Death in the Clouds (Hercule Poirot 12)

‘Darling, my face is really too frightful this morning, it really is…’

The friend, who in a bored manner was turning over the pages of a three-weeks-old Sketch, replied uninterestedly:

‘Do you think so, my sweet? It seems to me much the same as usual.’

On the entrance of Jane the bored friend stopped her languid survey of the Sketch and subjected Jane to a piercing stare instead.

Then she said, ‘It is, darling. I’m sure of it.’

‘Good morning, Madam,’ said Jane with that airy brightness expected of her and which she could now produce quite mechanically and without any effort whatsoever. ‘It’s quite a long time since we’ve seen you here. I expect you’ve been abroad.’

‘Antibes,’ said the henna-haired woman, who in her turn was staring at Jane with the frankest interest.

‘How lovely,’ said Jane with false enthusiasm. ‘Let me see, is it a shampoo and set, or are you having a tint today?’

Momentarily diverted from her scrutiny, the henna-haired woman leaned forward and examined her hair attentively.

‘I think I could go another week. Heavens, what a fright I look!’

The friend said, ‘Well, darling, what can you expect at this time of the morning?’

Jane said, ‘Ah! wait until M. Georges has finished with you.’

‘Tell me,’ the woman resumed her stare, ‘are you the girl who gave evidence at the inquest yesterday—the girl who was in the aeroplane?’

‘Yes, Madam.’

‘How too terribly thrilling! Tell me about it.’

Jane did her best to please.

‘Well, Madam, it was all rather dreadful, really—’ She plunged into narration, answering questions as they came. What had the old woman looked like? Was it true that there were two French detectives aboard and that the whole thing was mixed up with the French Government scandals? Was Lady Horbury on board? Was she really as good-looking as everyone said? Who did she, Jane, think had actually done the murder? They said the whole thing was being hushed up for Government reasons, and so on and so on…

This first ordeal was only a forerunner of many others all on the same lines. Everyone wanted to be done by ‘the girl who was on the plane’. Everyone was able to say to their friends, ‘My dear, positively too marvellous. The girl at my hairdresser’s is the girl…Yes, I should go there if I were you—they do your hair very well…Jeanne, her name is…rather a little thing, big eyes. She’ll tell you all about it if you ask her nicely…’

By the end of the week Jane felt her nerves giving way under the strain. Sometimes she felt that if she had to go through the recital once again she would scream or attack her questioner with the dryer.

However, in the end she hit upon a better way of relieving her feelings. She approached M. Antoine and boldly demanded a rise of salary.

‘You ask that? You have the impudence, when it is only out of kindness of heart that I keep you here, after you have been mixed up in a murder case? Many men, less kindhearted than I, would have dismissed you immediately.’

‘That’s nonsense,’ said Jane coolly. ‘I’m a draw in this place and you know it. If you want me to go, I’ll go. I’ll easily get what I want from Henri’s or the Maison Richet.’

‘And who is to know you have gone there? Of what importance are you anyway?’

‘I met one or two reporters at that inquest,’ said Jane. ‘One of them would give my change of establishment any publicity needed.’

Because he feared that this was indeed so, grumblingly M. Antoine agreed to Jane’s demands. Gladys applauded her friend heartily.

‘Good for you, dear,’ she said. ‘Ikey Andrew was no match for you that time. If a girl couldn’t fend for herself a bit I don’t know where we’d all be. Grit, dear, that’s what you’ve got, and I admire you for it.’

‘I can fight for my own hand all right,’ said Jane, her small chin lifting itself pugnaciously. ‘I’ve had to all my life.’

‘Hard lines, dear,’ said Gladys. ‘But keep your end up with Ikey Andrew. He likes you all the better for it, really. Meekness doesn’t pay in this life—but I don’t think we’re either of us troubled by too much of that.’

Thereafter Jane’s narrative, repeated daily with little variation, sank into the equivalent of a part played on the stage.

The promised dinner and theatre with Norman Gale had duly come off. It was one of those enchanting evenings when every word and confidence exchanged seemed to reveal a bond of sympathy and shared tastes.