'You are very quick, mademoiselle. Yes, that was part of the course I pursue. I mention attempted murder and I watch Mr Clancy, I watch you, I watch Mr Gale – and in neither of you three is there any sign, not so much as the flicker of an eyelash. And let me tell you that I could not be deceived on that point. A murderer can be ready to meet any attack that he foresees. But that entry in a little notebook could not have been known to any of you. So, you see, I am satisfied.'
'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. You yourself, mademoiselle, do you not like to dwell on your childhood memories? On your mother and your father?'
'That doesn't apply in my case. I was brought up in an orphanage.'
'Ah, that is different. It is not gay, that.'
'I don't mean that we were the kind of charity orphans who go out in scarlet bonnets and cloaks. It was quite fun, really.'
'It was in England?'
'No, in Ireland, near Dublin.'
'So you are Irish. That is why you have the dark hair and the blue-gray eyes with the look -'
'- as though they had been put in with a smutty finger,' Norman finished with amusement.
'Comment? What is that you say?'
'That is a saying about Irish eyes – that they have been put in with a smutty finger.'
'Really? It is not elegant, that. And yet, it expresses it well.' He bowed to Jane. 'The effect is very good, mademoiselle.'
Jane laughed as she got up.
'You'll turn my head, M. Poirot. Good night and thank you for supper. You'll have to stand me another if Norman is sent to prison for blackmail.'
A frown came over Norman 's face at the reminder.
Poirot bade the two young people good night.
When he got home he unlocked a drawer and took out a list of eleven names.
Against four of these names he put a light tick. Then he nodded his head thoughtfully.
'I think I know,' he murmured to himself, 'but I have got to be sure. Il faut continuer.'
Chapter 17
Mr Henry Mitchell was just sitting down to a supper of sausage and mash when a visitor called to see him.
Somewhat to the steward's astonishment, the visitor in question was the full-mustachioed gentleman who had been one of the passengers on the fatal plane.
M. Poirot was very affable, very agreeable in his manner. He insisted on Mr Mitchell's getting on with his supper, paid a graceful compliment to Mrs Mitchell, who was standing staring at him open-mouthed.
He accepted a chair, remarked that it was very warm for the time of year and then gently came round to the purpose of his call.
'Scotland Yard, I fear, is not making much progress with the case,' he said.
Mitchell shook his head.
'It was an amazing business, sir – amazing. I don't see what they've got to go on. Why, if none of the people on the plane saw anything, it's going to be difficult for anyone afterwards.'
'Truly, as you say.'
'Terribly worried. Henry's been, over it,' put in his wife. 'Not able to sleep of nights.'
The steward explained:
'It's lain on my mind, sir, something terrible. The company had been very fair about it. I must say I was afraid at first I might lose my job.'
'Henry, they couldn't. It would have been cruelly unfair.'
His wife sounded highly indignant. She was a buxom highly complexioned woman with snapping dark eyes.
'Things don't always happen fairly, Ruth. Still, it turned out better than I thought. They absolved me from blame. But I felt it, if you understand me. I was in charge, as it were.'
'I understand your feelings,' said Poirot sympathetically. 'But I assure you that you are overconscientious. Nothing that happened was your fault.'
'That's what I say, sir,' put in Mrs Mitchell.
Mitchell shook his head.
'I ought to have noticed that the lady was dead sooner. If I'd tried to wake her up when I first took round the bills -'
'It would have made little difference. Death, they think, was very nearly instantaneous.'
'He worries so,' said Mrs Mitchell. 'I tell him not to bother his head so. Who's to know what reason foreigners have for murdering each other, and if you ask me, I think it's a dirty trick to have done it in a British aeroplane.'
She finished her sentence with an indignant and patriotic snort.
Mitchell shook his head in a puzzled way.
'It weighs on me, so to speak. Every time I go on duty I'm in a state. And then the gentleman from Scotland Yard asking me again and again if nothing unusual or sudden occurred on the way over. Makes me feel as though I must have forgotten something, and yet I know I haven't. It was a most uneventful voyage in every way until – until it happened.'
'Blowpipes and darts – heathen, I call it,' said Mrs Mitchell.
'You are right,' said Poirot, addressing her with a flattering air of being struck by her remarks. 'Not so is an English murder committed.'
'You're right, sir.'
'You know, Mrs Mitchell, I can almost guess what part of England you come from?'
'Dorset, sir. Not far from Bridport. That's my home.'
'Exactly,' said Poirot. 'A lovely part of the world.'
'It is that. London isn't a patch on Dorset. My folk have been settled at Dorset for over two hundred years, and I've got Dorset in the blood, as you might say.'
'Yes, indeed.' He turned to the steward again. 'There's one thing I'd like to ask you, Mitchell.'
The man's brow contracted.
'I've told all that I know; indeed I have, sir?'
