Madame Giselle, named Madame Marie Giselle in Agatha Christie's Poirot, is the overarching antagonist and the first victim of Dame Agatha Christie's 1935 Hercule Poirot novel, Death in the Clouds.
Despite of her status as a victim, she is soon revealed to be a villainous victim of some sort when her identity and nature is revealed. Madame Giselle is a stiff, greedy and harsh moneylender who lends high amount of loans towards wealthy people.
The point is, she will blackmail her debtors to ensure that they never miss their repayments, and her methods becomes Poirot's initial theory of her being killed during a flight.
She was portrayed by Eve Pearce in Agatha Christie's Poirot.
History[]
Madame Marie Giselle was a moneylender who will blackmail her debtors to fulfill their repayment. Her notable debtors include Cecile, Countess of Horbury (aka Lady Horbury). Lady Horbury could not fulfill the repayment, because she had been cut off from her husband's money.
As a result, Lady Horbury showed contempt and fear when she noticed Lady Horbury near her twice, particularly when they were on the same flight, where Hercule Poirot was near them. Poirot's seat was set on the same row of Madame Giselle's, only with the corridor between them. She also tried to pretend not to know Madame Giselle when asked by Poirot, but later she told Poirot the truth and revealed the details of Madame Giselle's true nature.
During the flight, a mysterious individual had murdered Madame Giselle and pretended to be a wasp sting, but the murder weapon was soon discovered to be a poisonous dart, seemingly blown from a wooden blowpipe. However, the culprit had put the blowpipe in the seat of Poirot himself, who was sleeping all along during the flight, in order to frame the detective.
Nevertheless, it was soon revealed that the culprit, lurking upon the plane, never used the blowpipe. Instead, they went near Madame Giselle while in disguise and stung her with the dart, before using the corpse of a dead wasp he prepared long ago in order to drew the attention.
Madame Giselle was also revealed to be the mother of Anne Morisot, her illegiminate daughter whom she sent to Canada when she was younger. Anne later married the culprit and wished to inherit her mother's fortune through the way of killing the latter off, thus becoming an accomplice.
Trivia[]
- Madame Giselle's death is similar to Lady Boynton's death. Both of their murderers had poisoned them in a point-blank range and used a dead wasp as a distraction.
- In addition, both of these two victims had been blackmailing certain individuals, though the death of Madame Giselle was not related to the said blackmailing.
