Death in the Clouds (Hercule Poirot 12)

Poirot shook his head in a dissatisfied manner.

Fournier looked at him curiously.

‘What is it that is in your mind, M. Poirot?’

‘Mon ami,’ said Poirot, ‘my point is this: an affair must be judged by its results. This affair has succeeded. That is my point.’

‘And yet,’ said the Frenchman thoughtfully, ‘it seems almost a miracle.’

‘Miracle or no miracle, there it is,’ said Japp. ‘We’ve got the medical evidence, we’ve got the weapon; and if anyone had told me a week ago that I should be investigating a crime where a woman was killed with a poisoned dart with snake venom on it—well, I’d have laughed in his face! It’s an insult—that’s what this murder is—an insult.’

He breathed deeply. Poirot smiled.

‘It is, perhaps, a murder committed by a person with a perverted sense of humour,’ said Fournier thoughtfully. ‘It is most important in a crime to get an idea of the psychology of the murderer.’

Japp snorted slightly at the word psychology, which he disliked and mistrusted.

‘That’s the sort of stuff M. Poirot likes to hear,’ he said.

‘I am very interested, yes, in what you both say.’

‘You don’t doubt that she was killed that way, I suppose?’ Japp asked him suspiciously. ‘I know your tortuous mind.’

‘No, no, my friend. My mind is quite at ease on that point. The poisoned thorn that I picked up was the cause of death—that is quite certain. But nevertheless there are points about this case—’

He paused, shaking his head perplexedly.

Japp went on:

‘Well, to get back to our Irish stew, we can’t wash out the stewards absolutely, but I think myself it’s very unlikely that either of them had anything to do with it. Do you agree, M. Poirot?’

‘Oh, you remember what I said. Me—I would not wash out—what a term, mon Dieu!—anybody at this stage.’

‘Have it your own way. Now, the passengers. Let’s start up the end by the stewards’ pantry and the toilets. Seat No. 16.’ He jabbed a pencil on the plan. ‘That’s the hairdressing girl, Jane Grey. Got a ticket in the Irish Sweep—blued it at Le Pinet. That means the girl’s a gambler. She might have been hard up and borrowed from the old dame—doesn’t seem likely, either, that she borrowed a large sum, or that Giselle could have a “hold” over her. Seems ra

ther too small a fish for what we’re looking for. And I don’t think a hairdresser’s assistant had the remotest chance of laying her hands on snake venom. They don’t use it as a hair dye or for face massage.

‘In a way it was rather a mistake to use snake venom; it narrows things down a lot. Only about two people in a hundred would be likely to have any knowledge of it and be able to lay hands on the stuff.’

‘Which makes one thing, at least, perfectly clear,’ said Poirot.

It was Fournier who shot a quick glance of inquiry at him.

Japp was busy with his own ideas.

‘I look at it like this,’ he said. ‘The murderer has got to fall into one of two categories: either he’s a man who’s knocked about the world in queer places—a man who knows something of snakes and of the more deadly varieties and of the habits of the native tribes who use the venom to dispose of their enemies—that’s category No. 1.’

‘And the other?’

‘The scientific line. Research. This boomslang stuff is the kind of thing they experiment with in high-class laboratories. I had a talk with Winterspoon. Apparently snake venom—cobra venom, to be exact—is sometimes used in medicine. It’s used in the treatment of epilepsy with a fair amount of success. There’s a lot being done in the way of scientific investigation into snake bite.’

‘Interesting and suggestive,’ said Fournier.

‘Yes, but let’s go on. Neither of those categories fit the Grey girl. As far as she’s concerned, motive seems unlikely, chances of getting the poison—poor. Actual possibility of doing the blowpipe act very doubtful indeed—almost impossible. See here.’

The three men bent over the plan.

‘Here’s 16,’ said Japp. ‘And here’s 2, where Giselle was sitting with a lot of people and seats intervening. If the girl didn’t move from her seat—and everybody says she didn’t—she couldn’t possibly have aimed the thorn to catch Giselle on the side of the neck. I think we can take it she’s pretty well out of it.