Death in the Clouds (Hercule Poirot 12)

‘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.’

‘You cannot shut your eyes to the importance of this turn of events,’ said Fournier. ‘Motive and opportunity—what more can you want?’

‘Nothing. It must be as you say. The delayed action of the poison is indeed extraordinary—practically speaking—one would say impossible. But where poisons are concerned the impossible does happen. One has to reckon with idiosyncrasy…’

His voice tailed off.

‘We must discuss a plan of campaign,’ said Fournier. ‘For the moment it would, I think, be unwise to arouse Anne Morisot’s suspicions. She is completely unaware that you have recognized her. Her bona fide have been accepted. We know the hotel at which she is staying and we can keep in touch with her through Thibault. Legal formalities can always be delayed. We have two points established—opportunity and motive. We have still to prove that

Anne Morisot had snake venom in her possession. There is also the question of the American who bought the blowpipe and bribed Jules Perrot. It might certainly be the husband—Richards. We have only her word for it that he is in Canada.’

‘As you say—the husband…Yes, the husband. Ah, wait—wait!’

Poirot pressed his hands upon his temples.

‘It is all wrong,’ he murmured. ‘I do not employ the little grey cells of the brain in an orderly and methodical way. No, I leap to conclusions. I think, perhaps, what I am meant to think. No, that is wrong again. If my original idea were right, I could not be meant to think—’

He broke off.

‘I beg your pardon,’ said Jane.

Poirot did not answer for a moment or two; then he took his hands from his temples, sat very upright and straightened two forks and a salt-cellar which offended his sense of symmetry.

‘Let us reason,’ he said. ‘Anne Morisot is either guilty or innocent of the crime. If she is innocent why has she lied? Why has she concealed the fact that she was lady’s maid to Lady Horbury?’

‘Why, indeed?’ said Fournier.

‘So we say Anne Morisot is guilty because she has lied. But wait. Suppose my first supposition was correct. Will that supposition fit in with Anne Morisot’s guilt, or with Anne Morisot’s lie? Yes—yes—it might—given one premise. But in that case—and if that premise is correct—then Anne Morisot should not have been on the plane at all.’

The others looked at him politely, if with, perhaps, a rather perfunctory interest.

Fournier thought:

‘I see now what the Englishman, Japp, meant. He makes difficulties, this old one. He tries to make an affair which is now simple sound complicated. He cannot accept a straightforward solution without pretending that it squares with his preconceived ideas.’

Jane thought:

‘I don’t see in the least what he means…Why couldn’t the girl be on the plane? She had to go wherever Lady Horbury wanted her to go…I think he’s rather a mountebank, really…’

Suddenly Poirot drew in his breath with a hiss.

‘Of course,’ he said. ‘It is a possibility; and it ought to be very simple to find out.’