Death in the Clouds (Hercule Poirot 12)

Mitchell shook his head.

‘I ought to have noticed that the lady was dead sooner. If I’d tried to wake her up when I first took round the bills—’

‘It would have made little difference. Death, they think, was very nearly instantaneous.’

‘He worries so,’ said Mrs Mitchell. ‘I tell him not to bother his head so. Who’s to know what reason foreigners have for murdering each other; and if you ask me, I think it’s a dirty trick to have done it in a British aeroplane.’

She finished her sentence with an indignant and patriotic snort.

Mitchell shook his head in a puzzled way.

‘It weighs on me, so to speak. Every time I go on duty I’m in a state. And then the gentleman from Scotland Yard asking me again and again if nothing unusual or sudden occurred on the way over. Makes me feel as though I must have forgotten something—and yet I know I haven’t. It was a most uneventful voyage in every way until—until it happened.’

‘Blowpipes and darts—heathen, I call it,’ said Mrs Mitchell.

‘You are right,’ said Poirot, addressing her with a flattering air of being struck by her remarks. ‘Not so is an English murder committed.’

‘You’re right, sir.’

‘You know, Mrs Mitchell, I can almost guess what part of England you come from.’

‘Dorset, sir. Not far from Bridport. That’s my home.’

‘Exactly,’ said Poirot. ‘A lovely part of the world.’

‘It is that. London isn’t a patch on Dorset. My folk have been settled in Dorset for over two hundred years—and I’ve got Dorset in the blood, as you might say.’

‘Yes, indeed.’ He turned to the steward again. ‘There’s one thing I’d like to ask you, Mitchell.’

The man’s brow contracted.

‘I’ve told you all that I know—indeed I have, sir.’

‘Yes, yes—this is a very trifling matter. I only wondered if anything on the table—Madame Giselle’s table, I mean—was disarranged?’

‘You mean when—when I found her?’

‘Yes. The spoons and forks—the salt cellar—anything like that.’

The man shook his head.

‘There wasn’t anything of that kind on the tables. Everything was cleared away bar the coffee cups. I didn’t notice anything myself. I shouldn’t, though. I was much too flustered. But the police would know that, sir, they searched the plane through and through.’

‘Ah, well,’ said Poirot. ‘It is no matter. Sometime I must have a word with your colleague—Davis.’

‘He’s on the early 8.45 am service now, sir.’

‘Has this business upset him much?’

‘Oh, well, sir, you see he’s only a young fellow. If you ask me, he’s almost enjoyed it all. The excitement, and everyone standing him drinks and wanting to hear about it.’

‘Has he perhaps a young lady?’ asked Poirot. ‘Doubtless his connexion with the crime would be very thrilling to her.’

‘He’s courting old Johnson’s daughter at the Crown and Feathers,’ said Mrs Mitchell. ‘But she’s a sensible girl—got her head screwed on the right way. She doesn’t approve of being mixed up with a murder.’

‘A very sound point of view,’ said Poirot, rising. ‘Well, thank you, Mr Mitchell—and you, Mrs Mitchell—and I beg of you, my friend, do not let this weigh upon your mind.’

When he had departed Mitchell said, ‘The thick heads in the jury at the inquest thought he’d done it. But if you ask me, he’s secret service.’