Death in the Clouds (Hercule Poirot 12)

He sat frowning for a minute or two, then he said:

‘Jane (I’m going to call you Jane. You don’t mind, do you?) Jane—who do you think really murdered this Giselle woman?’

‘I haven’t the faintest idea.’

‘Have you thought about it? Really thought about it?’

‘Well, no, I don’t suppose I have. I’ve been thinking about my own part in it, and worrying a little. I haven’t really wondered seriously which—which of the others did it. I don’t think I’d realized until today that one of them must have done it.’

‘Yes, the coroner put it very plainly. I know I didn’t do it, and I know you didn’t do it, because—well, because I was watching you most of the time.’

‘Yes,’ said Jane. ‘I know you didn’t do it—for the same reason. And of course I know I didn’t do it myself! So it must have been one of the others; but I don’t know which. I haven’t the slightest idea. Have you?’

‘No.’

Norman Gale looked very thoughtful. He seemed to be puzzling out some train of thought. Jane went on:

‘I don’t see how we

can have the least idea, either. I mean we didn’t see anything—at least I didn’t. Did you?’

Gale shook his head.

‘Not a thing.’

‘That’s what seems so frightfully odd. I dare say you wouldn’t have seen anything. You weren’t facing that way. But I was. I was looking right along the middle. I mean—I could have been—’

Jane stopped and flushed. She was remembering that her eyes had been mostly fixed on a periwinkle-blue pullover, and that her mind, far from being receptive to what was going on around her, had been mainly concerned with the personality of the human being inside the periwinkle-blue pullover.

Norman Gale thought:

‘I wonder what makes her blush like that…She’s wonderful…I’m going to marry her…Yes, I am…But it’s no good looking too far ahead. I’ve got to have some good excuse for seeing her often. This murder business will do as well as anything else…Besides, I really think it would be as well to do something—that whipper-snapper of a reporter and his publicity…’

Aloud he said:

‘Let’s think about it now. Who killed her? Let’s go over all the people. The stewards?’

‘No,’ said Jane.

‘I agree. The women opposite us?’

‘I don’t suppose anyone like Lady Horbury would go killing people. And the other one, Miss Kerr, well, she’s far too county. She wouldn’t kill an old Frenchwoman, I’m sure.’

‘Only an unpopular MFH? I expect you’re not far wrong, Jane. Then there’s moustachios, but he seems, according to the coroner’s jury, to be the most likely person, so that washes him out. The doctor? That doesn’t seem very likely, either.’

‘If he’d wanted to kill her he could have used something quite untraceable and nobody would ever have known.’

‘Ye-es,’ said Norman doubtfully. ‘These untraceable, tasteless, odourless poisons are very convenient, but I’m a bit doubtful if they really exist. What about the little man who owned up to having a blowpipe?’

‘That’s rather suspicious. But he seemed a very nice little man, and he needn’t have said he had a blowpipe, so that looks as though he were all right.’

‘Then there’s Jameson—no—what’s his name—Ryder?’

‘Yes, it might be him.’

‘And the two Frenchmen?’

‘That’s the most likely of all. They’ve been to queer places. And of course they may have had some reason we know nothing about. I thought the younger one looked very unhappy and worried.’