Death in the Clouds (Hercule Poirot 12)

Peace settled down on the car. Conversation ceased, but thoughts pursued their way.

Right at the end of the car, in seat No. 2, Madame Giselle’s head lolled forward a little. One might have taken her to be asleep. But she was not asleep. She neither spoke nor thought.

Madame Giselle was dead…

Chapter 2

Discovery

Henry Mitchell, the senior of the two stewards, passed swiftly from table to table depositing bills. In half an hour’s time they would be at Croydon. He gathered up notes and silver, bowed, said, ‘Thank you, sir. Thank you, Madam.’ At the table where the two Frenchmen sat he had to wait a minute or two, they were so busy discussing and gesticulating. And there wouldn’t be much of a tip anyway from them, he thought gloomily. Two of the passengers were asleep—the little man with the moustaches, and the old woman down at the end. She was a good tipper, though—he remembered her crossing several times. He refrained therefore from awaking her.

The little man with the moustaches woke up and paid for the bottle of soda water and the thin captain biscuits, which was all he had had.

Mitchell left the other passenger as long as possible. About five minutes before they reached Croydon he stood by her side and leant over her.

‘Pardon, Madam, your bill.’

He laid a deferential hand on her shoulder. She did not wake. He increased the pressure, shaking her gently, but the only result was an unexpected slumping of the body down in the seat. Mitchell bent over her, then straightened up with a white face.

II

Albert Davis, second steward, said:

‘Coo! You don’t mean it!’

‘I tell you it’s true.’

Mitchell was white and shaking.

‘You sure, Henry?’

‘Dead sure. At least—well, I suppose it might be a fit.’

‘We’ll be at Croydon in a few minutes.’

‘If she’s just taken bad—’

They remained a minute or two undecided—then arranged their course of action. Mitchell returned to the rear car. He went from table to table, bending his head and murmuring confidentially:

‘Excuse me, sir, you don’t happen to be a doctor—?’

Norman Gale said, ‘I’m a dentist. But if there’s anything I can do—?’ He half rose from his seat.

‘I’m a doctor,’ said Dr Bryant. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘There’s a lady at the end there—I don’t like the look of her.’

Bryant rose to his feet and accompanied the steward. Unnoticed, the little man with the moustaches followed them.

Dr Bryant bent over the huddled figure in seat No. 2, the figure of a stoutish middle-aged woman dressed in heavy black.

The doctor’s examination was brief.

He said: ‘She’s dead.’

Mitchell said, ‘What do you think it was—kind of fit?’

‘That I can’t possibly say without a detailed examination. When did you last see her—alive, I mean?’