Agatha Christie: Death in the Clouds

"Send my maid to me. She's in the other compartment."

"Yes, my lady."

The steward, very deferential, very quick and efficient, disappeared again. A dark-haired French girl dressed in black appeared. She carried a small jewel case.

Lady Horbury spoke to her in French:

"Madeleine, I want my red morocco case."

The maid passed along the gangway. At the extreme end of the car were some piled-up rugs and cases.

The girl returned with a small dressing case.

Cicely Horbury took it and dismissed the maid.

"That's all right, Madeleine. I'll keep it here."

The maid went out again. Lady Horbury opened the case and from the beautifully fitted interior she extracted a nail file. Then she looked long and earnestly at her face in a small mirror and touched it up here and there – a little powder, more lip salve.

Jane's lips curled scornfully; her glance traveled farther down the car.

Behind the two women was the little foreigner who had yielded his seat to the county woman. Heavily muffled up in unnecessary mufflers, he appeared to be fast asleep. Perhaps made uneasy by Jane's scrutiny, his eyes opened, looked at her for a moment, then closed again.

Beside him sat a tall, gray-haired man with an authoritative face. He had a flute case open in front of him and was polishing the flute with loving care. Funny, Jane thought, he didn't look like a musician – more like a lawyer or a doctor.

Behind these two were a couple of Frenchmen, one with a beard and one much younger – perhaps his son. They were talking and gesticulating in an excited manner.

On her own side of the car, Jane's view was blocked by the man in the blue pullover – the man at whom, for some absurd reason, she was determined not to look.

"Absurd to feel so – so excited. I might be seventeen," thought Jane disgustedly.

Opposite her, Norman Gale was thinking:

"She's pretty – really pretty. She remembers me all right. She looked so disappointed when her stakes were swept away. It was worth a lot more than that to see her pleasure when she won. I did that rather well. She's very attractive when she smiles – no pyorrhoea there – healthy gums and sound teeth… Damn it, I feel quite excited. Steady, my boy."

He said to the steward, who hovered at his side with the menu, "I'll have cold tongue."

The Countess of Horbury thought: "What shall I do? It's the hell of a mess. The hell of a mess. There's only one way out that I can see. If only I had the nerve – Can I do it? Can I bluff it out? My nerves are all to pieces! That's the coke. Why did I ever take to coke? My face looks awful – simply awful. That cat, Venetia Kerr, being here makes it worse. She always looks at me as though I were dirt. Wanted Stephen herself. Well, she didn't get him! That long face of hers gets on my nerves. It's exactly like a horse. I hate these county women. What shall I do? I've got to make up my mind. The old hag meant what she said."

She fumbled in her vanity bag for her cigarette case and fitted a cigarette into a long holder. Her hands shook slightly.

The Honorable Venetia Kerr thought: "Little tart! That's what she is. Poor old Stephen! If he only could get rid of her!"

She, in turn, felt for her cigarette case. She accepted Cicely Horbury's match.

The steward said: "Excuse me, ladies; no smoking."

Cicely Horbury said, "Hell!"

M. Hercule Poirot thought: "She is pretty, that little one over there. There is determination in that chin. Why is she so worried over something? Why is she so determined not to look at the handsome young man opposite her? She is very much aware of him and he of her." The plane dropped slightly. "Mon estomac!" thought Hercule Poirot, and closed his eyes determinedly.

Beside him, Doctor Bryant, caressing his flute with nervous hands, thought: "I can't decide. I simply cannot decide. This is the turning point of my career."

Nervously he drew out his flute from its case, caressingly, lovingly. Music – in music there was an escape from all your cares. Half smiling, he raised the flute to his lips; then put it down again. The little man with the mustaches beside him was fast asleep. There had been a moment, when the plane had bumped a little, when he had looked distinctly green. Doctor Bryant was glad he himself became neither train-sick nor sea-sick nor air-sick.

M. Dupont pére turned excitedly in his seat and shouted at M. Dupont fils, sitting beside him:

"There is no doubt about it! They are all wrong – the Germans, the Americans, the English! They date the prehistoric pottery all wrong! Take the Samarra ware -"

Jean Dupont, tall, fair, with a false air of indolence, said:

"You must take the evidences from all sources. There is Tall Halaf, and Sakje Geuze -"

They prolonged the discussion.

Armand Dupont wrenched open a battered attaché case.

"Take these Kurdish pipes, such as they make today. The decoration on them is almost exactly similar to that on the pottery of 5000 b.c."

An eloquent gesture almost swept away the plate that a steward was placing in front of him.

Mr Clancy, writer of detective stories, rose from his seat behind Norman Gale and padded to the end of the car, extracted a Continental Bradshaw from his raincoat pocket and returned with it to work out a complicated alibi for professional purposes.

Mr Ryder, in the seat behind him, thought: "I'll have to keep my end up, but it's not going to be easy. I don't see how I'm going to raise the dibs for the next dividend. If we pass the dividend the fat's in the fire… Oh, hell!"

Norman Gale rose and went to the wash room. As soon as he had gone, Jane drew out a mirror and surveyed her face anxiously. She also applied powder and lipstick.

A steward placed coffee in front of her.

Jane looked out of the window. The Channel showed blue and shining below.

A wasp buzzed round Mr Clancy's head just as he was dealing with 19:55 at Tsaribrod, and he struck at it absently. The wasp flew off to investigate the Duponts' coffee cups.

Jean Dupont slew it neatly.

Peace settled down on the car. Conversation ceased, but thoughts pursued their way.

Right at the end of the car, in Seat No. 2, Madame Giselle's head lolled forward a little. One might have taken her to be asleep. But she was not asleep. She neither spoke nor thought.

Madame Giselle was dead.

Henry Mitchell, the senior of the two stewards, passed swiftly from table to table, depositing bills. In half an hour's time they would be at Croydon. He gathered up notes and silver, bowed, said, "Thank you, sir…Thank you, madam." At the table where the two Frenchmen sat, he had to wait a minute or two; they were so busy discussing and gesticulating. And there wouldn't be much of a tip, anyway, from them, he thought gloomily. Two of the passengers were asleep – the little man with the mustaches and the old woman down at the end. She was a good tipper, though; he remembered her crossing several times. He refrained, therefore, from awaking her.

The little man with the mustaches woke up and paid for the bottle of mineral water and the thin captain's biscuits, which was all he had had.

Mitchell left the other passenger as long as possible. About five minutes before they reached Croydon, he stood by her side and leaned over her.

"Pardon, madam; your bill."

He laid a deferential hand on her shoulder. She did not wake. He increased the pressure, shaking her gently, but the only result was an unexpected slumping of the body down in the seat. Mitchell bent over her; then straightened up with a white face.

Albert Davis, second steward, said:

"Coo! You don't mean it."

"I tell you it's true."

Mitchell was white and shaking.

"You sure, Henry?"