Death in the Clouds: A Hercule Poirot Mystery by Agatha Christie (1935) Part 5

---

Passengers on the Plane

Seat 2 Madame Giselle

Seat 4 James Ryder

Seat 5 Monsieur Armand Dupont

Seat 6 Monsieur Jean Dupont

Seat 8 Daniel Clancy

Seat 9 Hercule Poirot

Seat 10 Doctor Bryant

Seat 12 Norman Gale

Seat 13 The Countess of Horbury

Seat 16 Jane Grey

Seat 17 The Hon. Venetia Kerr

“You are young still. Naturally, one tries this, that and the other, but what one eventually settles down into is the life one prefers.” Hercule Poirot

---

Poirot has dinner with Jane and Norman to discuss the previous ordeal with Mr. Robinson. Norman brings up his intentions to move to Canada and leave his profession that he had followed in his uncle's footsteps. Poirot encourages Jane to take up the roll of secretary for him full time but she politely declines. Some days later Jane speaks with Poirot just before he is set to leave for Paris. She hopes its not too late to take his offer, as she had lost her job and needed something soon. While in Paris they meet with the Dupont's. Poirot makes a money offer to assist their next expedition in Persia and requests that Jane goes as well. They tell him they will consider the offer.

We learn the Giselle's daughter has come to collect her inheritance. From documentation we find out that her married name is Mrs. Richard's. She was placed in foster care and was never raised by her mother, but she helped support her financially over the years. Poirot takes the time to go and speak with Dr. Bryant and find that he has fully retired. Poirot and Fournier try to gain information on Mr. Richard's. Jane drops a bag and has an epiphany when she chips her nail. She remembers where she has seen Giselle's daughter, she saw her on the plane, getting anything that Lady Horbury requested, she was her maid.

Poirot felt that she had nothing to do with the crime and feared that she was in very grave danger. He goes to her hotel and takes a while to gain information from the desk clerk. Jane stayed at the hotel until Poirot returned from finding Mrs. Richard's. When he came back he had some bad news, she had committed suicide at her destination. Police had confirmed there was no chance of this being foul play.

Poirot gathers everyone over a dinner to reveal his findings and the murderer. Upon inspection he found one item among the possessions to be the missing link to reveal the murder very easily. This person also had another name they went by and was in fact related to Giselle. Their purpose did result back to money. Upon being accused they attempted to counter what Poirot was telling everyone, but Poirot fought back with more sound facts that made the person become speechless. It is most certainly true the you cannot silence the truth.

More and more I am noticing that she is using the route of hidden identity as a part of her plot twist. This is one thing that I somehow have lacked knowing in the last two books of hers that I have reviewed. This book had some very good elements that made it very different from the others. A murder on a plane, with as small as it was with limited suspects posed more of an issue when trying to solve this. The murderer was not obvious but with clues slowly that helped pin point the very person responsible. One piece that was not mentioned again was the spoon, and how it was even correlated with the ending. Christie is good about wrapping everything up with no loose ends. This is probably the only downfall that I see in this story. Overall I still think this is good read and quite enjoyable.