Death in the Clouds hp-12 Read online

She touched her horse gently with her heel. As she turned to wave a good-by to Stephen, their eyes met, and in that glance was all the feeling that their careful words had avoided.

  As she rounded the corner of the lane, Venetia dropped her whip. A man walking picked it up and returned it to her with an exaggerated bow.

  "A foreigner," she thought as she thanked him. "I seem to remember his face." Half of her mind searched through the summer days at Juan les Pins while the other half thought of Stephen.

  Only just as she reached home did memory suddenly pull her half-dreaming brain up with a jerk:

  "The little man who gave me his seat in the aeroplane. They said at the inquest he was a detective."

  And hard on that came another thought:

  "What is he doing down here?"

  Chapter 13

  Jane presented herself at Antoine's on the morning after the inquest with some trepidation of spirit.

  The person who was usually regarded as M. Antoine himself, and whose real name was Andrew Leech, greeted her with an ominous frown.

  It was by now second nature to him to speak in broken English once within the portals of Bruton Street.

  He upbraided Jane as a complete imbecile. Why did she wish to travel by air, anyway? What an idea! Her escapade would do his establishment infinite harm. Having vented his spleen to the full, Jane was permitted to escape, receiving as she did so a large-sized wink from her friend, Gladys.

  Gladys was an ethereal blonde with a haughty demeanor and a faint, far-away professional voice. In private, her voice was hoarse and jocular.

  "Don't you worry, dear," she said to Jane. "The old brute's sitting on the fence watching which way the cat will jump. And it's my belief it isn't going to jump the way he thinks it is. Ta-ta, dearie, here's my old devil coming in, damn her eyes. I suppose she'll be in seventeen tantrums, as usual. I hope she hasn't brought that lap dog with her."

  A moment later Gladys' voice could be heard with its faint far-away notes:

  "Good morning, madam. Not brought your sweet little Pekingese with you? Shall we get on with the shampoo, and then we'll be all ready for M. Henri."

  Jane had just entered the adjoining cubicle, where a henna-haired woman was sitting waiting, examining her face in the glass and saying to a friend:

  "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 uninterestediy:

  "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 toward 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 her friends, "My dear, positively too marvelous. 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 raise 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 kind-hearted 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. "Iky 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 Iky 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 theater 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.

  They liked dogs and disliked cats. They both hated oysters and loved smoked salmon. They liked Greta Garbo and disliked Katharine Hepburn. They didn't like fat women and admired really jet-black hair. They disliked very red nails. They disliked loud voices, and noisy restaurants. They preferred busses to tubes.

  It seemed almost miraculous that two people should have so many points of agreement.

  One day at Antoine's, opening her bag, Jane let a letter from Norman fall out. As she picked it up with a slightly heightened color, Gladys pounced upon her:

  "Who's your boy friend, dear?"

  "I don't know what you mean," retorted Jane, her color rising.

  "Don't tell me! I know that letter isn't from your mother's great-uncle. I wasn't born yesterday. Who is he, Jane?"

  "It's someone – a man – that I met at Le Pinet. He's a dentist."

  "A dentist," said Gladys with lively distaste. "I suppose he's got very white teeth and a smile."

  Jane was forced to admit that this was indeed the case.

  "He's got a very brown face and very blue eyes."

  "Anyone can have a brown face," said Gladys. "It may be the seaside or it may be out of a bottle – two and eleven pence at the chemist's. Handsome Men are Slightly Bronzed. The eyes sound all right. But a dentist! Why, if he was going t
o kiss you, you'd feel he was going to say, 'Open a little wider, please.'"

  "Don't be an idiot, Gladys."

  "You needn't be so touchy, my dear. I see you've got it badly… Yes, Mr Henry, I'm just coming… Drat Henry. Thinks he's God Almighty, the way he orders us girls about!"

  The letter had been to suggest dinner on Saturday evening. At lunchtime on Saturday, when Jane received her augmented pay, she felt full of high spirits.

  "And to think," said Jane to herself, "that I was worrying so that day coming over in the aeroplane. Everything's turned out beautifully. Life is really too marvelous."

  So full of exuberance did she feel that she decided to be extravagant and lunch at the Corner House and enjoy the accompaniment of music to her food.

  She seated herself at a table for four where there were already a middle-aged woman and a young man sitting. The middle-aged woman was just finishing her lunch. Presently she called for her bill, picked up a large collection of parcels and departed.

  Jane, as was her custom, read a book as she ate. Looking up as she turned a page she noticed the young man opposite her staring at her very intently, and at the same moment realized that his face was vaguely familiar to her.

  Just as she made these discoveries, the young man caught her eye and bowed.

  "Excuse me, mademoiselle. You do not recognize me?"

  Jane looked at him more attentively. He had a fair boyish-looking face, attractive more by reason of its extreme mobility than because of any actual claim to good looks.

  "We have not been introduced, it is true," went on the young man. "Unless you call murder an introduction and the fact that we both gave evidence in the coroner's court."

  "Of course," said Jane. "How stupid of me! I thought I knew your face. You are -"

  "Jean Dupont," said the man, and gave a funny, rather engaging little bow.

  A remembrance flashed into Jane's mind of a dictum of Gladys', expressed perhaps without undue delicacy:

  "If there's one fellow after you, there's sure to be another. Seems to be a law of Nature. Sometimes it's three or four."

  Now, Jane had always led an austere hard-working life – rather like the description, after the disappearance, of girls who were missing – "She was a bright cheerful girl, with no men friends," and so on. Jane had been "a bright cheerful girl, with no men friends." Now it seemed that men friends were rolling up all round. There was no doubt about it; Jean Dupont's face as he leaned across the table held more than mere interested politeness. He was pleased to be sitting opposite Jane. He was more than pleased, he was delighted.

  Jane thought to herself, with a touch of misgiving:

  "He's French, though. You've got to look out with the French; they always say so."

  "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 and 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 be 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 itsel
f," 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 am 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 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. Tell 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. Canceled 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."