Death in the Clouds - Agatha Christie [1]
As the plane roared above France on its way to the Channel the passengers in the rear compartment thought their various thoughts.
Jane Grey thought: ‘I won’t look at him…I won’t…It’s much better not. I’ll go on looking out of the window and thinking. I’ll choose a definite thing to think about—that’s always the best way. That will keep my mind steady. I’ll begin at the beginning and go all over it.’
Resolutely she switched her mind back to what she called the beginning, that purchase of a ticket in the Irish Sweep. It had been an extravagance, but an exciting extravagance.
A lot of laughter and teasing chatter in the hairdressing establishment in which Jane and five other young ladies were employed.
‘What’ll you do if you win it, dear?’
‘I know what I’d do.’
Plans—castles in the air—a lot of chaff.
Well, she hadn’t won ‘it’—‘it’ being the big prize; but she had won a hundred pounds.
A hundred pounds.
‘You spend half of it, dear, and keep the other half for a rainy day. You never know.’
‘I’d buy a fur coat, if I was you—a real tip-top one.’
‘What about a cruise?’
Jane had wavered at the thought of a ‘cruise’, but in the end she had remained faithful to her first idea. A week at Le Pinet. So many of her ladies had been going to Le Pinet or just come back from Le Pinet. Jane, her clever fingers patting and manipulating the waves, her tongue uttering mechanically the usual clichés, ‘Let me see, how long is it since you had your perm, Madam?’ ‘Your hair’s such an uncommon colour, Madam.’ ‘What a wonderful summer it has been, hasn’t it, Madam?’ had thought to herself, ‘Why the devil can’t I go to Le Pinet?’ Well, now she could.
Clothes presented small difficulty. Jane, like most London girls employed in smart places, could produce a miraculous effect of fashion for a ridiculously small outlay. Nails, make-up and hair were beyond reproach.
Jane went to Le Pinet.
Was it possible that now, in her thoughts, ten days at Le Pinet had dwindled down to one incident?
An incident at the roulette table. Jane allowed herself a certain amount each evening for the pleasures of gambling. That sum she was determined not to exceed. Contrary to the prevalent superstition, Jane’s beginner’s luck had been bad. This was her fourth evening and the last stake of that evening. So far she had staked prudently on colour or on one of the dozens. She had won a little, but lost more. Now she waited, her stake in her hand.
There were two numbers on which nobody had staked, five and six. Should she put this, her last stake, on one of those numbers? If so, which of them? Five, or six? Which did she feel?
Five—five was going to turn up. The ball was spun. Jane stretched out her hand. Six, she’d put it on six.
Just in time. She and another player opposite staked simultaneously, she on six, he on five.
‘Rien ne va plus,’ said the croupier.
The ball clicked, settled.
‘Le numéro cinq, rouge, impair, manque.’
Jane could have cried with vexation. The croupier swept away the stakes, paid out. The man opposite said: ‘Aren’t you going to take up your winnings?’
‘Mine?’
‘Yes.’
‘But I put on six.’
‘Indeed you didn’t. I put on six and you put on five.’
He smiled—a very attractive smile. White teeth in a very brown face, blue eyes, crisp short hair.
Half unbelievingly Jane picked up her gains. Was it true? She felt a little muddled herself. Perhaps she had put her counters on five. She looked doubtingly at the stranger and he smiled easily back.
‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘Leave a thing lying there and somebody else will grab it who has got no right to it. That’s an old trick.’
Then with a friendly little nod of the head he had moved away. That, too, had been nice of him. She might have suspected otherwise that he had let her take his winnings in order to scrape acquaintance