Death in the Clouds (Hercule Poirot 12)

M. Dupont resumed a happy monologue on his own particular theories of Susa I and Susa II.

Poirot reached his hotel, to find Jane saying good night to Jean Dupont in the hall.

As they went up in the lift Poirot said:

‘I have obtained for you a job of great interest. You are to accompany the Duponts to Persia in the spring.’

Jane stared at him.

‘Are you quite mad?’

‘When the offer is made to you, you will accept with every manifestation of delight.’

‘I am certainly not going to Persia. I shall be in Muswell Hill or New Zealand with Norman.’

Poirot twinkled at her gently.

‘My dear child,’ he said, ‘it is some months to next March. To express delight is not to buy a ticket. In the same way, I have talked about a donation—but I have not actually signed a cheque! By the way, I must obtain for you in the morning a handbook on Prehistoric Pottery of the Near East. I have said that you are passionately interested in the subject.’

Jane sighed.

‘Being secretary to you is no sinecure, is it? Anything else?’

‘Yes. I have said that you sew on buttons and darn socks to perfection.’

‘Do I have to give a demonstration of that tomorrow, too?’

‘It would be as well, perhaps,’ said Poirot, ‘if they took my word for it!’

Chapter 23

Anne Morisot

At half past ten on the following morning the melancholy M. Fournier walked into Poirot’s sitting-room and shook the little Belgian warmly by the hand.

His own manner was far more animated than usual.

‘Monsieur,’ he said, ‘there is something I want to tell you. I have, I think, at last seen the point of what you said in London about the finding of the blowpipe.’

‘Ah!’ Poirot’s face lighted up.

‘Yes,’ said Fournier taking a chair. ‘I pondered much over what you had said. Again and again I say to myself: Impossible that the crime should have been committed as we believe. And at last—at last—I see a connexion between that repetition of mine and what you said about the finding of the blowpipe.’

Poirot listened attentively, but said nothing.

‘That day in London you said, Why was the blowpipe found, when it might so easily have been passed out through the ventilator? And I think now that I have the answer. The blowpipe was found because the murderer wanted it to be found.’

‘Bravo!’ said Poirot.

‘That was your meaning, then? Good, I thought so. And I went on a step further. I ask myself: Why did the murderer want the blowpipe to be found? And to that I got the answer: Because the blowpipe was not used.’

‘Bravo! Bravo! My reasoning exactly.’

‘I say to myself: The poisoned dart, yes, but not the blowpipe. Then something else was used to send that dart through the air—something that a man or woman might put to their lips in a normal manner and which would cause no remark. And I remembered your insistence on a complete list of all that was found in the passengers’ luggage and upon their persons. There were two things that especially attracted my attention—Lady Horbury had two cigarette holders, and on the table in front of the Duponts were a number of Kurdish pipes.’

M. Fournier paused. He looked at Poirot. Poirot did not speak.

‘Both those things could have been put to the lips naturally without anyone remarking on it…I am right, am I not?’