husband, was killed in the early days of the war.'
He paused and then remarked abruptly:
'What was it that I just said – not my last remark, the one before? I have an idea that, without knowing it, I said something of significance.'
Fournier repeated as well as he could the substance of Poirot's remarks, but the little man shook his head in a dissatisfied manner.
'No, no, it was not that. Well, no matter.'
He turned to Jane and engaged her in conversation.
At the close of the meal he suggested that they should have coffee in the lounge.
Jane agreed and stretched out her hand for her bag and gloves, which were on the table. As she picked them up she winced slightly.
'What is it, mademoiselle?'
'Oh, it's nothing,' laughed Jane. 'It's only a jagged nail. I must file it.'
Poirot sat down again very suddenly.
'Nom d'un nom d'un nom,' he said quietly.
The other two stared at him in surprise.
'M. Poirot!' cried Jane. 'What is it?'
'It is,' said Poirot, 'that I remember now why the face of Anne Morisot is familiar to me. I have seen her before. In the aeroplane on the day of the murder. Lady Horbury sent for her to get a nail file. Anne Morisot was Lady Horbury's maid.'
Chapter 25
This sudden revelation had an almost stunning effect on the three people sitting round the luncheon table. It opened up an entirely new aspect of the case.
Instead of being a person wholly remote from the tragedy, Anne Morisot was now shown to have been actually present on the scene of the crime. It took a minute or two for everyone to readjust his ideas.
Poirot made a frantic gesture with his hand; his eyes were closed; his face contorted in agony.
'A little minute – a little minute,' he implored them. 'I have got to think, to see, to realize how this affects my ideas of the case. I must go back in mind. I must remember. A thousand maledictions on my unfortunate stomach. I was preoccupied only with my internal sensations!'
'She was actually on the plane, then,' said Fournier. 'I see. I begin to see.'
'I remember,' said Jane. 'A tall dark girl.' Her eyes half closed in an effort of memory. 'Madeleine, Lady Horbury called her.'
'That is it – Madeleine,' said Poirot.
'Lady Horbury sent her along to the end of the plane to fetch a case – a scarlet dressing case.'
'You mean,' said Fournier, 'that this girl went right past the seat where her mother was sitting?'
'That is right.'
'The motive,' said Fournier. He gave a great sigh. 'And the opportunity. Yes, it is all there.'
Then, with a sudden vehemence most unlike his usual melancholy manner, he brought down his hand with a bang on the table.
'But parbleu!' he cried. 'Why did no one mention this before? Why was she not included amongst the suspected persons?'
'I have told you, my friend – I have told you,' said Poirot wearily. 'My unfortunate stomach.'
'Yes, yes, that is understandable. But there were other stomachs unaffected. The stewards, the other passengers.'
'I think,' said Jane, 'that perhaps it was because it was so very early this happened. The plane had only just left Le Bourget. And Giselle was alive and well an hour or so after that. It seemed as though she must have been killed much later.'
'That is curious,' said Fournier thoughtfully. 'Can there have been a delayed action of the poison? Such things happen.'
Poirot groaned and dropped his head into his hands.
'I must think. I must think. Can it be possible that all along my ideas have been entirely wrong?'
'Mon vieux,' said Fournier, 'such things happen. They happen to me; it is possible that they have happened to you. One has occasionally to pocket one's pride and readjust one's ideas.'
'That is true,' agreed Poirot. 'It is possible that all along I have attached too much importance to one particular thing. I expected to find a certain clue. I found it, and I built up my case from it. But if I have been wrong from the beginning – if that particular article was where it was merely as the result of an accident – why, then – yes, I will admit that I have been wrong – completely wrong.'
'You cannot shut your eyes to the importance of this turn of events,' said Fournier. 'Motive and opportunity – what more can you want?'
'Nothing. It must be as you say. The delayed action of the poison is indeed extraordinary – practically speaking, one would say impossible. But where poisons are concerned, the impossible does happen. One has to reckon with idiosyncrasy.'
His voice tailed off.
'We must discuss a plan of campaign,' said Fournier. 'For the moment- it would, I think, be unwise to arouse Anne Morisot's suspicions. She is completely unaware that you have recognized her. Her bona fides has been accepted. We know the hotel at which she is staying and we can keep in touch with her through Thibault. Legal formalities can always be delayed. We have two points established – opportunity and motive. We have still to prove that Anne Morisot had snake venom in her possession. There is also the question of the American who bought the blowpipe and bribed Jules Perrot. It might certainly be the husband, Richards. We have only her word for it that he is in Canada.'
'As you say, the husband – yes, the husband. Ah! wait – wait.'
Poirot pressed his hands upon his temples.
'It is all wrong,' he murmured. 'I do not employ the little gray cells of the brain in an orderly and methodical way. No, I leap to conclusions. I think, perhaps, what I am meant to think. No, that is wrong again. If my original idea were right, I could not be meant to think -'
He broke off.
'I beg your pardon,' said Jane.
Poirot did not answer for a moment or two. Then he took his hands from his temples, sat very upright and straightened two forks and a saltcellar which offended his sense of symmetry.
'Let us reason,' he said. 'Anne Morisot is either guilty or innocent of the crime. If she is innocent, why has she lied? Why has she concealed the fact that she was lady's maid to Lady Horbury?'
'Why, indeed?' said Fournier.
'So we say Anne Morisot is guilty because she has lied. But wait. Suppose my first supposition was correct. Will that supposition fit in with Anne Morisot's guilt or with Anne Morisot's lie? Yes, yes, it might – given one premise. But in that case, and if that premise is correct, then Anne Morisot should have not been on the plane at all.'
The others looked at him politely, if with, perhaps, a rather perfunctory interest.
Fournier thought:
'I see now what the Englishman, Japp, meant. He makes difficulties, this old one. He tries to make an affair which is now simple sound complicated. He cannot accept a straightforward solution without pretending that it squares with his preconceived ideas.'
Jane thought:
'I don't see in the least what he means. Why couldn't the girl be in the plane? She had to go wherever Lady Horbury wanted her to go. I think he's rather a mountebank, really.'
Suddenly Poirot drew in his breath with a hiss.
