Death in the Clouds (Hercule Poirot 12)

The ball clicked, settled.

‘Le numéro cinq, rouge, impair, manque.’

Jane could have cried with vexation. The croupier swept away the stakes, paid out. The man opposite said: ‘Aren’t you going to take up your winnings?’

‘Mine?’

‘Yes.’

‘But I put on six.’

‘Indeed you didn’t. I put on six and you put on five.’

He smiled—a very attractive smile. White teeth in a very brown face, blue eyes, crisp short hair.

Half unbelievingly Jane picked up her gains. Was it true? She felt a little muddled herself. Perhaps she had put her counters on five. She looked doubtingly at the stranger and he smiled easily back.

‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘Leave a thing lying there and somebody else will grab it who has got no right to it. That’s an old trick.’

Then with a friendly little nod of the head he had moved away. That, too, had been nice of him. She might have suspected otherwise that he had let her take his winnings in order to scrape acquaintance with her. But he wasn’t that kind of man. He was nice…(And here he was sitting opposite to her.)

And now it was all over—the money spent—a last two days (rather disappointing days) in Paris, and now home on her return air ticket.

‘And what next?’

‘Stop,’ said Jane to her mind. ‘Don’t think of what’s going to happen next. It’ll only make you nervous.’

The two women had stopped talking.

She looked across the gangway. The Dresden china woman exclaimed petulantly, examining a broken finger-nail. She rang the bell and when the white-coated steward appeared she said:

‘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 red 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 travelled 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, grey-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 those 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.