"Yes, the police think it was suicide."
"And you?"
Poirot slowly spread out his hands in an expressive gesture.
"What else is there to think?"
"She killed herself? Why?
Because of remorse or because she was afraid of being found out?"
Poirot shook his head.
"Life can be very terrible," he said. "One needs much courage."
"To kill oneself?
Yes, I suppose one does."
"Also to live," said Poirot, "one needs courage."
Chapter 26
The next day Poirot left Paris. Jane stayed behind with a list of duties to perform.
Most of these seemed singularly meaningless to her, but she carried them out to the best of her powers.
She saw Jean Dupont twice.
He mentioned the expedition which she was to join, and Jane did not dare to undeceive him without orders from Poirot, so she hedged as best she could and turned the conversation to other matters.
Five days later she was recalled to England by a telegram.
Norman met her at Victoria and they discussed recent events.
Very little publicity had been given to the suicide.
There had been a paragraph in the papers stating that a Canadian lady, a Mrs Richards, had committed suicide in the Paris-Boulogne express, but that was all.
There had been no mention of any connection with the aeroplane murder.
Both Norman and Jane were inclined to be jubilant.
Their troubles, they hoped, were at an end.
Norman was not so sanguine as Jane.
"They may suspect her of doing her mother in, but now that she's taken this way out, they probably won't bother to go on with the case. And unless it is proved publicly, I don't see what good it is going to be to all of us poor devils.
From the point of view of the public, we shall remain under suspicion just as much as ever."
He said as much to Poirot, whom he met a few days later in Piccadilly.
Poirot smiled.
"You are like all the rest.
You think I am an old man who accomplishes nothing!
Listen, you shall come tonight to dine with me.
Japp is coming, and also our friend, Mr Clancy.
I have some things to say that may be interesting."
The dinner passed off pleasantly.
Japp was patronizing and good-humored, Norman was interested, and little Mr Clancy was nearly as thrilled as when he had recognized the fatal thorn.
It seemed clear that Poirot was not above trying to impress the little author.
After dinner, when coffee had been drunk, Poirot cleared his throat in a slightly embarassed manner not free from self-importance.
"My friends," he said, "Mr Clancy here has expressed interest in what he would call 'my methods, Watson,' C'est зa, n'est-ce pas? I propose, if it will not bore you all -"
He paused significantly, and Norman and Japp said quickly, "No, no," and "Most interesting."
"- to give you a little resume of my methods in dealing with this case."
He paused and consulted some notes.
Japp whispered to Norman: "Fancies himself, doesn't he? Conceit's that little man's middle name."
Poirot looked at him reproachfully and said. "Ahem!"
Three politely interested faces were turned to him and he began:
"I will start at the beginning, my friends.
I will go back to the air liner
'Prometheus' on its ill-fated journey from Paris to Croydon.
I am going to tell you my precise ideas and impressions at the time; passing on to how I came to confirm or modify them in the light of future events.
"When, just before we reached Croydon, Doctor Bryant was approached by the steward and went with him to examine the body, I accompanied him. I had a feeling that it might - who knows? - be something in my line. I have, perhaps, too professional a point of view where deaths are concerned.
They are divided, in my mind, into two classes - deaths which are my affair and deaths which are not my affair - and though the latter class is infinitely more numerous, nevertheless, whenever I come in contact with death, I am like the dog who lifts his head and sniffs the scent.