Death in the Clouds hp-12 Read online

  "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 straight-forward 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 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' 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 sleuthing," 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 out over the curb 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 track.

  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. " Forty-seven 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."
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br />   A voice came out of the darkness.

  "Good evening," it said.

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

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

  Chapter 15

  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."

  Jane said:

  "Don't we know it!"

  Poirot looked from one to the other.

  "I see. Already you have been finding that out for yourselves."

  He became suddenly brisk:

  "Come now, I have affairs to see to. Since our aims are the same, we three, let us combine together? I am about to call upon our ingenious friend, Mr Clancy. I would suggest that mademoiselle accompanies me in the guise of my secretary. Here, mademoiselle, is a notebook and a pencil for the shorthand."

  "I can't write shorthand," gasped Jane.

  "But naturally not. But you have the quick wits, the intelligence. You can make plausible signs in pencil in the book, can you not? Good. As for Mr Gale, I suggest that he meets us in, say, an hour's time. Shall we say upstairs at Monseigneur's? Bon! We will compare notes then."

  And forthwith he advanced to the bell and pressed it.

  Slightly dazed, Jane followed him, clutching the notebook.

  Gale opened his mouth as though to protest, then seemed to think better of it.

  "Right," he said. "In an hour. At Monseigneur's."

  The door was opened by a rather forbidding-looking elderly woman attired in severe black.

  Poirot said. "Mr Clancy?"

  She drew back and Poirot and Jane entered.

  "What name, sir?"

  "Mr Hercule Poirot."

  The severe woman led them upstairs and into a room on the first floor.

  "Mr Air Kule Prott," she announced.

  Poirot realized at once the force of Mr Clancy's announcement at Croydon to the effect that he was not a tidy man. The room, a long one with three windows along its length and shelves and bookcases on the other walls, was in a state of chaos. There were papers strewn about, cardboard files, bananas, bottles of beer, open books, sofa cushions, a trombone, miscellaneous china, etchings, and a bewildering assortment of fountain pens.

  In the middle of this confusion, Mr Clancy was struggling with a camera and a roll of films.

  "Dear me," said Mr Clancy, looking up as the visitors were announced. He put the camera down and the roll of films promptly fell on the floor and unwound itself. He came forward with outstretched hand. "Very glad to see you, I'm sure."

  "You remember me, I hope," said Poirot. "This is my secretary, Miss Grey."

  "How d'you do, Miss Grey." He shook her by the hand and then turned back to Poirot. "Yes, of course I remember you – at least – now, where was it exactly? Was it at the Skull and Crossbones Club?"

  "We were fellow passengers on an aeroplane from Paris on a certain fatal occasion."

  "Why, of course," said Mr Clancy. "And Miss Grey too! Only I hadn't realized she was your secretary. In fact, I had some idea that she was in a beauty parlor – something of that kind."

  Jane looked anxiously at Poirot.

  The latter was quite equal to the situation.

  "Perfectly correct," he said. "As an efficient secretary, Miss Grey has at times to undertake certain work of a temporary nature; you understand?"

  "Of course," said Mr Clancy. "I was forgetting. You're a detective – the real thing. Not Scotland Yard. Private investigation… Do sit down, Miss Grey… No, not there; I think there's orange juice on that chair… If I shift this file… Oh, dear, now everything's tumbled out. Never mind… You sit here, M. Poirot… That's right, isn't it? Poirot?… The back's not really broken. It only creaks a little as you lean against it. Well, perhaps it's best not to lean too hard… Yes, a private investigator like my Wilbraham Rice. The public have taken very strongly to Wilbraham Rice. He bites his nails and eats a lot of bananas. I don't know why I made him bite his nails, to start with; it's really rather disgusting, but there it is. He started by biting his nails and now he has to do it in every single book. So monotonous. The bananas aren't so bad; you get a bit of fun out of them – criminals slipping on the skin. I eat bananas myself – that's what put it into my head. But I don't bite my nails… Have some beer?"

  "I thank you, no."

  Mr Clancy sighed, sat down himself, and gazed earnestly at Poirot.

  "I can guess what you've come about. The murder of Giselle. I've thought and thought about that case. You can say what you like; it's amazing – poisoned darts and a blowpipe in an aeroplane. An idea I have used myself, as I told you, both in book and short-story form. Of course it was a very shocking occurrence, but I must confess, M. Poirot, that I was thrilled – positively thrilled."

  "I can quite see," said Poirot, "that the crime must have appealed to you professionally, Mr Clancy."

  Mr Clancy beamed.

  "Exactly. You would think that anyone, even the official police, could have understood that! But not at all. Suspicion – that is all I got. Both from the inspector and at the inquest. I go out of my way to assist the course of justice and all I get for my pains is palpable thick-headed suspicion!"

  "All the same," said Poirot, smiling, "it does not seem to affect you very much."

  "Ah," said Mr Clancy. "But, you see, I have my methods, Watson. If you'll excuse my calling you Watson. No offense intended. Interesting, by the way, how the technic of the idiot friend has hung on. Personally, I myself think the Sherlock Holmes stories greatly overrated. The fallacies – the really amazing fallacies – that there are in those stories – But what was I saying?"

  "You said that you had your methods."

  "Ah, yes." Mr Clancy leaned forward. "I'm putting that inspector – what is his name? Japp? Yes, I'm putting him in my next book. You should see the way Wilbraham Rice deals with him."

  "In between bananas, as one might say."

  "In between bananas – that's very good, that." Mr Clancy chuckled.

  "You have a great advantage as a writer, monsieur," said Poirot. "You can relieve your feelings by the expedient of the printed word. You have the power of the pen over your enemies."

  Mr Clancy rocked gently back in his chair.

  "You know," he said, "I begin to think this murder is going to be a really fortunate thing for me. I'm writing the whole thing exa
ctly as it happened – only as fiction, of course, and I shall call it 'The Air Mail Mystery.' Perfect pen portraits of all the passengers. It ought to sell like wild fire, if only I can get it out in time."

  "Won't you be had up for libel, or something?" asked Jane.

  Mr Clancy turned a beaming face upon her.

  "No, no, my dear lady. Of course, if I were to make one of the passengers the murderer – well, then, I might be liable for damages. But that is the strong part of it all – an entirely unexpected solution is revealed in the last chapter."

  Poirot leaned forward eagerly.

  "And that solution is?"

  Again Mr Clancy chuckled.

  "Ingenious," he said. "Ingenious and sensational. Disguised as the pilot, a girl gets into the plane at Le Bourget and successfully stows herself away under Madame Giselle's seat. She has with her an ampul of the newest gas. She releases this, everybody becomes unconscious for three minutes, she squirms out, fires the poisoned dart, and makes a parachute descent from the rear door of the car."

  Both Jane and Poirot blinked.

  Jane said: "Why doesn't she become unconscious from the gas too?"

  "Respirator," said Mr Clancy.

  "And she descends into the Channel?"

  "It needn't be the Channel. I shall make it the French coast."

  "And anyway, nobody could hide under a seat; there wouldn't be room."

  "There will be room in my aeroplane," said Mr Clancy firmly.

  "Épatant," said Poirot. "And the motive of the lady?"

  "I haven't quite decided," said Mr Clancy meditatively. "Probably Giselle ruined the girl's lover, who killed himself."

  "And how did she get hold of the poison?"

  "That's the really clever part," said Mr Clancy. "The girl's a snake charmer. She extracts the stuff from her favorite python."

  "Mon Dieu!" said Hercule Poirot.

  He said:

  "You don't think, perhaps, it is just a little sensational?"

  "You can't write anything too sensational," said Mr Clancy firmly. "Especially when you're dealing with the arrow poison of the South American Indians. I know it was snake juice really, but the principle is the same. After all, you don't want a detective story to be like real life? Look at the things in the papers – dull as ditch water."