Together he and Poirot left the office, leaving Jules Perrot staring after them with a frightened face.
On the pavement outside, Fournier removed his hat and bowed.
‘I salute you, M. Poirot. What gave you this idea?’
‘Two separate sentences. One this morning when I heard a man in our plane say that he had crossed on the morning of the murder in a nearly empty plane. The second sentence was that uttered by Elise when she said that she rung up the office of Universal Airlines and that there was no room on the early morning service. Now those two statements did not agree. I remembered the steward on the Prometheus saying that he had seen Madame Giselle before on the early service—so it was clearly her custom to go by the 8.45 am plane.
‘But somebody wanted her to go on the 12 o’clock—somebody who was already travelling by the Prometheus. Why did the clerk say that the early service was booked up? A mistake, or a deliberate lie? I fancied the latter…I was right.’
‘Every minute this case gets more puzzling,’ cried Fournier. ‘First we seem to be on the track of a woman. Now it is a man. This American—’
He stopped and looked at Poirot.
The latter nodded gently.
‘Yes, my friend,’ he said. ‘It is so easy to be an American—here in Paris! A nasal voice—the chewing gum—the little goatee—the horn-rimmed spectacles—all the appurtenances of the stage American…’
He took from his pocket the page he had torn from the Sketch.
‘What are you looking at?’
‘At a countess in her bathing suit.’
‘You think—? But no, she is petite, charming, fragile—she could not impersonate a tall stooping American. She has been an actress, yes, but to act such a part is out of the question. No, my friend, that idea will not do.’
‘I never said it would,’ said Hercule Poirot.
And still he looked earnestly at the printed page.
Chapter 12
At Horbury Chase
Lord Horbury stood by the sideboard and helped himself absent-mindedly to kidneys.
Stephen Horbury was twenty-seven years of age. He had a narrow head and a long chin. He looked very much what he was—a sporting out-of-door kind of man without anything very spectacular in the way of brains. He was kind-hearted, slightly priggish, intensely loyal and invincibly obstinate.
He took his heaped plate back to the table and began to eat. Presently he opened a newspaper, but immediately, with a frown, he cast it aside. He thrust aside his unfinished plate, drank some coffee and rose to his feet. He paused uncertainly for a minute, then with a slight nod of the head he left the dining-room, crossed the wide hall and went upstairs. He tapped at a door and waited for a minute. From inside the room a clear high voice cried out, ‘Come in.’
Lord Horbury went in.
It was a wide beautiful bedroom facing south. Cicely Horbury was in bed, a great carved oak Elizabethan bed. Very lovely she looked, too, in her rose chiffon draperies, with the curling gold of her hair. A breakfast tray with the remains of orange juice and coffee on it was on a table beside her. She was opening her letters. Her maid was moving about the room.
Any man might be excused if his breath came a little faster confronted by so much loveliness; but the charming picture his wife presented affected Lord Horbury not at all.
There had been a time, three years ago, when the breathtaking loveliness of his Cicely had set the young man’s senses reeling. He had been madly, wildly, passionately in love. All that was over. He had been mad. He was now sane.
Lady Horbury said in some surprise:
‘Why, Stephen?’
He said abruptly, ‘I’d like to talk to you alone.’
‘Madeleine.’ Lady Horbury spoke to her maid. ‘Leave all that. Get out.’
The French girl murmured, ‘Très bien, m’lady’, shot a quick interested look out of the corner of her eye at Lord Horbury and left the room.
Lord Horbury waited till she had shut the door, then he said: