at Le Pinet."

"That's smart of you. Yes, she's the type of pigeon to be mixed up with Giselle."

"I agree absolutely."

"Very well, then; so far, so good. But how did she do it? She didn't leave her seat either, you remember. She'd have had to have knelt up in her seat and leaned over the top – with eleven people looking at her. Oh, hell, let's get on."

"Numbers 9 and 10," said Fournier, moving his finger on the plan.

"M. Hercule Poirot and Doctor Bryant," said Japp, "What has M. Poirot to say for himself?"

Poirot shook his head sadly.

"Mon estomac," he said pathetically. "Alas, that the brain should be the servant of the stomach.

"I, too," said Fournier with sympathy. "In the air, I do not feel well."

He closed his eyes and shook his head expressively.

"Now then, Doctor Bryant. What about Doctor Bryant? Big bug in Harley Street. Not very likely to go to a Frechwoman money lender, but you never know. And if any funny business crops up with a doctor, he's done for life! Here's where my scientific theory comes in. A man like Bryant, at the top of the tree, is in with all the medical-research people. He could pinch a test tube of snake venom as easy as winking when he happens to be in some swell laboratory."

"They check these things, my friend," objected Poirot. "It would not be just like plucking a buttercup in a meadow."

"Even if they do check 'em. A clever man could substitute something harmless – it could be done. Simply because a man like Bryant would be above suspicion."

"There is much in what you say," agreed Fournier.

"The only thing is: Why did he draw attention to the thing? Why not say the woman died from heart failure – natural death?"

Poirot coughed. The other two looked at him inquiringly.

"I fancy," he said, "that that was the doctor's first – well, shall we say, impression? After all, it looked very like natural death – possibly as the result of a wasp sting. There was a wasp, remember."

"Not likely to forget that wasp," put in Japp. "You're always harping on it."

"However," continued Poirot, "I happened to notice the fatal thorn on the ground and picked it up. Once we had found that, everything pointed to murder."

"The thorn would be bound to be found anyway."

Poirot shook his head.

"There is just a chance that the murderer might have been able to pick it up unobserved."

"Bryant?"

"Bryant or another."

"H'm, rather risky."

Fournier disagreed.

"You think so now," he said, "because you know that it is murder. But when a lady dies suddenly of heart failure, if a man is to drop his handkerchief and stoop to pick it up, who will notice the action or think twice about it?"

"That's true," agreed Japp. "Well, I fancy Bryant is definitely on the list of suspects. He could lean his head round the corner of his seat and do the blowpipe act – again diagonally across the car. But why nobody saw him – However, I won't go into that again. Whoever did it wasn't seen!"

"And for that, I fancy, there must be a reason," said Fournier. "A reason that, by all I have heard -" he smiled – "will appeal to M. Poirot. I mean a psychological reason."

"Continue, my friend," said Poirot. "It is interesting, what you say there."

"Supposing," said Fournier, "that when traveling in a train you were to pass a house in flames. Everyone's eyes would at once be drawn to the window. Everyone would have his attention fixed on a certain point. A man in such a moment might whip out a dagger and stab a man, and nobody would see him do it."

"That is true," said Poirot. "I remember a case in which I was concerned – a case of poison where that very point arose. There was, as you call it, a psychological moment. If we discover that there was such a moment during the journey of the 'Prometheus' -"

"We ought to find that out by questioning the stewards and the passengers," said Japp.

"True. But if there was such a psychological moment, it must follow logically that the cause of that moment must have originated with the murderer. He must have been able to produce the particular effect that caused that moment."

"Perfectly, perfectly," said the Frenchman.

"Well, we'll note down that as a point for questions," said Japp. "I'm coming now to Seat No. 8 – Daniel Michael Clancy."

Japp spoke the name with a certain amount of relish.

"In my opinion, he's the most likely suspect we've got. What's easier than for a mystery author to fake up an interest in snake venom and get some unsuspecting scientific chemist to let him handle the stuff? Don't forget he went down past Giselle's seat – the only one of the passengers who did."

"I assure you, my friend," said Poirot, "that I have not forgotten that point."

He spoke with emphasis.

Japp went on:

"He could have used that blowpipe from fairly close quarters without any need of a psychological moment, as you call it. And he stood quite a respectable chance of getting away with it. Remember, he knows all about blowpipes; he said so."

"Which makes one pause, perhaps."

"Sheer artfulness," said Japp. "And as to this blowpipe he produced today – who is to say that it's the one he bought two years ago? The whole thing looks very fishy to me. I don't think it's healthy for a man to be always brooding over crime and detective stories. Reading up all sorts of cases. It puts ideas into his head."