“Right at the end of the car, in seat No. 2, Madame Giselle’s head lolled forward a little. One might have taken her to be asleep. But she was not asleep. She neither spoke nor thought… Madame Giselle was dead.” (10).
The second Hercule Poirot novel that was published in 1935, Death in the Clouds (also published as “Death in the Air” in the United States) contains echoes of Agatha Christie’s classics like Murder on the Orient Express, even if it is not typically a fan-favorite. In it, Hercule Poirot (sans Hastings) boards a flight dubbed the “Prometheus” headed from Paris (Le Bourget aerodome) to London (Croydon). He has been on the trail of a “rather big bug in the smuggling line.” On this plane, there are twenty-one passengers, ten in the forward carriage and eleven in the rear (including Poirot), as well as two pilots and two stewards (the senior steward is named Henry Mitchell, and the junior is Albert Davis). As the plane crosses the Channel and approaches London, one stout elderly woman seated among the eleven passengers in the rear carriage in seat #2 is found to be dead!
Her name was Madame Giselle. Apparently, she was allergic to wasp stings, and it just so happens that a wasp was loose in the cabin during the plane flight (another passenger named Monsieur Jean DuPont killed it). Did Giselle die of natural causes resulting from a wasp sting? This theory is plausible but quickly brushed aside when observers spot a minute puncture mark on the side of her throat and Poirot sees something suspicious –a strange thorn-like object lying beside her feet. It is soon revealed to be a poisonous dart containing the rare venom of a “boomslang” South American treesnake. The blowpipe for the poison dart is then discovered stuffed under Poirot’s seat (incidentally, Poirot was fast asleep during the whole flight). Giselle was murdered! At one point, the flight steward, Henry Mitchell, passed by Giselle’s seat offering her a cup of coffee, but he believed she was sleeping so he simply passed on. This was the only person who came close to her during the flight. Eventually, Mitchell discovered her unresponsive and raised concerns. As the flight lands, Poirot joins in the investigation and he is soon joined by his old friend Inspector Japp of Scotland Yard along with another investigator, Monsieur Fournier of the Sûreté, who is amusingly compared to Poirot’s clumsy nemesis Monsieur Giraud from The Murder on the Links.
So, who is Madame Giselle? As it turns out, Madame Giselle’s real name is actually Marie Angelique Morisot, one of the best-known private money-lenders in Paris. She is an extremely wealthy woman. And when she was young, Madame Giselle/Morisot also once had a daughter whom she gave up. She has not seen since the girl since she was a baby. With few friends or family members, Madame Giselle/Morisot has left her entire estate (perhaps 8 or 9 million francs) to her estranged daughter. Could her daughter have arranged for her mother’s death?
Questions abound as Poirot joins Monsieur Fournier in Paris to continue the investigation while Inspector Japp follows a trail of clues across London. The key ten suspects who were seated in the rear carriage include:
- Seat No. 4: Mr. James Ryder – managing director of the Ellis Vale Cement Co.
- Seat No. 5: Monsieur Armand Dupont – a famed French archaeologist and former antique dealer. He has traveled to many exotic places. He is the father of Jean Dupont who is also on the plane. Inspector Japp initially mistakes these two Frenchmen for a pair of cutthroats (this is an amusing little jab at her husband’s profession).
- Seat No. 6: Monsieur Jean Dupont – son of Armand Dupont, the renowned archaeologist. It was he who killed the wasp.
- Seat No. 8: Mr. Daniel Clancy – a writer of detective stories. He once wrote a murder story involving a blowpipe. As part of the investigation for the story, he purchased a blowpipe but lost it about six months ago. He says this whole incident aboard the plane has inspired him to write ‘The Air Mail Mystery.”
- Seat No. 9: Hercule Poirot
- Seat No. 10: Dr. Roger James Bryant – a medical specialist on diseases of the ear and throat.
- Seat No. 12: Norman Gale – a handsome man who is a dentist. He is infatuated with fellow passenger Jane Grey.
- Seat No. 13: The Countess Cicely Horbury – wife of the earl of Horbury, Lord Stephen Horbury. We later learn she is a gambler, her marriage is troubled, her husband wants a divorce, she has been having an affair with the famous actor Raymond Barraclough, and she recently took out a large loan from the late Madame Giselle/Morisot to cover her gambling debts.
- Seat No. 16: Jane Grey – among the last to enter the plane cabin, she notices the handsome Norman Gale immediately. She has spent time in Le Pinet at the baccarat gambling table. She works as a hairdresser’s assistant but longs to travel the world.
- Seat No. 17: The Honourable Venetia Anne Kerr – a friend of Lady Horbury, she and Lady Horbury’s husband (Lord Stephen Horbury) are in love.
All of the passengers are carrying unique traveling items, their bags are thoroughly inspected and documented as Poirot slowly works his way down a list, eliminating passengers who are exonerated of the crime in his view. So, who killed Madame Giselle/Morisot? Could it be a famed archaeologist who might have taken out a large loan from her (Monsieur Jean DuPont)? Or a detective story writer (Daniel Clancy)? A dentist (Norman Gale)? A noblewoman who is one of her clients (Lady Horbury)? Her friend who is secretly in love with her husband (Venetia Kerr)? Or a mysterious young woman who works as a hairdresser (Jane Grey)? Could one of these people be Madame Giselle/Morisot’s long-lost daughter? Or is it possible that one of the flight stewards has a reason for killing the Madame?
The mystery leads us across Paris and London as Poirot makes inquiries with a great many different people like the employees at Universal Airlines (who were bribed to place Madame Giselle/Morisot in seat No. 2 by a tall stooped man with gray hair, horn rimmed glasses, and a little goatee beard,) as well as a woman named Elise, the maid of Madame Giselle/Morisot who was instructed to burn her lady’s papers. At one point, Poirot even instigates his own blackmail sting!
Death in the Clouds is another delightful Poirot mystery. This series has taken us from classic turn of the century British country estates (like Styles Court) to iconic cross-continental trains (like the Orient Express) and now to even more modern forms of transportation like airplanes. And there is an amusing little self-referential recurring inside joke in this novel about detective story writers –“This is just the sort of damn fool murder that a scribbler of rubbish would think he could get away with” (34). It gave me a few chuckles and is sure to bring a knowing smile to Christie fans.
“Bit too sensational to be true. I mean blowpipes and poisoned darts in an aeroplane –well, it insults one’s intelligence” (22).
Solution (Spoilers Ahead)
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In the end, Giselle’s mysterious daughter arrives from America to claim her inheritance. Her name is Anne Morisot and her husband, Mr. Richards, is apparently a maker of surgical instruments. However, Poirot recognizes her, remembering she was Lady Horbury’s maid on the plane named “Madeline.” But before she can be questioned by Poirot, she turns up dead on a train, apparently an act of suicide. It is a sad end for her.
But in one of his trademark dinner scenes, Poirot dramatically reveals the true murderer to be none other than handsome dentist, Norman Gale! This shocks everyone.
However, Poirot methodically demonstrates how Norman Gale’s real name is James Richards, he simply took the name Gale to please his uncle John Gale. He met Anne Morisot at Nice last winter and he seduced and married her. It was he who bribed the clerk at Universal Airlines (Poirot discovered that he was a skilled actor and master of disguises when employing him for a sting operation). And of course, it was he who killed Anne Morisot on the train with prussic acid, making him the sole inheritor of the vast estate (as Anne’s widower). On the plane, he brought his dentist’s linen coat and used it to pose as a steward. He then pierced Giselle’s neck and released the wasp out of a matchbox before planting the blowpipe (both the wasp and the blowpipe were diversions). He was able to use the rare venom thanks to his past experience working on a snake farm in South Africa. From here, an angry Norman Gale, or should I say James Richards, is restrained and led away by London’s finest, Inspector Japp. Nobody is more shocked by this turn of events than Jane Grey, who falling for Mr. Gale throughout the novel (Poirot offers his own commentary on how women are often attracted to killers).
And once again, Poirot concludes the novel by playing matchmaker. He orchestrates the future marriages of Jane Grey and Jean DuPont, and Lord Horbury and the Honorary Venetian Kerr.
Christie, Agatha. Death in the Clouds. William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins, 2011 (originally published in 1935). Dedicated to Ormond Beadle.