Death in the Clouds (Hercule Poirot 12)

He could have written down the woman’s thoughts on paper.

‘Oh, dear, of course he was in that aeroplane when that woman was murdered…I wonder…You do hear of people going off their heads and doing the most senseless crimes. It really isn’t safe. The man might be a homicidal lunatic. They look the same as other people, I’ve always heard…I believe I always felt there was rather a peculiar look in his eye…’

‘Well,’ said Gale, ‘it looks

like being a quiet week next week, Miss Ross.’

‘Yes, a lot of people have dropped out. Oh, well, you can do with a rest. You worked so hard earlier in the summer.’

‘It doesn’t look as though I were going to have a chance of working very hard in the autumn, does it?’

Miss Ross did not reply. She was saved from having to do so by the telephone ringing. She went out of the room to answer it.

Norman dropped some instruments into the sterilizer, thinking hard.

‘Let’s see how we stand. No beating about the bush. This business has about done for me professionally. Funny, it’s done well for Jane. People come on purpose to gape at her. Come to think of it, that’s what’s wrong here—they have to gape at me, and they don’t like it! Nasty helpless feeling you have in a dentist’s chair. If the dentist were to run amuck…

‘What a strange business murder is! You’d think it was a perfectly straightforward issue—and it isn’t. It affects all sorts of queer things you’d never think of…Come back to facts. As a dentist I seem to be about done for…What would happen, I wonder, if they arrested the Horbury woman? Would my patients come trooping back? Hard to say. Once the rot’s set in…Oh, well, what does it matter? I don’t care. Yes, I do—because of Jane…Jane’s adorable. I want her. And I can’t have her—yet…A damnable nuisance.’

He smiled. ‘I feel it’s going to be all right…She cares…She’ll wait…Damn it, I shall go to Canada—yes, that’s it—and make money there.’

He laughed to himself.

Miss Ross came back into the room.

‘That was Mrs Lorrie. She’s sorry—’

‘—but she may be going to Timbuctoo,’ finished Norman. ‘Vive les rats! You’d better look out for another post, Miss Ross. This seems to be a sinking ship.’

‘Oh, Mr Gale, I shouldn’t think of deserting you…’

‘Good girl. You’re not a rat, anyway. But seriously I mean it. If something doesn’t happen to clear up this mess I’m done for.’

‘Something ought to be done about it!’ said Miss Ross with energy. ‘I think the police are disgraceful. They’re not trying.’

Norman laughed. ‘I expect they’re trying all right.’

‘Somebody ought to do something.’

‘Quite right. I’ve rather thought of trying to do something myself—though I don’t quite know what.’

‘Oh, Mr Gale, I should. You’re so clever.’

‘I’m a hero to that girl all right,’ thought Norman Gale. ‘She’d like to help me in my sleuth stuff; but I’ve got another partner in view.’

It was that same evening that he dined with Jane. Half-unconsciously he pretended to be in very high spirits, but Jane was too astute to be deceived. She noted his sudden moments of absent-mindedness, the little frown that showed between his brows, the sudden strained line of his mouth.

She said at last, ‘Norman, are things going badly?’

He shot a quick glance at her, then looked away.

‘Well, not too frightfully well. It’s a bad time of year.’

‘Don’t be idiotic,’ said Jane sharply.

‘Jane!’

‘I mean it. Don’t you think I can see that you’re worried to death?’