In the novel Death in the Clouds, Elise Grandier is the maid of Madame Giselle.
She is very loyal to Madame Giselle. She says that Madame Giselle always paid back any money she owed, and never had any bills outstanding. She also says that Madame Giselle was very kind, giving money to the Little Sisters of the Poor and to charitable organisations, and paying for Georges' wife to go to a hospital in the country when she was ill.
Elise is described as a "short stout woman of middle age with a florid face and small shrewd eyes".
Elise had orders in the event of anything happening to Madame Giselle to open the safe and burn all the papers containing information about Madame Giselle's clients. As soon as she found out about Madame Giselle's death, she acted on these orders, so the police did not get to see the papers.
Poirot deduces that the papers must have been kept somewhere other than the safe in Madame Giselle's office, as it was too old-fashioned, and an amateur might have been able to open it. Elise admits that the papers were actually kept in Madame Giselle's bedroom.
Elise tells Poirot and M. Fournier that Madame Giselle had returned to Paris only the afternoon before her flight to England. She had been away for a fortnight before that. She directed Elise to call Universal Airlines to book a flight to England the following day. Elise did so, and was told that the morning flight was full, so she booked a seat on the 12 o'clock service.
Elise says that she believed one client had come to see Madame Giselle the night before the flight to England, but she was not sure. After Fournier leaves to question Georges about it, Poirot tells Elise that she is concealing something, and asks what it is.
Elise reveals that in the past she had been deceived and had her savings stolen, and that she had a child, a daughter, who has since passed away. She says that Madame Giselle had been very kind, and had arranged for the baby to be brought up by good people on a farm. At that time, Madame Giselle also told Elise that she herself also had a child. Elise suspects that the child's father was English, because of the bitterness in Madame Giselle's voice when she spoke of the English, and how in business, she enjoyed having anyone English in her power.
Elise then reveals that what she had been concealing was a small black notebook, which Madame Giselle had carried everywhere with her. She had been unable to find it before leaving for England, and Elise had found it later. She did not burn the book, as she had not been given any instructions regarding it. The entries in the book consist of numbers, followed by a few descriptive words.
Portrayals[]
In the the television adaptation of Death in the Clouds in Series 4 of ITV's Agatha Christie's Poirot drama series, the part of Elise is played by Gabrielle Lloyd.