Agatha Christie: Death in the Clouds

Again he was silent. Then he said in a brisker tone:

"I tell you this, M. Poirot, because it will soon be public property, and the sooner you know the better."

"I understand," said Poirot. After a minute, he said, "You take your flute, I see."

Doctor Bryant smiled.

"My flute, M. Poirot, is my oldest companion. When everything else fails, music remains."

His hand ran lovingly over the flute case; then, with a bow, he rose.

Poirot rose also.

"My best wishes for your future, M. le docteur, and for that of madame," said Poirot.

When Fournier rejoined his friend, Poirot was at the desk making arrangements for a trunk call to Quebec.

"What now?" cried Fournier. "You are still preoccupied with this girl who inherits? Decidedly, it is the idée fixe you have there."

"Not at all – not at all," said Poirot. "But there must be in all things order and method. One must finish with one thing before proceeding to the next."

He looked round.

"Here is Mademoiselle Jane. Suppose that you commence dejeuner. I will join you as soon as I can."

Fournier acquiesced and he and Jane went into the dining room.

"Well?" said Jane with curiosity. "What is she like?"

"She is a little over medium height, dark with a matte complexion, a pointed chin -"

"You're talking exactly like a passport," said Jane. "My passport description is simply insulting, I think. It's composed of mediums and ordinary. Nose, medium; mouth, ordinary. How do they expect you to describe a mouth? Forehead, ordinary, chin, ordinary."

"But not ordinary eyes," said Fournier.

"Even they are gray, which is not a very exciting color."

"And who has told you, mademoiselle, that it is not an exciting color?" said the Frenchman, leaning across the table.

Jane laughed. "Your command of the English language," she said, "is highly efficient. Tell me more about Anne Morisot. Is she pretty?"

"Assez bien," said Fournier cautiously. "And she is not Anne Morisot. She is Anne Richards. She is married."

"Was the husband there too?"

"No."

"Why not, I wonder?"

"Because he is in Canada or America."

He explained some of the circumstances of Anne's life. Just as he was drawing his narrative to a close, Poirot joined them.

He looked a little dejected.

"Well, mon cher?" inquired Fournier.

"I spoke to the principal – to Mère Angélique herself. It is romantic, you know, the transatlantic telephone. To speak so easily to someone nearly halfway across the globe."

"The telegraphed photograph – that, too, is romantic. Science is the greatest romance there is. But you were saying?"

"I talked with Mère Angélique. She confirmed exactly what Mrs Richards told us of the circumstances of her having been brought up at the Institut de Marie. She spoke quite frankly about the mother who left Quebec with a Frenchman interested in the wine trade. She was relieved at the time that the child would not come under her mother's influence. From her point of view, Giselle was on the downward path. Money was sent regularly, but Giselle never suggested a meeting."

"In fact, your conversation was a repetition of what we heard this morning."

"Practically, except that it was more detailed. Anne Morisot left the Institut de Marie six years ago to become a manicurist, afterwards she had a job as a lady's maid, and finally left Quebec for Europe in that capacity. Her letters were not frequent, but Mère Angélique usually heard from her about twice a year. When she saw an account of the inquest in the paper, she realized that this Marie Morisot was in all probability the Marie Morisot who had lived in Quebec."

"What about the husband?" asked Fournier. "Now that we know definitely that Giselle was married, the husband might become a factor?"

"I thought of that. It was one of the reasons for my telephone call. George Leman, Giselle's blackguard of a husband, was killed in the early days of the war."

He paused and then remarked abruptly:

"What was it that I just said – not my last remark, the one before? I have an idea that, without knowing it, I said something of significance."

Fournier repeated as well as he could the substance of Poirot's remarks, but the little man shook his head in a dissatisfied manner.

"No, no, it was not that. Well, no matter."

He turned to Jane and engaged her in conversation.

At the close of the meal he suggested that they should have coffee in the lounge.

Jane agreed and stretched out her hand for her bag and gloves, which were on the table. As she picked them up she winced slightly.

"What is it, mademoiselle?"

"Oh, it's nothing," laughed Jane. "It's only a jagged nail. I must file it."

Poirot sat down again very suddenly.

"Nom d'un nom d'un nom," he said quietly.

The other two stared at him in surprise.

"M. Poirot!" cried Jane. "What is it?"

"It is," said Poirot, "that I remember now why the face of Anne Morisot is familiar to me. I have seen her before. In the aeroplane on the day of the murder. Lady Horbury sent for her to get a nail file. Anne Morisot was Lady Horbury's maid."

This sudden revelation had an almost stunning effect on the three people sitting round the luncheon table. It opened up an entirely new aspect of the case.

Instead of being a person wholly remote from the tragedy, Anne Morisot was now shown to have been actually present on the scene of the crime. It took a minute or two for everyone to readjust his ideas.

Poirot made a frantic gesture with his hand; his eyes were closed; his face contorted in agony.

"A little minute – a little minute," he implored them. "I have got to think, to see, to realize how this affects my ideas of the case. I must go back in mind. I must remember. A thousand maledictions on my unfortunate stomach. I was preoccupied only with my internal sensations!"

"She was actually on the plane, then," said Fournier. "I see. I begin to see."

"I remember," said Jane. "A tall dark girl." Her eyes half closed in an effort of memory. "Madeleine, Lady Horbury called her."

"That is it – Madeleine," said Poirot.

"Lady Horbury sent her along to the end of the plane to fetch a case – a scarlet dressing case."

"You mean," said Fournier, "that this girl went right past the seat where her mother was sitting?"

"That is right."

"The motive," said Fournier. He gave a great sigh. "And the opportunity. Yes, it is all there."

Then, with a sudden vehemence most unlike his usual melancholy manner, he brought down his hand with a bang on the table.

"But parbleu!" he cried. "Why did no one mention this before? Why was she not included amongst the suspected persons?"

"I have told you, my friend – I have told you," said Poirot wearily. "My unfortunate stomach."

"Yes, yes, that is understandable. But there were other stomachs unaffected. The stewards, the other passengers."

"I think," said Jane, "that perhaps it was because it was so very early this happened. The plane had only just left Le Bourget. And Giselle was alive and well an hour or so after that. It seemed as though she must have been killed much later."

"That is curious," said Fournier thoughtfully. "Can there have been a delayed action of the poison? Such things happen."

Poirot groaned and dropped his head into his hands.

"I must think. I must think. Can it be possible that all along my ideas have been entirely wrong?"

"Mon vieux," said Fournier, "such things happen. They happen to me; it is possible that they have happened to you. One has occasionally to pocket one's pride and readjust one's ideas."

"That is true," agreed Poirot. "It is possible that all along I have attached too much importance to one particular thing. I expected to find a certain clue. I found it, and I built up my case from it. But if I have been wrong from the beginning – if that particular article was where it was merely as the result of an accident – why, then – yes, I will admit that I have been wrong – completely wrong."