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 exactly 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.
'Epatant,' 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.'
'Come now, monsieur, would you say this little affair of ours is dull as ditch water?'
'No,' admitted Mr Clancy. 'Sometimes, you know, I can't believe it really happened.'
Poirot drew the creaking chair a little nearer to his host. His voice lowered itself confidentially:
'Mr Clancy, you are a man of brains and imagination. The police, as you say, have regarded you with suspicion; they have not sought your advice. But I, Hercule Poirot, desire to consult you.'
Mr Clancy flushed with pleasure.
'I'm sure that's very nice of you.'
He looked flustered and pleased.
'You have studied the criminology. Your ideas will be of value. It would be of great interest to me to know who, in your opinion, committed the crime.'
'Well -' Mr Clancy hesitated, reached automatically for a banana and began to eat it. Then, the animation dying out of his face, he shook his head, 'You see, M. Poirot, it's an entirely different thing. When you're writing you can make it anyone you like, but of course in real life there is a real person. You haven't any command over the facts. I'm afraid, you know, that I'd be absolutely no good as a real detective.'
He shook his head sadly and threw the banana skin into the grate.
'It might be amusing, however, to consider the case together,' suggested Poirot.
'Oh, that, yes.'
'To begin with, supposing you had to make a sporting guess, who would you choose?'
'Oh, well, I suppose one of the two Frenchmen.'
'Now, why?'
'Well, she was French. It seems more likely somehow. And they were sitting on the opposite side not too far away from her. But really I don't know.'
'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.''
'That's all very well,' said Mr Clancy. 'But I take it that's a little difficult in a case like this. There's a daughter who comes into money, so I've heard. But a lot of the people on board might benefit, for all we know – that is, if they owed her money and haven't got to pay it back.'
'True,' said Poirot. 'And I can think of other solutions. Let us suppose that Madame Giselle knew of something – attempted murder, shall we say – on the part of one of those people.'
'Attempted murder?' said Mr Clancy. 'Now why attempted murder? What a very curious suggestion.'
'In cases such as these,' said Poirot, 'one must think of everything.'
'Ah!' said Mr Clancy. 'But it's no good thinking. You've got to know.'
'You have reason – you have reason. A very just observation.'
Then he said:
'I ask your pardon, but this blowpipe that you bought -'
'Damn that blowpipe,' said Mr Clancy. 'I wish I'd never mentioned it.'
'You bought it, you say, at a shop in the Charing Cross Road? Do you, by any chance, remember the name of that shop?'
'Well,' said Mr Clancy, 'it might have been Absolom's – or there's Mitchell Smith. I don't know. But I've
