Agatha Christie: Death in the Clouds

"Dead sure. At least – well, I suppose it might be a fit."

"We'll be at Croydon in a few minutes."

"If she's just taken bad -"

They remained a minute or two undecided; then arranged their course of action. Mitchell returned to the rear car. He went from table to table, bending his head and murmuring confidentially:

"Excuse me, sir; you don't happen to be a doctor?"

Norman Gale said, "I'm a dentist. But if there's anything I can do -" He half rose from his seat.

"I'm a doctor," said Doctor Bryant. "What's the matter?"

"There's a lady at the end there – I don't like the look of her."

Bryant rose to his feet and accompanied the steward. Unnoticed, the little man with the mustaches followed them.

Doctor Bryant bent over the huddled figure in Seat No. 2 – the figure of a stoutish middle-aged woman dressed in heavy black.

The doctor's examination was brief.

He said: "She's dead."

Mitchell said: "What do you think it was? Kind of fit?"

"That I can't possibly say without a detailed examination. When did you last see her – alive, I mean?"

Mitchell reflected.

"She was all right when I brought her coffee along."

"When was that?"

"Well, it might have been three-quarters of an hour ago – about that. Then, when I brought the bill along, I thought she was asleep."

Bryant said: "She's been dead at least half an hour."

Their consultation was beginning to cause interest; heads were craned round, looking at them. Necks were stretched to listen.

"I suppose it might have been a kind of fit like?" suggested Mitchell hopefully.

He clung to the theory of a fit. His wife's sister had fits. He felt that fits were homely things that any man might understand.

Doctor Bryant had no intention of committing himself. He merely shook his head with a puzzled expression.

A voice spoke at his elbow – the voice of the muffled-up man with the mustaches.

"There is," he said, "a mark on her neck."

He spoke apologetically, with a due sense of speaking to superior knowledge.

"True," said Doctor Bryant.

The woman's head lolled over sideways. There was a minute puncture mark on the side of her throat, with a circle of red round it.

"Pardon," the two Duponts joined in. They had been listening for the last few minutes. "The lady is dead, you say, and there is a mark on the neck?"

It was Jean, the younger Dupont, who spoke:

"May I make a suggestion? There was a wasp flying about. I killed it." He exhibited the corpse in his coffee saucer. "Is it not possible that the poor lady has died of a wasp sting? I have heard such things happen."

"It is possible," agreed Bryant. "I have known of such cases. Yes, that is certainly quite a possible explanation. Especially if there were any cardiac weakness."

"Anything I'd better do, sir?" asked the steward. "We'll be at Croydon in a minute."

"Quite, quite," said Doctor Bryant as he moved away a little. "There's nothing to be done. The – er – body must not be moved, steward."

"Yes, sir, I quite understand."

Doctor Bryant prepared to resume his seat and looked in some surprise at the small, muffled-up foreigner who was standing his ground.

"My dear sir," he said, "the best thing to do is to go back to your seat. We shall be at Croydon almost immediately."

"That's right, sir," said the steward. He raised his voice: "Please resume your seats, everybody."

"Pardon," said the little man. "There is something -"

"Something?"

"Mais oui, something that has been overlooked."

With the tip of a pointed patent-leather shoe, he made his meaning clear. The steward and Doctor Bryant followed the action with their eyes. They caught the glint of orange and black on the floor, half concealed by the edge of the black skirt.

"Another wasp?" said the doctor, surprised.

Hercule Poirot went down on his knees. He took a small pair of tweezers from his pocket and used them delicately. He stood up with his prize.

"Yes," he said, "it is very like a wasp, but it is not a wasp."

He turned the object about this way and that, so that both the doctor and the steward could see it clearly – a little knot of teased fluffy silk, orange and black, attached to a long peculiar-looking thorn with a discolored tip.

"Good gracious! Good gracious me!" The exclamation came from little Mr Clancy, who had left his seat and was poking his head desperately over the steward's shoulder. "Remarkable – really very remarkable – absolutely the most remarkable thing I have ever come across in my life. Well, upon my soul, I should never have believed it."

"Could you make yourself just a little clearer, sir?" asked the steward. "Do you recognize this?"

"Recognize it? Certainly I recognize it." Mr Clancy swelled with passionate pride and gratification. "This object, gentlemen, is the native thorn shot from a blowpipe by certain tribes – er – I cannot be exactly certain now if it is South African tribes or whether it is the inhabitants of Borneo which I have in mind. But that is undoubtedly a native dart that has been aimed by a blowpipe, and I strongly suspect that on the tip -"

"- is the famous arrow poison of the South American Indians," finished Hercule Poirot. And he added, "Mais enfin! Est-ce que c'est possible?"

"It is certainly very extraordinary," said Mr Clancy, still full of blissful excitement. "As I say, most extraordinary. I am myself a writer of detective fiction, but actually to meet, in real life -"

Words failed him.

The aeroplane heeled slowly over, and those people who were standing up staggered a little. The plane was circling round in its descent to Croydon aerodrome.

The steward and the doctor were no longer in charge of the situation. Their place was usurped by the rather absurd-looking little man in the muffler. He spoke with an authority and a certainty of being obeyed that no one thought of questioning.

He whispered to Mitchell and the latter nodded, and – pushing his way through the passengers – he took up his stand in the doorway leading past the wash rooms to the front car.

The plane was running along the ground now. When it finally came to a stop, Mitchell raised his voice:

"I must ask you, ladies and gentlemen, to keep your seats and remain here until somebody in authority takes charge. I hope you will not be detained long."

The reasonableness of this order was appreciated by most of the occupants of the car, but one person protested shrilly.

"Nonsense!" cried Lady Horbury angrily. "Don't you know who I am? I insist on being allowed to leave at once!"

"Very sorry, my lady. Can't make exceptions."

"But it's absurd – absolutely absurd." Cicely tapped her foot angrily. "I shall report you to the company. It's outrageous that we should be shut up here with a dead body."

"Really, my dear," Venetia Kerr spoke with her well-bred drawl, "too devastating, but I fancy we'll have to put up with it." She herself sat down and drew out a cigarette case. "Can I smoke now, steward?"

The harassed Mitchell said: "I don't suppose it matters now, miss."

He glanced over his shoulder. Davis had disembarked the passengers from the front car by the emergency door and had now gone in search of orders.

The wait was not a long one, but it seemed to the passengers as though half an hour, at least, had passed before an erect, soldierly figure in plain clothes, accompanied by a uniformed policeman, came hurriedly across the aerodrome and climbed into the plane by the door that Mitchell held open.

"Now, then, what's all this?" demanded the newcomer in brisk official tones.

He listened to Mitchell and then to Doctor Bryant, and he flung a quick glance over the crumpled figure of the dead woman.