Death in the Air (originally Death in the Clouds) by Agatha Christie.
Title: Death in the Air (originally Death in the Clouds).
Author: Agatha Christie.
Genre: Fiction, mystery, detective fiction, crime.
Country: England, UK.
Language: English.
Publication Date: 1935.
Summary: It was the most extraordinary case. A woman murdered with the venom-dipped dart of a South African blow-gun on a routine flight over the English Channel. More bizarre still: that the killing could go completely unnoticed by the plane's other passengers. And most ironic of all: that Hercule Poirot, the brilliant detective, should be sitting not fifteen feet from the victim, and become one of the suspects!
My rating: 7.5/10.
My review:
♥ The Countess of Horbury thought: "What shall I do? It's the hell of a mess. The hell of a mess. There's only one way out that I can see. If only I had the nerve- Can I do it? Can I bluff it out? My nerves are all to pieces! That's the coke. Why did I ever take the coke? My face looks awful-simply awful."
♥ Peace settled down on the car. Conversation ceased, but thoughts pursued their way.
♥ Japp tilted back his chair and looked at Poirot.
"Rum business this," he said. "Bit too sensational to be true. I mean, blowpipes and poisoned darts in an aeroplane-well, it insults one's intelligence."
"That, my friend, is a very profound remark," said Poirot.
♥ "If you ask me," said Japp, changing the subject, "those two Frenchmen are the ones in this! They were just across the gangway from the Morisot woman, they're a seedy-looking couple, and that battered old suitcase of theirs is fairly plastered with outlandish foreign labels. Shouldn't be surprised if they'd been to Borneo or South America or whatever it is. Of course we can't get a line on the motive, but I dare say we can get that from Paris. We'll have to get the Sûreté to collaborate over this. It's their job more than ours. But if you ask me, those two toughs are out meat."
Poirot's eyes twinkled a little.
"What you say is possible, certainly; but as regards some of your points, you are in error, my friend. Those two men are not toughs or cutthroats, as you suggest. They are, on the contrary, two very distinguished and learned archæologists."
"Go on! You're pulling my leg!"
"Not at all. I know them by sight perfectly. They are M. Armand Dupont and his son, M. Jean Dupont. They have returned not long ago from conducting some very interesting excavations in Persia at a site not far from Susa."
"Go on!"
Japp made a grab at a passport.
"You're right, M. Poirot," he said, "but you must admit they don't look up to much, do they?"
"The world's famous men seldom do! I myself-moi, qui vous parle-I have before now been taken for a hairdresser!"
"You don't say so," said Japp with a grin.
♥ "Looks a bit fishy to me," said Japp. "He actually had a blowpipe, and look at his manner. All to pieces."
"There is the severity of your official demeanor, my good Japp."
"There's nothing for anyone to be afraid of if they're only telling the truth," said the Scotland Yard man austerely.
Poirot looked at him pityingly.
"In verity, I believe that you yourself honestly believe that."
♥ "She was pretty-and nervous," said Poirot.
"Nervous, eh?" said Japp alertly
"Oh, my dear friend, when a girl is nervous it usually means a young man, not crime."
♥ Norman Gale said thoughtfully:
"You think this is mere idle speculation?"
Jane said coolly, "Isn't it?"
"Not quite." Gale hesitated, then went on slowly, "I have a feeling it may be useful."
Jane looked at him inquiringly.
"Murder," said Norman Gale, "doesn't concern the victim and the guilty only. It affects the innocent too. You and I are innocent, but the shadow of murder has touched us. We don't know how that shadow is going to affect our lives."
Jane was a person of cool common sense, but she shivered suddenly.
"Don't," she said. "You make me feel afraid."
"I'm a little afraid myself," said Gale.
♥ Hercule Poirot rejoined his friend, Inspector Japp. The latter had a grin on his face.
"Hullo, old boy," he said. "You've had a pretty near squeak of being locked up in a police cell."
"I fear," said Poirot gravely, "that such an occurrence might have damaged me professionally."
"Well," said Japp with a grin, "detectives do turn out to be criminals sometimes-in storybooks."
♥ "In a way, it was rather a mistake to use snake venom; it narrows things down a lot. Only about two people in a hundred would be likely to have any knowledge of it and be able to lay hands on the stuff."
♥ "Sheer artfulness," said Japp. "And as to this blowpipe he produced to-day-who is to say that it's the one he bought two years ago? The whole thing looks very fishy to me. I don't think it's healthy for a man to be always brooding over crime and detective stories. Reading up all sorts of cases. It puts ideas into his head."
"It is certainly necessary for a writer to have ide
as in his head," agreed Poirot.
♥ "This is where we stand: Jane Grey. Probability, poor. Possibility, practically nil. Gale. Probability, poor. Possibility, again practically nil. Miss Kerr. Very improbable. Possibility, doubtful, Lady Horbury. Probability, good. Possibility, practically nil. M. Poirot, almost certainly the criminal; the only man on board who could create a physiological moment."
Japp enjoyed a good laugh over his little joke and Poirot smiled indulgently and Fournier a trifle diffidently.
♥ "Do you agree with me, M. Poirot?"
Poirot hesitated a minute, then he sad slowly:
"I agree that there was-that there must have been a psychological reason why nobody saw the murderer. But my ideas are running in a slightly different channel from yours. I feel that in this case mere ocular facts may be deceptive. Close your eyes, my friend, instead of opening them wide. Use the eyes of the brain, not the body. Let the little gray cells of the mind function. Let it be their task to show you what actually happened."
Fournier stared at him curiously.
"I do not follow you, M. Poirot."
"Because you are deducing from things that you have seen. Nothing can be so misleading as observation."
Fournier shook his head again and spread out his hands.
"I give it up. I cannot catch your meanings."
"Our friend Giraud would urge you to pay no attention to my vagaries. 'Be up and doing,' he would say. 'To sit still in an armchair and think-that is the method of an old man past his prime.' But I say that a young hound is often so eager upon the scent that he overruns it. For him is the trail of the red herring. There, it is a very good hint I have given you there."
And leaning back, Poirot closed his eyes, it may have been to think, but it is quite certain that five minutes later he was asleep.
♥ A look of indecision came over her face. She seemed to be thinking. Watching her very closely, Poirot leaned forward and spoke:
"Shall I tell you something, Mademoiselle Grandier? It is part of my business to believe nothing I am told-nothing, that is, that is not proved. I do not suspect first this person and then that person; I suspect everybody. Anybody connected with a crime is regarded by me as a criminal until that person is proved innocent."
♥ "A little idea of mine. A charming woman looks still more charming in a bathing dress. Do you not agree? See here?"
He passed to the old man a page torn from the Sketch.
There was a moment's pause. The old man gave a very slight start.
"You agree, do you not?" asked Poirot.
"They look well enough, those two," said the old man, handing the sheet back. "To wear nothing at all would be very nearly the same thing."
"Ah," said Poirot. That is because nowadays we have discovered the beneficial action of sun on the skin. It is very convenient, too."
♥ Fournier was much excited, though distinctly irate with Èlise. Poirot argued the point.
"It is very natural-very natural. The police-it is always a word frightening to that class. It embroils them in they know not what. It is the same everywhere, in every country."
"That is where you score," said Fournier. "The private investigator gets more out of witnesses than you ever get through official channels. However, there is the other side of the picture. We have official records, the whole system of a big organization at our command."
♥ "Far-fetched, perhaps, but it is just possible that that might apply to the Duponts. I can hardly credit it. M. Dupont is an archaeologist of world-wide reputation. He bears the highest character."
"Which would facilitate matters very much for him," said Poirot. "Consider, my dear Fournier, how high has been the character, how lofty the sentiments, and how worthy of admiration the life of most swindlers of note-before they are found out!"
"True-only too true," agreed the Frenchman with a sigh.
"A high reputation," said Poirot, "is the first necessity of a swindler's stock in trade. An interesting thought."
♥ "These machines! On a day of bad weather, they are far from steady-far from steady. I myself have felt seriously incommoded once or twice."
"They say that an army marches on its stomach," said Poirot. "But how much are the delicate convolutions of the brain influenced by the digestive apparatus? When the mal de mer seizes me, I, Hercule Poirot, am a creature with no gray cells, no order, no method-a mere member of the human race somewhat below average intelligence! It is deplorable, but there it is!"
♥ Stephen Horbury was twenty-seven years of age. He had a narrow head and a long chin. He looked very much what he was-a sporting, out-of-door kind of man without anything very spectacular in the way of brains. He was kind-hearted, slightly priggish, intensely loyal and invincibly obstinate.
♥ "Venetia," said Stephen, "I've known you a long time, haven't I?"
"H'm, yes. Do you remember those awful dancing classes we used to go to as children?"
"Do I not? I feel I can say things to you-"
"If course you can."
She hesitated, then went on in a calm matter-of-fact tone: "It's Cicely, I suppose?"
"Yes. Look here, Venetia. Was Cicely mixed up with this woman Giselle in any way? ..As long as she's my wife it's bound to be my business."
"Can you-er-agree to a divorce?"
"A trumped-up business, you mean? I doubt if she'd accept it."
"Would you divorce her if you had the chance?"
"If I had cause I certainly would." He spoke grimly.
"I suppose," said Venetia thoughtfully, "she knows that."
"Yes."
They were both silent. Venetia thought: "She has the morals of a cat! I know that well enough. But she's careful. She's shrewd as they make 'em." Aloud she said: "So there's nothing doing?"
He shook his head. Then he said:
"If I were free, Venetia, would you marry me?"
Looking very straight between her horse's ears, Venetia said in a voice carefully devoid of emotion:
"I suppose I would."
Stephen! She's always loved Stephen-always since the old days of dancing classes and cubbing and bird's nesting. And Stephen had been fond of her, but not fond enough to prevent him from falling desperately, wildly, madly in love with a clever calculating cat of a chorus girl.
Stephen said, "We could have a marvelous life together."
Pictures floated before his eyes-hunting, tea and muffins, the smell of wet earth and leaves, children. All the things that Cicely could never share with him, that Cicely would never give him. A kind of mist came over his eyes. Then he heard Venetia speaking, still in that flat, emotionless voice:
"Stephen, if you care, what about it? If we went off together, Cicely would have to divorce you."
He interrupted her fiercely:
"Do you think I'd let you do a thing like that?"
"I shouldn't care."
"I should."
He spoke with finality.
Venetia thought, "That's that. It's a pity, really. He' hopelessly prejudiced, but rather a dear. I wouldn't like him to be different."
Aloud she said: "Well, Stephen, I'll be getting along."
♥ [Poirot] became suddenly grave. "It is the great tragedy of life-that women grow old."
♥ "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."
♥ 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 things is to clear the innocent."
"Oh, naturally," said Jane. "That goes without saying. Ff anyone is falsely accused-"
"Not even that. There may be no accusation. But until one person is proved guilty beyond and possible doubt, everyone who is associated with the crime is liable to suffer in varying degrees."
♥ It depends," said Poirot thoughtfully, "so much on motive."
"Of course, of course. I suppose you tabulate all the motives very scientifically?"
"I am old-fashioned in my methods. I follow the old adage, 'Seek whom the crime benefits.'"
♥ "As you say," he observed thoughtfully, "it will take more than nine days, or nine weeks, or nine months. Sensationalism dies quickly, fear is long-lived."
♥ "If I discover who killed Madame Giselle, you will not have to go," said Poirot cheerfully.
"Do you really think you will?" asked Jane.
Poirot looked at her reproachfully.
"If one approaches a problem with order and method, there should be no difficulty in solving it; none whatever," said Poirot severely.
"Oh, I see," said Jane, who didn't.
♥ "You're mad!"
"Not at all," said Poirot. "I am eccentric, possibly, but mad, no."
♥ Jane stared at him, puzzled.
What an odd little man he was, hopping from subject to subject like a bird from one branch to another.
Perhaps he read her thoughts. He smiled.
"You do not approve of me, mademoiselle? Of my methods?"
"You jump about a good deal."
"Not really. I pursue my course logically, with order and method. One must not jump wildly to a conclusion. One must eliminate."
♥ "What a horrible tricky sort of person you are, M. Poirot," said Jane. "I shall never know why you are saying things."
"That is quite simple. I want to find out things."
"I suppose you've got very clever ways of finding out things?"
"There is only one really simple way."
"What is that?"
"To let people tell you."
Jane laughed. "Suppose they don't want to?"
"Everyone likes talking about themselves."
"I suppose they do," admitted Jane.
"That is how many a quack makes a fortune. He encourages patients to come and sit and tell him things-how they fell out of the perambulator when they were two, and how their mother ate a pear and the juice fell on her orange dress, and how, when they were one and a half, they pulled their father's beard; and then he tells them that now they will not suffer from the insomnia any longer, and he takes two guineas, and they go away, having enjoyed themselves, oh, so much-and perhaps they do sleep."
"How ridiculous," said Jane.
"No, it is not so ridiculous as you think. It is based on a fundamental need of human nature-the need to talk, to reveal oneself."
♥ "Sit down, won't you? Have a cigar?"
"I thank you, no. I smoke always my own cigarettes. Perhaps you will accept one?"
Ryder regarded Poirot's tiny cigarettes with a somewhat dubious eye.
"Think I'll have one of my own, if it's all the same to you. Might swallow one of those by mistake."
♥ He mumbled, "You said a slight disguise would be as well."
Poirot sighed. Then he took the young man by the arm and marched him to the looking-glass.
"Regard yourself," he said. "That is all I ask of you-regard yourself! What do you think you are? A Santa Claus dressed up to amused the children? I agree that your beard is not white-no, it is black; the color for villains. But what a beard-a beard that screams to heaven! A cheap beard, my friend, and not imperfectly and amateurishly attached! Then there are your eyebrows-but it is that you have the mania for false hair? The spirit gum, one smells it several yards away, and if you think that anyone will fail to perceive that you have a piece of sticking plaster attached to a tooth, you are mistaken. My friend, it is not your métier-decidedly not-to play the part."
"I acted in amateur theatricals a good deal at one time," said Norman Gale stiffly.
"I can hardly believe it. At any rate, I presume they did not let you indulge in your own ideas of male-up. Even behind the footlights your appearance would be singularly unconvincing. In Grosvenor Square in broad daylight-"
Poirot gave an eloquent shrug of the shoulders by way of finishing the sentence.
"No, mon ami, he said. "You are a blackmailer, not a comedian. I want her ladyship to fear you, not to die of laughing when she sees you. I observe that I wound you by what I am saying. I regret, but it is a moment when only the truth will serve. Take this, and this-" he pressed various jars upon him. "Go into the bathroom and let us have an end of what you call in this county the fool-tommery."
Crushed, Norman Gale obeyed.
♥ "That dreadful inspector man has been here again and again badgering me with questions. But I felt pretty safe. I could see he was only trying it on. He didn't know anything."
"If one does guess, one should guess with assurance."
♥ "There you are again, unsatisfactory. The whole thing is a muddle."
"There is no such thing as muddle-obscurity, yes, but muddle can exist only in a disorderly brain."
♥ "I make a little table, so." He took a paper from his pocket. "My idea is this: A murder is an action performed to bring about a certain result. ..An action is performed-the action being murder. What now are the results of that action? By studying the different results, we should get the answer to our conundrum. The results of a single action may be very varied; that particular action affects a lot of different people."
♥ ..Poirot, in a provoking manner, began to discuss the relationship between a career and a life.
"There are not so many round pegs in square holes as one might think. Most people, in spite of what they tell you choose the occupation that they secretly desire. You will hear a man say who works in an office, 'I should like to explore, to rough it in far countries.' But you will find that he likes reading the fiction that deals with that subject, but that he himself prefers the safety and moderate comfort of an office stool."
"According to you," said Jane, "my desire for foreign travel isn't genuine. Messing about with women's heads is my true vocation. Well, that isn't true."
Poirot smiled at her.
"You are young still. Naturally, one tries this, that and the other, but what one eventually settles down into is the life one prefers."
♥ "Our friend Japp would say that you were being overingenious."
"It is true that he always accuses me of preferring to make things difficult."
"You see?"
"But as a matter of fact, it is not true. I proceed always in the simplest manner imaginable! And I never refuse to accept facts."
♥ "I spoke to the principal-to Mère Angélique herself. It is romantic, you know, the transatlantic telephone. To speak so easily to someone nearly halfway across the globe."
"The telegraphed photograph-that, too, is romantic. Science is the greatest romance there is."
♥ "She killed herself? Why? Because of remorse or because she was afraid of being found out?"
Poirot shook his head.
"Life can be very terrible," he said. "One needs much courage.
"To kill oneself? Yes, I suppose one does."
"Also to live," said Poirot, "one needs courage."
♥ "When, just before we reached Croydon, Doctor Bryant was approached by the steward and went with him to examine the body, I accompanied him. I had a feeling that it might-who knows?-be something in my line. I have, perhaps, too professional a point of view where deaths are concerned. They are divided, in my mind, into two classes-deaths which are my affair and deaths which are not my affair-and though the latter class is infinitely more numerous, nevertheless, whenever I come in contact with death, I am like the dog who lifts his head and sniffs the scent."
♥ "I determined to cultivate his acquaintance. It is my experience that no one, in the course of conversation, can fail to give themselves away sooner or later. Everyone has an irresistible urge to talk about themselves."
♥ "A killer," said Poirot. "And like many killers, attractive to women."
Mr. Clancy coughed.
"That poor girl. Jane Grey."
Poirot shook his head sadly.
"Yes, as I said to her, life can be very terrible. But she has courage. She will come through."
♥ "I ought to hate you, M. Poirot."
She looked pale and fine drawn, with dark circles round her eyes.
Poirot said gently:
"Hate me a little if you will. But I think you are one of those who would rather look truth in the face than live in a fool's paradise. And you might not have lived in it so very long. Getting rid of women is a vice that grows."
"He was so terrible attractive," said Jane.
She added:
"I shall never fall in love again."
"Naturally," agreed Poirot. "That side of life is finished for you."