Death in the Clouds

  ‘You’re still in England, then,’ said Jane, and silently cursed herself for the extreme inanity of her remark.

  ‘Yes. My father has been to Edinburgh to give a lecture there, and we have stayed with friends also. But now—tomorrow—we return to France.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘The police, they have not made an arrest yet?’ said Jean Dupont.

  ‘No, there’s not even been anything about it in the papers lately. Perhaps they’ve given it up.’

  Jean Dupont shook his head. ‘No, no, they will not have given it up. They work silently’—he made an expressive gesture—‘in the dark.’

  ‘Don’t,’ said Jane uneasily. ‘You give me the creeps.’

  ‘Yes, it is not a very nice feeling, to have been so close when a murder was committed…’ He added, ‘And I was closer than you were. I was very close indeed. Sometimes I do not like to think of that…’

  ‘Who do you think did it?’ asked Jane. ‘I’ve wondered and wondered.’

  Jean Dupont shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘It was not I. She was far too ugly!’

  ‘Well,’ said Jane, ‘I suppose you would rather kill an ugly woman than a good-looking one?’

  ‘Not at all. If a woman is good-looking you are fond of her—she treats you badly—she makes you jealous, mad with jealousy. “Good,” you say, “I will kill her. It will be a satisfaction”.’

  ‘And is it a satisfaction?’

  ‘That, Mademoiselle, I do not know, because I have not yet tried.’ He laughed, then shook his head. ‘But an ugly old woman like Giselle—who would want to bother to kill her?’

  ‘Well, that’s one way of looking at it,’ said Jane. She frowned. ‘It seems rather terrible, somehow, to think that perhaps she was young and pretty once.’

  ‘I know, I know.’ He became suddenly grave. ‘It is the great tragedy of life, that women grow old.’

  ‘You seem to think a lot about women and their looks,’ said Jane.

  ‘Naturally. It is the most interesting subject possible. That seems strange to you because you are English. An Englishman thinks first of his work—his job, he calls it—and then of his sport, and last—a good way last—of his wife. Yes, yes, it is really so. Why, imagine, in a little hotel in Syria was an Englishman whose wife had been taken ill. He himself had to be somewhere in Iraq by a certain date. Eh bien, would you believe it, he left his wife and went on so as to be “on duty” in time. And both he and his wife thought that quite natural; they thought him noble, unselfish. But the doctor, who was not English, thought him a barbarian. A wife, a human being—that should come first; to do one’s job—that is something much less important.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Jane. ‘One’s work has to come first, I suppose.’

  ‘But why? You see, you too have the same point of view. By doing one’s work one obtains money—by indulging and looking after a woman one spends it—so the last is much more noble an ideal than the first.’

  Jane laughed.

  ‘Oh, well,’ she said. ‘I think I’d rather be regarded as a mere luxury and self-indulgence, than regarded sternly as a First Duty. I’d rather a man felt that he was enjoying himself looking after me than that he should feel I was a duty to be attended to.’

  ‘No one, Mademoiselle, would be likely to feel that with you.’

  Jane blushed slightly at the earnestness of the young man’s tone. He went on talking quickly:

  ‘I have only been in England once before. It was very interesting to me the other day at the—inquest, you call it?—to study three young and charming women, all so different from one another.’

  ‘What did you think of us all?’ asked Jane, amused.

  ‘That Lady Horbury—bah, I know her type well. It is very exotic—very, very expensive. You see it sitting round the baccarat table—the soft face—the hard expression—and you know—you know so well what it will be like in, say fifteen years. She lives for sensation, that one. For high play, perhaps for drugs…Au fond, she is uninteresting!’

  ‘And Miss Kerr?’

  ‘Ah, she is very, very English. She is the kind that any shopkeeper on the Riviera will give credit to; they are very discerning, our shopkeepers. Her clothes are very well cut, but rather like a man’s. She walks about as though she owns the earth. She is not conceited about it—she is just an Englishwoman. She knows which department of England different people come from. It is true. I have heard ones like her in Egypt. “What? The Etceteras are here? The Yorkshire Etceteras? Oh, the Shropshire Etceteras”.’

  His mimicry was good. Jane laughed at the drawling, well-bred tones.

  ‘And then—me,’ she said.

  ‘And then you. And I say to myself, “How nice, how very nice it would be if I were to see her again one day.” And here I am sitting opposite you. The gods arrange things very well sometimes.’

  Jane said, ‘You’re an archaeologist, aren’t you? You dig up things?’

  And she listened with keen attention while Jean Dupont talked of his work.

  Jane gave a little sigh at last.

  ‘You’ve been in so many countries. You’ve seen so much. It all sounds so fascinating. And I shall never go anywhere or see anything.’

  ‘You would like that—to go abroad—to see wild parts of the earth? You would not be able to get your hair waved, remember.’

  ‘It waves by itself,’ said Jane, laughing.

  She looked up at the clock and hastily summoned the waitress for her bill.

  Jean Dupont said with a little embarrassment, ‘Mademoiselle, I wonder if you would permit—as I have told you, I return to France tomorrow—if you would dine with me tonight.’

  ‘I’m so sorry, I can’t. I’m dining with someone.’

  ‘Ah! I’m sorry, very sorry. You will come again to Paris, soon?’

  ‘I don’t expect so.’

  ‘And me, I do not know when I shall be in London again! It is sad!’

  He stood a moment, holding Jane’s hand in his.

  ‘I shall hope to see you again, very much,’ he said, and sounded as though he meant it.

  Chapter 14

  At Muswell Hill

  At about the time that Jane was leaving Antoine’s, Norman Gale was saying in a hearty professional tone, ‘Just a little tender, I’m afraid…Guide me if I hurt you—’

  His expert hand guided the electric drill.

  ‘There, that’s all over. Miss Ross?’

  Miss Ross was immediately at his elbow stirring a minute white concoction on a slab.

  Norman Gale completed his filling and said, ‘Let me see, it’s next Tuesday you’re coming for those others?’

  His patient, rinsing her mouth ardently, burst into a fluent explanation. She was going away—so sorry—would have to cancel the next appointment. Yes, she would let him know when she got back.

  And she escaped hurriedly from the room.

  ‘Well,’ said Gale, ‘that’s all for today.’

  Miss Ross said, ‘Lady Higginson rang up to say she must give up her appointment next week. She wouldn’t make another. Oh, and Colonel Blunt can’t come on Thursday.’

  Norman Gale nodded. His face hardened.

  Every day was the same. People ringing up. Cancelled appointments. All varieties of excuses—going away—going abroad—got a cold—may not be here—

  It didn’t matter what reason they gave, the real reason Norman had just seen quite unmistakably in his last patient’s eye as he reached for the drill…a look of sudden panic…

  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?’

  ‘I’m not worried to death. I’m just annoyed.’

  ‘You mean people are fighting shy—’

  ‘Of having their teeth attended to by a possible murderer? Yes.’

  ‘How cruelly unfair!’

  ‘It is, rather. Because frankly, Jane, I’m a jolly good dentist. And I’m not a murderer.’

  ‘It’s wicked. Somebody ought to do something.’

  ‘That’s what my secretary, Miss Ross, said this morning.’

  ‘What’s she like?’

  ‘Miss Ross?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. Big—lots of bones—nose rather like a rocking horse—frightfully competent.’

  ‘She sounds quite nice,’ said Jane graciously.

  Norman rightly took this as a tribute to his diplomacy. Miss Ross’s bones were not really quite as formidable as stated, and she had an extremely attractive head of red hair, but he felt, and rightly, that it was just as well not to dwell on the latter point to Jane.

  ‘I’d like to do something,’ he said. ‘If I was a young man in a book I’d find a clue or I’d shadow somebody.’

  Jane tugged suddenly at his sleeve.

  ‘Look, there’s Mr Clancy—you know, the author—sitting over there by the wall by himself. We might shadow him.’

  ‘But we were going to the flicks?’

  ‘Never mind the flicks. I feel somehow this might be meant. You said you wanted to shadow somebody, and here’s somebody to shadow. You never know. We might find out something.’

  Jane’s enthusiasm was infectious. Norman fell in with the plan readily enough.

  ‘As you say, one never knows,’ he said. ‘Whereabouts has he got to in his dinner? I can’t see properly without turning my head, and I don’t want to stare.’

  ‘He’s about level with us,’ said Jane. ‘We’d better hurry a bit and get ahead and then we can pay the bill and be ready to leave when he does.’

  They adopted this plan. When at last little Mr Clancy rose and passed out into Dean Street, Norman and Jane were fairly close on his heels.

  ‘In case he takes a taxi,’ Jane explained.

  But Mr Clancy did not take a taxi. Carrying an overcoat over one arm (and, occasionally allowing it to trail on the ground), he ambled gently through the London streets. His progress was somewhat erratic. Sometimes he moved forward at a brisk trot, sometimes he slowed down till he almost came to a stop. Once, on the very brink of crossing a road, he did come to a standstill, standing there with one foot hanging over the kerb and looking exactly like a slow-motion picture.

  His direction, too, was erratic. Once he actually took so many right-angle turns that he traversed the same streets twice over.

  Jane felt her spirits rise.

  ‘You see?’ she said excitedly. ‘He’s afraid of being followed. He’s trying to put us off the scent.’

  ‘Do you think so?’

  ‘Of course. Nobody would go round in circles otherwise.’

  ‘Oh!’

  They had turned a corner rather quickly and had almost cannoned into their quarry. He was standing staring up at a butcher’s shop. The shop itself was naturally closed, but it seemed to be something about the level of the first floor that was riveting Mr Clancy’s attention.

  He said aloud, ‘Perfect. The very thing. What a piece of luck!’

  He took out a little book and wrote something down very carefully. Then he started off again at a brisk pace, humming a little tune.

  He was now heading definitely for Bloomsbury. Sometimes, when he turned his head, the two behind could see his lips moving.

  ‘There is something up,’ said Jane. ‘He’s in great distress of mind. He’s talking to himself and he doesn’t know it.’

  As he waited to cross by some traffic lights, Norman and Jane drew abreast.

  It was quite true; Mr Clancy was talking to himself. His face looked white and strained. Norman and Jane caught a few muttered words:

  ‘Why doesn’t she speak? Why? There must be a reason…’

  The lights went green. As they reached the opposite pavement Mr Clancy said, ‘I see now. Of course. That’s why she’s got to be silenced!’

  Jane pinched Norman ferociously.

  Mr Clancy set off at a great pace now. The overcoat dragged hopelessly. With great strides the little author covered the ground, apparently oblivious of the two people on his tracks.

  Finally, with disconcerting abruptness, he stopped at a house, opened the door with a key and went in.

  Norman and Jane looked at each other.

  ‘It’s his own house,’ said Norman. ‘47 Cardington Square. That’s the address he gave at the inquest.’

  ‘Oh, well,’ said Jane, ‘perhaps he’ll come out
again by and by. And, anyway, we have heard something. Somebody—a woman—is going to be silenced, and some other woman won’t speak. Oh, dear, it sounds dreadfully like a detective story.’

  A voice came out of the darkness. ‘Good evening,’ it said.

  The owner of the voice stepped forward. A pair of magnificent moustaches showed in the lamplight.

  ‘Eh bien,’ said Hercule Poirot. ‘A fine evening for the chase, is it not?’

  Chapter 15

  In Bloomsbury

  Of the two startled young people, it was Norman Gale who recovered himself first.

  ‘Of course,’ he said, ‘it’s Monsieur—Monsieur Poirot. Are you still trying to clear your character, M. Poirot?’

  ‘Ah, you remember our little conversation? And it is the poor Mr Clancy you suspect?’

  ‘So do you,’ said Jane acutely, ‘or you wouldn’t be here.’

  He looked at her thoughtfully for a moment.

  ‘Have you ever thought about murder, Mademoiselle? Thought about it, I mean, in the abstract—cold-bloodedly and dispassionately?’

  ‘I don’t think I’ve ever thought about it at all until just lately,’ said Jane.

  Hercule Poirot nodded.

  ‘Yes, you think about it now because a murder has touched you personally. But me, I have dealt with crime for many years now. I have my own way of regarding things. What should you say the most important thing was to bear in mind when you are trying to solve a murder?’

  ‘Finding the murderer,’ said Jane.

  Norman Gale said, ‘Justice.’

  Poirot shook his head. ‘There are more important things than finding the murderer. And justice is a fine word, but it is sometimes difficult to say exactly what one means by it. In my opinion the important thing is to clear the innocent.’

  ‘Oh, naturally,’ said Jane. ‘That goes without saying. If anyone is falsely accused—’

  ‘Not even that. There may be no accusation. But until one person is proved guilty beyond any possible doubt, everyone else who is associated with the crime is liable to suffer in varying degrees.’

  Norman Gale said with emphasis, ‘How true that is.’