Agatha Christie

The Hollow

A Hercule Poirot Mystery

Dedication

For Larry and Danae
With apologies for using their swimming pool
as the scene of a murder

One

At six thirteen a.m. on a Friday morning Lucy Angkatellâs big blue eyes opened upon another day and, as always, she was at once wide awake and began immediately to deal with the problems conjured up by her incredibly active mind. Feeling urgently the need of consultation and conversation, and selecting for the purpose her young cousin, Midge Hardcastle, who had arrived at The Hollow the night before, Lady Angkatell slipped quickly out of bed, threw a nÃ©gligÃ©e round her still graceful shoulders, and went along the passage to Midgeâs room. Since she was a woman of disconcertingly rapid thought processes, Lady Angkatell, as was her invariable custom, commenced the conversation in her own mind, supplying Midgeâs answers out of her own fertile imagination.

The conversation was in full swing when Lady Angkatell flung open Midgeâs door.

ââAnd so, darling, you really must agree that the weekend is going to present difficulties!â

âEh? Hwah!â Midge grunted inarticulately, aroused thus abruptly from a satisfying and deep sleep.

Lady Angkatell crossed to the window, opening the shutters and jerking up the blind with a brisk movement, letting in the pale light of a September dawn.

âBirds!â she observed, peering with kindly pleasure through the pane. âSo sweet.â

âWhat?â

âWell, at any rate, the weather isnât going to present difficulties. It looks as though it has set in fine. Thatâs something. Because if a lot of discordant personalities are boxed up indoors, Iâm sure you will agree with me that it makes it ten times worse. Round games perhaps, and that would be like last year when I shall never forgive myself about poor Gerda. I said to Henry afterwards it was most thoughtless of meâand one has to have her, of course, because it would be so rude to ask John without her, but it really does make things difficultâand the worst of it is that she is so niceâreally it seems odd sometimes that anyone so nice as Gerda is should be so devoid of any kind of intelligence, and if that is what they mean by the law of compensation I donât really think it is at all fair.â

âWhat are you talking about, Lucy?â

âThe weekend, darling. The people who are coming tomorrow. I have been thinking about it all night and I have been dreadfully bothered about it. So it really is a relief to talk it over with you, Midge. You are always so sensible and practical.â

âLucy,â said Midge sternly. âDo you know what time it is?â

âNot exactly, darling. I never do, you know.â

âItâs quarter past six.â

âYes, dear,â said Lady Angkatell, with no signs of contrition.

Midge gazed sternly at her. How maddening, how absolutely impossible Lucy was! Really, thought Midge, I donât know why we put up with her!

Yet even as she voiced the thought to herself, she was aware of the answer. Lucy Angkatell was smiling, and as Midge looked at her, she felt the extraordinary pervasive charm that Lucy had wielded all her life and that even now, at over sixty, had not failed her. Because of it, people all over the world, foreign potentates, ADCs, Government officials, had endured inconvenience, annoyance and bewilderment. It was the childlike pleasure and delight in her own doings that disarmed and nullified criticism. Lucy had but to open those wide blue eyes and stretch out those fragile hands, and murmur, âOh! but Iâm so sorryâ¦â and resentment immediately vanished.

âDarling,â said Lady Angkatell, âIâm so sorry. You should have told me!â

âIâm telling you nowâbut itâs too late! Iâm thoroughly awake.â

âWhat a shame! But you will help me, wonât you?â

âAbout the weekend? Why? Whatâs wrong with it?â

Lady Angkatell sat down on the edge of the bed. It was not, Midge thought, like anyone else sitting on your bed. It was as insubstantial as though a fairy had poised itself there for a minute.

Lady Angkatell stretched out fluttering white hands in a lovely, helpless gesture.

âAll the wrong people comingâthe wrong people to be together, I meanânot in themselves. Theyâre all charming really.â

âWho is coming?â

Midge pushed thick wiry black hair back from her square forehead with a sturdy brown arm. Nothing insubstantial or fairylike about her.

âWell, John and Gerda. Thatâs all right by itself. I mean, John is delightfulâmost attractive. And as for poor Gerdaâwell, I mean, we must all be very kind. Very, very kind.â

Moved by an obscure instinct of defence, Midge said:

âOh, come now, sheâs not as bad as that.â

âOh, darling, sheâs pathetic. Those eyes. And she never seems to understand a single word one says.â

âShe doesnât,â said Midge. âNot what you sayâbut I donât know that I blame her. Your mind, Lucy, goes so fast, that to keep pace with it your conversation takes the most amazing leaps. All the connecting links are left out.â

âJust like a monkey,â said Lady Angkatell vaguely.

âBut who else is coming besides the Christows? Henrietta, I suppose?â

Lady Angkatellâs face brightened.

âYesâand I really do feel that she will be a tower of strength. She always is. Henrietta, you know, is really kindâkind all through, not just on top. She will help a lot with poor Gerda. She was simply wonderful last year. That was the time we played limericks, or word-making, or quotationsâor one of those things, and we had all finished and were reading them out when we suddenly discovered that poor dear Gerda hadnât even begun. She wasnât even sure what the game was. It was dreadful, wasnât it, Midge?â

âWhy anyone ever comes to stay with the Angkatells, I donât know,â said Midge. âWhat with the brainwork, and the round games, and your peculiar style of conversation, Lucy.â

âYes, darling, we must be tryingâand it must always be hateful for Gerda, and I often think that if she had any spirit she would stay awayâbut however, there it was, and the poor dear looked so bewildered andâwellâmortified, you know. And John looked so dreadfully impatient. And I simply couldnât think of how to make things all right againâand it was then that I felt so grateful to Henrietta. She turned right round to Gerda and asked about the pullover she was wearingâreally a dreadful affair in faded lettuce greenâtoo depressing and jumble sale, darlingâand Gerda brightened up at once, it seems that she had knitted it herself, and Henrietta asked her for the pattern, and Gerda looked so happy and proud. And that is what I mean about Henrietta. She can always do that sort of thing. Itâs a kind of knack.â

âShe takes trouble,â said Midge slowly.

âYes, and she knows what to say.â

âAh,â said Midge. âBut it goes further than saying. Do you know, Lucy, that Henrietta actually knitted that pullover?â

âOh, my dear.â Lady Angkatell looked grave. âAnd wore it?â

âAnd wore it. Henrietta carries things through.â

âAnd was it very dreadful?â

âNo. On Henrietta it looked very nice.â

âWell, of course it would. Thatâs just the difference between Henrietta and Gerda. Everything Henrietta does she does well and it turns out right. Sheâs clever about nearly everything, as well as in her own line. I must say, Midge, that if anyone carries us through this weekend, it will be Henrietta. She will be nice to Gerda and she will amuse Henry, and sheâll keep John in a good temper and Iâm sure sheâll be most helpful with David.â

âDavid Angkatell?â

âYes. Heâs just down from Oxfordâor perhaps Cambridge. Boys of that age are so difficultâespecially when they are intellectual. David is very intellectual. One wishes that they could put off being intellectual until they were rather older. As it is, they always glower at one so and bite their nails and seem to have so many spots and sometimes an Adamâs apple as well. And they either wonât speak at all, or else are very loud and contradictory. Still, as I say, I am trusting to Henrietta. She is very tactful and asks the right kind of questions, and being a sculptress they respect her, especially as she doesnât just carve animals or childrenâs heads but does advanced things like that curious affair in metal and plaster that she exhibited at the New Artists last year. It looked rather like a Heath Robinson stepladder. It was called Ascending Thoughtâor something like that. It is the kind of thing that would impress a boy like Davidâ¦I thought myself it was just silly.â

âDear Lucy!â

âBut some of Henriettaâs things I think are quite lovely. That Weeping Ash tree figure, for instance.â

âHenrietta has a touch of real genius, I think. And she is a very lovely and satisfying person as well,â said Midge.

Lady Angkatell got up and drifted over to the window again. She played absentmindedly with the blind cord.

âWhy acorns, I wonder?â she murmured.

âAcorns?â

âOn the blind cord. Like pineapples on gates. I mean, there must be a reason. Because it might just as easily be a fircone or a pear, but itâs always an acorn. Mast, they call it in crosswordsâyou know, for pigs. So curious, I always think.â

âDonât ramble off, Lucy. You came in here to talk about the weekend and I canât see why you were so anxious about it. If you manage to keep off round games, and try to be coherent when youâre talking to Gerda, and put Henrietta on to tame intellectual David, where is the difficulty?â

âWell, for one thing, darling, Edward is coming.â

âOh, Edward.â Midge was silent for a moment after saying the name.

Then she asked quietly:

âWhat on earth made you ask Edward for this weekend?â

âI didnât, Midge. Thatâs just it. He asked himself. Wired to know if we could have him. You know what Edward is. How sensitive. If Iâd wired back âNo,â heâd probably never have asked himself again. Heâs like that.â

Midge nodded her head slowly.

Yes, she thought, Edward was like that. For an instant she saw his face clearly, that very dearly loved face. A face with something of Lucyâs insubstantial charm; gentle, diffident, ironicâ¦.

âDear Edward,â said Lucy, echoing the thought in Midgeâs mind.

She went on impatiently:

âIf only Henrietta would make up her mind to marry him. She is really fond of him, I know she is. If they had been here some weekend without the Christowsâ¦As it is, John Christow has always the most unfortunate effect on Edward. John, if you know what I mean, becomes so much more so and Edward becomes so much less so. You understand?â

Again Midge nodded.

âAnd I canât put the Christows off because this weekend was arranged long ago, but I do feel, Midge, that it is all going to be difficult, with David glowering and biting his nails, and with trying to keep Gerda from feeling out of it, and with John being so positive and dear Edward so negativeââ

âThe ingredients of the pudding are not promising,â murmured Midge.

Lucy smiled at her.

âSometimes,â she said meditatively, âthings arrange themselves quite simply. Iâve asked the Crime man to lunch on Sunday. It will make a distraction, donât you think so?â

âCrime man?â

âLike an egg,â said Lady Angkatell. âHe was in Baghdad, solving something, when Henry was High Commissioner. Or perhaps it was afterwards? We had him to lunch with some other Duty people. He had on a white duck suit, I remember, and a pink flower in his buttonhole, and black patent leather shoes. I donât remember much about it because I never think itâs very interesting who killed who. I mean, once they are dead it doesnât seem to matter why, and to make a fuss about it all seems so sillyâ¦.â

âBut have you any crimes down here, Lucy?â

âOh, no, darling. Heâs in one of those funny new cottagesâyou know, beams that bump your head and a lot of very good plumbing and quite the wrong kind of garden. London people like that sort of thing. Thereâs an actress in the other, I believe. They donât live in them all the time like we do. Still,â Lady Angkatell moved vaguely across the room, âI dare say it pleases them. Midge, darling, itâs sweet of you to have been so helpful.â

âI donât think I have been so very helpful.â

âOh, havenât you?â Lucy Angkatell looked surprised. âWell, have a nice sleep now and donât get up to breakfast, and when you do get up, do be as rude as ever you like.â

âRude?â Midge looked surprised. âWhy! Oh!â she laughed. âI see! Penetrating of you, Lucy. Perhaps Iâll take you at your word.â

Lady Angkatell smiled and went out. As she passed the open bathroom door and saw the kettle and gas ring, an idea came to her.

People were fond of tea, she knewâand Midge wouldnât be called for hours. She would make Midge some tea. She put the kettle on and then went on down the passage.

She paused at her husbandâs door and turned the handle, but Sir Henry Angkatell, that able administrator, knew his Lucy. He was extremely fond of her, but he liked his morning sleep undisturbed. The door was locked.

Lady Angkatell went on into her own room. She would have liked to have consulted Henry, but later would do. She stood by her open window, looked out for a moment or two, then she yawned. She got into bed, laid her head on the pillow and in two minutes was sleeping like a child.

In the bathroom the kettle came to the boil and went on boilingâ¦.

âAnother kettle gone, Mr. Gudgeon,â said Simmons, the housemaid.

Gudgeon, the butler, shook his grey head.

He took the burnt-out kettle from Simmons and, going into the pantry, produced another kettle from the bottom of the plate cupboard where he had a stock of half a dozen.

âThere you are, Miss Simmons. Her ladyship will never know.â

âDoes her ladyship often do this sort of thing?â asked Simmons.

Gudgeon sighed.

âHer ladyship,â he said, âis at once kindhearted and very forgetful, if you know what I mean. But in this house,â he continued, âI see to it that everything possible is done to spare her ladyship annoyance or worry.â

Two

Henrietta Savernake rolled up a little strip of clay and patted it into place. She was building up the clay head of a girl with swift practised skill.

In her ears, but penetrating only to the edge of her understanding, was the thin whine of a slightly common voice:

âAnd I do think, Miss Savernake, that I was quite right! âReally,â I said, âif thatâs the line youâre going to take!â Because I do think, Miss Savernake, that a girl owes it to herself to make a stand about these sort of thingsâif you know what I mean. âIâm not accustomed,â I said, âto having things like that said to me, and I can only say that you must have a very nasty imagination!â One does hate unpleasantness, but I do think I was right to make a stand, donât you, Miss Savernake?â

âOh, absolutely,â said Henrietta with a fervour in her voice which might have led someone who knew her well to suspect that she had not been listening very closely.

ââAnd if your wife says things of that kind,â I said, âwell, Iâm sure I canât help it!â I donât know how it is, Miss Savernake, but it seems to be trouble wherever I go, and Iâm sure itâs not my fault. I mean, men are so susceptible, arenât they?â The model gave a coquettish little giggle.

âFrightfully,â said Henrietta, her eyes half-closed.

âLovely,â she was thinking. âLovely that plane just below the eyelidâand the other plane coming up to meet it. That angle by the jawâs wrongâ¦I must scrape off there and build up again. Itâs tricky.â

Aloud she said in her warm, sympathetic voice:

âIt must have been most difficult for you.â

âI do think jealousyâs so unfair, Miss Savernake, and so narrow, if you know what I mean. Itâs just envy, if I may say so, because someoneâs better-looking and younger than they are.â

Henrietta, working on the jaw, said absently: âYes, of course.â

She had learned the trick, years ago, of shutting her mind into watertight compartments. She could play a game of bridge, conduct an intelligent conversation, write a clearly constructed letter, all without giving more than a fraction of her essential mind to the task. She was now completely intent on seeing the head of Nausicaa build itself up under her fingers, and the thin, spiteful stream of chatter issuing from those very lovely childish lips penetrated not at all into the deeper recesses of her mind. She kept the conversation going without effort. She was used to models who wanted to talk. Not so much the professional onesâit was the amateurs who, uneasy at their forced inactivity of limb, made up for it by bursting into garrulous self-revelation. So an inconspicuous part of Henrietta listened and replied, and, very far and remote, the real Henrietta commented, âCommon mean spiteful little pieceâbut what eyesâ¦Lovely lovely lovely eyesâ¦.â

Whilst she was busy on the eyes, let the girl talk. She would ask her to keep silent when she got to the mouth. Funny when you came to think of it, that that thin stream of spite should come out through those perfect curves.

âOh, damn,â thought Henrietta with sudden frenzy, âIâm ruining that eyebrow arch! What the hellâs the matter with it? Iâve overemphasized the boneâitâs sharp, not thickâ¦.â

She stood back again frowning from the clay to the flesh and blood sitting on the platform.

Doris Saunders went on:

ââWell,â I said, âI really donât see why your husband shouldnât give me a present if he likes, and I donât think,â I said, âyou ought to make insinuations of that kind.â It was ever such a nice bracelet, Miss Savernake, reely quite lovelyâand of course I daresay the poor fellow couldnât reely afford it, but I do think it was nice of him, and I certainly wasnât going to give it back!â

âNo, no,â murmured Henrietta.

âAnd itâs not as though there was anything between usâanything nasty, I meanâthere was nothing of that kind.â

âNo,â said Henrietta, âIâm sure there wouldnât beâ¦.â

Her brow cleared. For the next half hour she worked in a kind of fury. Clay smeared itself on her forehead, clung to her hair, as she pushed an impatient hand through it. Her eyes had a blind intense ferocity. It was comingâ¦She was getting itâ¦.

Now, in a few hours, she would be out of her agonyâthe agony that had been growing upon her for the last ten days.

Nausicaaâshe had been Nausicaa, she had got up with Nausicaa and had breakfast with Nausicaa and gone out with Nausicaa. She had tramped the streets in a nervous excitable restlessness, unable to fix her mind on anything but a beautiful blind face somewhere just beyond her mindâs eyeâhovering there just not able to be clearly seen. She had interviewed models, hesitated over Greek types, felt profoundly dissatisfiedâ¦.

She wanted somethingâsomething to give her the startâsomething that would bring her own already partially realized vision alive. She had walked long distances, getting physically tired out and welcoming the fact. And driving her, harrying her, was that urgent incessant longingâto seeâ

There was a blind look in her own eyes as she walked. She saw nothing of what was around her. She was strainingâstraining the whole time to make that face come nearerâ¦She felt sick, ill, miserableâ¦.

And then, suddenly, her vision had cleared and with normal human eyes she had seen opposite her in the bus which she had boarded absentmindedly and with no interest in its destinationâshe had seenâyes, Nausicaa! A foreshortened childish face, half-parted lips and eyesâlovely vacant, blind eyes.

The girl rang the bell and got out. Henrietta followed her.

She was now quite calm and businesslike. She had got what she wantedâthe agony of baffled search was over.

âExcuse me speaking to you. Iâm a professional sculptor and to put it frankly, your head is just what I have been looking for.â

She was friendly, charming and compelling as she knew how to be when she wanted something.

Doris Saunders had been doubtful, alarmed, flattered.

âWell, I donât know, Iâm sure. If itâs just the head. Of course, Iâve never done that sort of thing!â

Suitable hesitations, delicate financial inquiry.

âOf course I should insist on your accepting the proper professional fee.â

And so here was Nausicaa, sitting on the platform, enjoying the idea of her attractions, being immortalized (though not liking very much the examples of Henriettaâs work which she could see in the studio!) and enjoying also the revelation of her personality to a listener whose sympathy and attention seemed to be so complete.

On the table beside the model were her spectaclesâ¦the spectacles that she put on as seldom as possible owing to vanity, preferring to feel her way almost blindly sometimes, since she admitted to Henrietta that without them she was so shortsighted that she could hardly see a yard in front of her.

Henrietta had nodded comprehendingly. She understood now the physical reason for that blank and lovely stare.

Time went on. Henrietta suddenly laid down her modelling tools and stretched her arms widely.

âAll right,â she said, âIâve finished. I hope youâre not too tired?â

âOh, no, thank you, Miss Savernake. Itâs been very interesting, Iâm sure. Do you mean, itâs really doneâso soon?â

Henrietta laughed.

âOh, no, itâs not actually finished. I shall have to work on it quite a bit. But itâs finished as far as youâre concerned. Iâve got what I wantedâbuilt up the planes.â

The girl came down slowly from the platform. She put on her spectacles and at once the blind innocence and vague confiding charm of the face vanished. There remained now an easy, cheap prettiness.

She came to stand by Henrietta and looked at the clay model.

âOh,â she said doubtfully, disappointment in her voice. âItâs not very like me, is it?â

Henrietta smiled.

âOh, no, itâs not a portrait.â

There was, indeed, hardly a likeness at all. It was the setting of the eyesâthe line of the cheekbonesâthat Henrietta had seen as the essential keynote of her conception of Nausicaa. This was not Doris Saunders, it was a blind girl about whom a poem could be made. The lips were parted as Dorisâs were parted, but they were not Dorisâs lips. They were lips that would speak another language and would utter thoughts that were not Dorisâs thoughtsâ

None of the features were clearly defined. It was Nausicaa remembered, not seenâ¦.

âWell,â said Miss Saunders doubtfully, âI suppose itâll look better when youâve got on with it a bitâ¦And you really donât want me anymore?â

âNo, thank you,â said Henrietta (âAnd thank God I donât!â said her inner mind). âYouâve been simply splendid. Iâm very grateful.â

She got rid of Doris expertly and returned to make herself some black coffee. She was tiredâshe was horribly tired. But happyâhappy and at peace.

âThank goodness,â she thought, ânow I can be a human being again.â

And at once her thoughts went to John.

âJohn,â she thought. Warmth crept into her cheeks, a sudden quick lifting of the heart made her spirits soar.

âTomorrow,â she thought, âIâm going to The Hollowâ¦I shall see Johnâ¦.â

She sat quite still, sprawled back on the divan, drinking down the hot, strong liquid. She drank three cups of it. She felt vitality surging back.

It was nice, she thought, to be a human being againâ¦and not that other thing. Nice to have stopped feeling restless and miserable and driven. Nice to be able to stop walking about the streets unhappily, looking for something, and feeling irritable and impatient because, really, you didnât know what you were looking for! Now, thank goodness, there would be only hard workâand who minded hard work?

She put down the empty cup and got up and strolled back to Nausicaa. She looked at it for some time, and slowly a little frown crept between her brows.

It wasnâtâit wasnât quiteâ

What was it that was wrong?â¦

Blind eyes.

Blind eyes that were more beautiful than any eyes that could seeâ¦Blind eyes that tore at your heart because they were blindâ¦Had she got that or hadnât she?

Sheâd got it, yesâbut sheâd got something else as well. Something that she hadnât meant or thought aboutâ¦The structure was all rightâyes, surely. But where did it come fromâthat faint, insidious suggestion?â¦.

The suggestion, somewhere, of a common spiteful mind.

She hadnât been listening, not really listening. Yet somehow, in through her ears and out at her fingers, it had worked its way into the clay.

And she wouldnât, she knew she wouldnât, be able to get it out againâ¦.

Henrietta turned away sharply. Perhaps it was fancy. Yes, surely it was fancy. She would feel quite differently about it in the morning. She thought with dismay:

âHow vulnerable one isâ¦.â

She walked, frowning, up to the end of the studio. She stopped in front of her figure of The Worshipper.

That was all rightâa lovely bit of pearwood, graining just right. Sheâd saved it up for ages, hoarding it.

She looked at it critically. Yes, it was good. No doubt about that. The best thing she had done for a long timeâit was for the International Group. Yes, quite a worthy exhibit.

Sheâd got it all right: the humility, the strength in the neck muscles, the bowed shoulders, the slightly upraised faceâa featureless face, since worship drives out personality.

Yes, submission, adorationâand that final devotion that is beyond, not this side, idolatryâ¦.

Henrietta sighed. If only, she thought, John had not been so angry.

It had startled her, that anger. It had told her something about him that he did not, she thought, know himself.

He had said flatly: âYou canât exhibit that!â

And she had said, as flatly: âI shall.â

She went slowly back to Nausicaa. There was nothing there, she thought, that she couldnât put right. She sprayed it and wrapped it up in the damp cloths. It would have to stand over until Monday or Tuesday. There was no hurry now. The urgency had goneâall the essential planes were there. It only needed patience.

Ahead of her were three happy days with Lucy and Henry and Midgeâand John!

She yawned, stretched herself like a cat stretches itself with relish and abandon, pulling out each muscle to its fullest extent. She knew suddenly how very tired she was.

She had a hot bath and went to bed. She lay on her back staring at a star or two through the skylight. Then from there her eyes went to the one light always left on, the small bulb that illuminated the glass mask that had been one of her earliest bits of work. Rather an obvious piece, she thought now. Conventional in its suggestion.

Lucky, thought Henrietta, that one outgrew oneselfâ¦.

And now, sleep! The strong black coffee that she had drunk did not bring wakefulness in its train unless she wished it to do so. Long ago she had taught herself the essential rhythm that could bring oblivion at call.

You took thoughts, choosing them out of your store, and then, not dwelling on them, you let them slip through the fingers of your mind, never clutching at them, never dwelling on them, no concentrationâ¦just letting them drift gently past.

Outside in the Mews a car was being revved upâsomewhere there was hoarse shouting and laughing. She took the sounds into the stream of her semiconsciousness.

The car, she thought, was a tiger roaringâ¦yellow and blackâ¦striped like the striped leavesâleaves and shadowsâa hot jungleâ¦and then down the riverâa wide tropical riverâ¦to the sea and the liner startingâ¦and hoarse voices calling good-byeâand John beside her on the deckâ¦she and John startingâblue sea and down into the dining saloonâsmiling at him across the tableâlike dinner at the Maison DorÃ©eâpoor John, so angry!â¦out into the night airâand the car, the feeling of sliding in the gearsâeffortless, smooth, racing out of Londonâ¦up over Shovel Downâ¦the treesâ¦tree worshipâ¦The Hollowâ¦Lucyâ¦Johnâ¦Johnâ¦Ridgewayâs Diseaseâ¦dear Johnâ¦.

Passing into unconsciousness now, into a happy beatitude.

And then some sharp discomfort, some haunting sense of guilt pulling her back. Something she ought to have done. Something that she had shirked.

Nausicaa?

Slowly, unwillingly, Henrietta got out of bed. She switched on the lights, went across to the stand and unwrapped the cloths.

She took a deep breath.

Not NausicaaâDoris Saunders!

A pang went through Henrietta. She was pleading with herself: âI can get it rightâI can get it rightâ¦.â

âStupid,â she said to herself. âYou know quite well what youâve got to do.â

Because if she didnât do it now, at onceâtomorrow she wouldnât have the courage. It was like destroying your flesh and blood. It hurtâyes, it hurt.

Perhaps, thought Henrietta, cats feel like this when one of their kittens has something wrong with it and they kill it.

She took a quick, sharp breath, then she seized the clay, twisting it off the armature, carrying it, a large heavy lump, to dump it in the clay bin.

She stood there breathing deeply, looking down at her clay-smeared hands, still feeling the wrench to her physical and mental self. She cleaned the clay off her hands slowly.

She went back to bed feeling a curious emptiness, yet a sense of peace.

Nausicaa, she thought sadly, would not come again. She had been born, had been contaminated and had died.

âQueer,â thought Henrietta, âhow things can seep into you without your knowing it.â

She hadnât been listeningânot really listeningâand yet knowledge of Dorisâs cheap, spiteful little mind had seeped into her mind and had, unconsciously, influenced her hands.

And now the thing that had been NausicaaâDorisâwas only clayâjust the raw material that would, soon, be fashioned into something else.

Henrietta thought dreamily: âIs that, then, what death is? Is what we call personality just the shaping of itâthe impress of somebodyâs thought? Whose thought? Godâs?â

That was the idea, wasnât it, of Peer Gynt? Back into the Button Moulderâs ladle.

âWhere am I myself, the whole man, the true man? Where am I with Godâs mark upon my brow?â

Did John feel like that? He had been so tired the other nightâso disheartened. Ridgewayâs Diseaseâ¦Not one of those books told you who Ridgeway was! Stupid, she thought, she would like to knowâ¦Ridgewayâs Disease.

Three

John Christow sat in his consulting room, seeing his last patient but one for that morning. His eyes, sympathetic and encouraging, watched her as she describedâexplainedâwent into details. Now and then he nodded his head, understandingly. He asked questions, gave directions. A gentle glow pervaded the sufferer. Dr. Christow was really wonderful! He was so interestedâso truly concerned. Even talking to him made one feel stronger.

John Christow drew a sheet of paper towards him and began to write. Better give her a laxative, he supposed. That new American proprietaryânicely put up in cellophane and attractively coated in an unusual shade of salmon pink. Very expensive, too, and difficult to getânot every chemist stocked it. Sheâd probably have to go to that little place in Wardour Street. That would be all to the goodâprobably buck her up no end for a month or two, then heâd have to think of something else. There was nothing he could do for her. Poor physique and nothing to be done about it! Nothing to get your teeth into. Not like old mother Crabtreeâ¦.

A boring morning. Profitable financiallyâbut nothing else. God, he was tired! Tired of sickly women and their ailments. Palliation, alleviationânothing to it but that. Sometimes he wondered if it was worth it. But always then he remembered St. Christopherâs, and the long row of beds in the Margaret Russell Ward, and Mrs. Crabtree grinning up at him with her toothless smile.

He and she understood each other! She was a fighter, not like that limp slug of a woman in the next bed. She was on his side, she wanted to liveâthough God knew why, considering the slum she lived in, with a husband who drank and a brood of unruly children, and she herself obliged to work day in day out, scrubbing endless floors of endless offices. Hard unremitting drudgery and few pleasures! But she wanted to liveâshe enjoyed lifeâjust as he, John Christow, enjoyed life! It wasnât the circumstances of life they enjoyed, it was life itselfâthe zest of existence. Curiousâa thing one couldnât explain. He thought to himself that he must talk to Henrietta about that.

He got up to accompany his patient to the door. His hand took hers in a warm clasp, friendly, encouraging. His voice was encouraging too, full of interest and sympathy. She went away revived, almost happy. Dr. Christow took such an interest!

As the door closed behind her, John Christow forgot her, he had really been hardly aware of her existence even when she had been there. He had just done his stuff. It was all automatic. Yet, though it had hardly ruffled the surface of his mind, he had given out strength. His had been the automatic response of the healer and he felt the sag of depleted energy.

âGod,â he thought again, âIâm tired.â

Only one more patient to see and then the clear space of the weekend. His mind dwelt on it gratefully. Golden leaves tinged with red and brown, the soft moist smell of autumnâthe road down through the woodsâthe wood fires, Lucy, most unique and delightful of creaturesâwith her curious, elusive will-oâ-the-wisp mind. Heâd rather have Henry and Lucy than any host and hostess in England. And The Hollow was the most delightful house he knew. On Sunday heâd walk through the woods with Henriettaâup on to the crest of the hill and along the ridge. Walking with Henrietta heâd forget that there were any sick people in the world. Thank goodness, he thought, thereâs never anything the matter with Henrietta.

And then with a sudden, quick twist of humour:

âSheâd never let on to me if there were!â

One more patient to see. He must press the bell on his desk. Yet, unaccountably, he delayed. Already he was late. Lunch would be ready upstairs in the dining room. Gerda and the children would be waiting. He must get on.

Yet he sat there motionless. He was so tiredâso very tired.

It had been growing on him lately, this tiredness. It was at the root of the constantly increasing irritability which he was aware of but could not check. Poor Gerda, he thought, she has a lot to put up with. If only she was not so submissiveâso ready to admit herself in the wrong when, half the time, it was he who was to blame! There were days when everything that Gerda said or did conspired to irritate him, and mainly, he thought ruefully, it was her virtues that irritated him. It was her patience, her unselfishness, her subordination of her wishes to his, that aroused his ill-humour. And she never resented his quick bursts of temper, never stuck to her own opinion in preference to his, never attempted to strike out a line of her own.

(Well, he thought, thatâs why you married her, isnât it? What are you complaining about? After that summer at San Miguelâ¦)

Curious, when you came to think of it, that the very qualities that irritated him in Gerda were the qualities he wanted so badly to find in Henrietta. What irritated him in Henrietta (no, that was the wrong wordâit was anger, not irritation, that she inspired)âwhat angered him there was Henriettaâs unswerving rectitude where he was concerned. It was so at variance to her attitude to the world in general. He had said to her once:

âI think you are the greatest liar I know.â

âPerhaps.â

âYou are always willing to say anything to people if only it pleases them.â

âThat always seems to me more important.â

âMore important than speaking the truth?â

âMuch more.â

âThen why in Godâs name canât you lie a little more to me?â

âDo you want me to?â

âYes.â

âIâm sorry, John, but I canât.â

âYou must know so often what I want you to say.â

Come now, he mustnât start thinking of Henrietta. Heâd be seeing her this very afternoon. The thing to do now was to get on with things! Ring the bell and see this last damned woman. Another sickly creature! One-tenth genuine ailment and nine-tenths hypochondria! Well, why shouldnât she enjoy ill health if she cared to pay for it? It balanced the Mrs. Crabtrees of this world.

But still he sat there motionless.

He was tiredâhe was so very tired. It seemed to him that he had been tired for a very long time. There was something he wantedâwanted badly.

And there shot into his mind the thought: âI want to go home.â

It astonished him. Where had that thought come from? And what did it mean? Home? He had never had a home. His parents had been Anglo-Indians, he had been brought up, bandied about from aunt to uncle, one set of holidays with each. The first permanent home he had had, he supposed, was this house in Harley Street.

Did he think of this house as home? He shook his head. He knew that he didnât.

But his medical curiosity was aroused. What had he meant by that phrase that had flashed out suddenly in his mind?

I want to go home.

There must be somethingâsome image.

He half-closed his eyesâthere must be some background.

And very clearly, before his mindâs eye, he saw the deep blue of the Mediterranean Sea, the palms, the cactus and the prickly pear; he smelt the hot summer dust, and remembered the cool feeling of the water after lying on the beach in the sun. San Miguel!

He was startledâa little disturbed. He hadnât thought of San Miguel for years. He certainly didnât want to go back there. All that belonged to a past chapter in his life.

That was twelveâfourteenâfifteen years ago. And heâd done the right thing! His judgment had been absolutely right! Heâd been madly in love with Veronica but it wouldnât have done. Veronica would have swallowed him body and soul. She was the complete egoist and she had made no bones about admitting it! Veronica had grabbed most things that she wanted, but she hadnât been able to grab him! Heâd escaped. He had, he supposed, treated her badly from the conventional point of view. In plain words, he had jilted her! But the truth was that he intended to live his own life, and that was a thing that Veronica would not have allowed him to do. She intended to live her life and carry John along as an extra.

She had been astonished when he had refused to come with her to Hollywood.

She had said disdainfully:

âIf you really want to be a doctor you can take a degree over there, I suppose, but itâs quite unnecessary. Youâve got enough to live on, and I shall be making heaps of money.â

And he had replied vehemently:

âBut Iâm keen on my profession. Iâm going to work with Radley.â

His voiceâa young enthusiastic voiceâwas quite awed.

Veronica sniffed.

âThat funny snuffy old man?â

âThat funny snuffy old man,â John had said angrily, âhas done some of the most valuable research work on Prattâs Diseaseââ

She had interrupted: Who cared for Prattâs Disease? California, she said, was an enchanting climate. And it was fun to see the world. She added: âI shall hate it without you. I want you, JohnâI need you.â

And then he had put forward the, to Veronica, amazing suggestion that she should turn down the Hollywood offer and marry him and settle down in London.

She was amused and quite firm. She was going to Hollywood, and she loved John, and John must marry her and come too. She had had no doubts of her beauty and of her power.

He had seen that there was only one thing to be done and he had done it. He had written to her breaking off the engagement.

He had suffered a good deal, but he had had no doubts as to the wisdom of the course he had taken. Heâd come back to London and started work with Radley, and a year later he had married Gerda, who was as unlike Veronica in every way as it was possible to beâ¦.

The door opened and his secretary, Beryl Collins, came in.

âYouâve still got Mrs. Forrester to see.â

He said shortly: âI know.â

âI thought you might have forgotten.â

She crossed the room and went out at the farther door. Christowâs eyes followed her calm withdrawal. A plain girl, Beryl, but damned efficient. Heâd had her six years. She never made a mistake, she was never flurried or worried or hurried. She had black hair and a muddy complexion and a determined chin. Through strong glasses, her clear grey eyes surveyed him and the rest of the universe with the same dispassionate attention.

He had wanted a plain secretary with no nonsense about her, and he had got a plain secretary with no nonsense about her, but sometimes, illogically, John Christow felt aggrieved! By all the rules of stage and fiction, Beryl should have been hopelessly devoted to her employer. But he had always known that he cut no ice with Beryl. There was no devotion, no self-abnegationâBeryl regarded him as a definitely fallible human being. She remained unimpressed by his personality, uninfluenced by his charm. He doubted sometimes whether she even liked him.

He had heard her once speaking to a friend on the telephone.

âNo,â she had been saying, âI donât really think he is much more selfish than he was. Perhaps rather more thoughtless and inconsiderate.â

He had known that she was speaking of him, and for quite twenty-four hours he had been annoyed about it.

Although Gerdaâs indiscriminate enthusiasm irritated him, Berylâs cool appraisal irritated him too. In fact, he thought, nearly everything irritates meâ¦.

Something wrong there. Overwork? Perhaps. No, that was the excuse. This growing impatience, this irritable tiredness, it had some deeper significance. He thought: âThis wonât do. I canât go on this way. Whatâs the matter with me? If I could get awayâ¦.â

There it was againâthe blind idea rushing up to meet the formulated idea of escape.

I want to go homeâ¦.

Damn it all, 404 Harley Street was his home!

And Mrs. Forrester was sitting in the waiting room. A tiresome woman, a woman with too much money and too much spare time to think about her ailments.

Someone had once said to him: âYou must get very tired of these rich patients always fancying themselves ill. It must be so satisfactory to get to the poor, who only come when there is something really the matter with them!â He had grinned. Funny the things people believed about the Poor with a capital P. They should have seen old Mrs. Pearstock, on five different clinics, up every week, taking away bottles of medicine, liniments for her back, linctus for her cough, aperients, digestive mixtures. âFourteen years Iâve âad the brown medicine, Doctor, and itâs the only thing does me any good. That young doctor last week writes me down a white medicine. No good at all! It stands to reason, doesnât it, Doctor? I mean, Iâve âad me brown medicine for fourteen years, and if I donât âave me liquid paraffin and them brown pillsâ¦.â

He could hear the whining voice nowâexcellent physique, sound as a bellâeven all the physic she took couldnât really do her any harm!

They were the same, sisters under the skin, Mrs. Pearstock from Tottenham and Mrs. Forrester of Park Lane Court. You listened and you wrote scratches with your pen on a piece of stiff expensive notepaper, or on a hospital card as the case might beâ¦.

God, he was tired of the whole businessâ¦.

Blue sea, the faint sweet smell of mimosa, hot dustâ¦.

Fifteen years ago. All that was over and done withâyes, done with, thank heaven. Heâd had the courage to break off the whole business.

Courage? said a little imp somewhere. Is that what you call it?

Well, heâd done the sensible thing, hadnât he? It had been a wrench. Damn it all, it had hurt like hell! But heâd gone through with it, cut loose, come home, and married Gerda.

Heâd got a plain secretary and heâd married a plain wife. That was what he wanted, wasnât it? Heâd had enough of beauty, hadnât he? Heâd seen what someone like Veronica could do with her beautyâseen the effect it had on every male within range. After Veronica, heâd wanted safety. Safety and peace and devotion and the quiet, enduring things of life. Heâd wanted, in fact, Gerda! Heâd wanted someone whoâd take her ideas of life from him, who would accept his decisions and who wouldnât have, for one moment, any ideas of her ownâ¦.

Who was it who had said that the real tragedy of life was that you got what you wanted?

Angrily he pressed the buzzer on his desk.

Heâd deal with Mrs. Forrester.

It took him a quarter of an hour to deal with Mrs. Forrester. Once again it was easy money. Once again he listened, asked questions, reassured, sympathized, infused something of his own healing energy. Once more he wrote out a prescription for an expensive proprietary.

The sickly neurotic woman who had trailed into the room left it with a firmer step, with colour in her cheeks, with a feeling that life might possibly after all be worthwhile.

John Christow leant back in his chair. He was free nowâfree to go upstairs to join Gerda and the childrenâfree from the preoccupations of illness and suffering for a whole weekend.

But he felt still that strange disinclination to move, that new queer lassitude of the will.

He was tiredâtiredâtired.

Four

In the dining room of the flat above the consulting room Gerda Christow was staring at a joint of mutton.

Should she or should she not send it back to the kitchen to be kept warm?

If John was going to be much longer it would be coldâcongealed, and that would be dreadful.

But on the other hand the last patient had gone, John would be up in a moment, if she sent it back there would be delayâJohn was so impatient. âBut surely you knew I was just comingâ¦â There would be that tone of suppressed exasperation in his voice that she knew and dreaded. Besides, it would get overcooked, dried upâJohn hated overcooked meat.

But on the other hand he disliked cold food very much indeed.

At any rate the dish was nice and hot.

Her mind oscillated to and fro, and her sense of misery and anxiety deepened.

The whole world had shrunk to a leg of mutton getting cold on a dish.

On the other side of the table her son Terence, aged twelve, said:

âBoracic salts burn with a green flame, sodium salts are yellow.â

Gerda looked distractedly across the table at his square, freckled face. She had no idea what he was talking about.

âDid you know that, Mother?â

âKnow what, dear?â

âAbout salts.â

Gerdaâs eye flew distractedly to the salt cellar. Yes, salt and pepper were on the table. That was all right. Last week Lewis had forgotten them and that had annoyed John. There was always somethingâ¦.

âItâs one of the chemical tests,â said Terence in a dreamy voice. âJolly interesting. I think.â

Zena, aged nine, with a pretty, vacuous face, whimpered:

âI want my dinner. Canât we start, Mother?â

âIn a minute, dear, we must wait for Father.â

âWe could start,â said Terence. âFather wouldnât mind. You know how fast he eats.â

Gerda shook her head.

Carve the mutton? But she never could remember which was the right side to plunge the knife in. Of course, perhaps Lewis had put it the right way on the dishâbut sometimes she didnâtâand John was always annoyed if it was done the wrong way. And, Gerda reflected desperately, it always was the wrong way when she did it. Oh, dear, how cold the gravy was gettingâa skin was forming on the top of itâand surely he would be coming now.

Her mind went round and round unhappilyâ¦like a trapped animal.

Sitting back in his consulting room chair, tapping with one hand on the table in front of him, conscious that upstairs lunch must be ready, John Christow was nevertheless unable to force himself to get up.

San Miguelâ¦blue seaâ¦smell of mimosaâ¦a scarlet tritoma upright against green leavesâ¦the hot sunâ¦the dustâ¦that desperation of love and sufferingâ¦.

He thought: âOh, God, not that. Never that again! Thatâs overâ¦.â

He wished suddenly that he had never known Veronica, never married Gerda, never met Henriettaâ¦.

Mrs. Crabtree, he thought, was worth the lot of them. That had been a bad afternoon last week. Heâd been so pleased with the reactions. She could stand .005 by now. And then had come that alarming rise in toxicity and the DL reaction had been negative instead of positive.

The old bean had lain there, blue, gasping for breathâpeering up at him with malicious, indomitable eyes.

âMaking a bit of a guinea pig out of me, ainât you, dearie? Experimentingâthat kinder thing.â

âWe want to get you well,â he had said, smiling down at her.

âUp to your tricks, yer mean!â She had grinned suddenly. âI donât mind, bless yer. You carry on, Doctor! Someoneâs got to be first, thatâs it, ainât it? âAd me âair permed, I did, when I was a kid. It wasnât âalf a difficult business then. Looked like a nigger, I did. Couldnât get a comb through it. But thereâI enjoyed the fun. You can âave yer fun with me. I can stand it.â

âFeel pretty bad, donât you?â His hand was on her pulse. Vitality passed from him to the panting old woman on the bed.

âOrful, I feel. Youâre about right! âAsnât gone according to planâthatâs it, isnât it? Never you mind. Donât you lose âeart. I can stand a lot, I can!â

John Christow said appreciatively:

âYouâre fine. I wish all my patients were like you.â

âI wanter get wellâthatâs why! I wanter get well. Mum, she lived to be eighty-eightâand old Grandma was ninety when she popped off. Weâre long-livers in our family, we are.â

He had come away miserable, racked with doubt and uncertainty. Heâd been so sure he was on the right track. Where had he gone wrong? How diminish the toxicity and keep up the hormone content and at the same time neutralize the pantratin?â¦.

Heâd been too cocksureâheâd taken it for granted that heâd circumvented all the snags.

And it was then, on the steps of St. Christopherâs, that a sudden desperate weariness had overcome himâa hatred of all this long, slow, wearisome clinical work, and heâd thought of Henrietta, thought of her suddenly not as herself, but of her beauty and her freshness, her health and her radiant vitalityâand the faint smell of primroses that clung about her hair.

And he had gone to Henrietta straight away, sending a curt telephone message home about being called away. He had strode into the studio and taken Henrietta in his arms, holding her to him with a fierceness that was new in their relationship.

There had been a quick, startled wonder in her eyes. She had freed herself from his arms and had made him coffee. And as she moved about the studio she had thrown out desultory questions. Had he come, she asked, straight from the hospital?

He didnât want to talk about the hospital. He wanted to make love to Henrietta and forget that the hospital and Mrs. Crabtree and Ridgewayâs Disease and all the rest of the caboodle existed.

But, at first unwillingly, then more fluently, he answered her questions. And presently he was striding up and down, pouring out a spate of technical explanations and surmises. Once or twice he paused, trying to simplifyâto explain:

âYou see, you have to get a reactionââ

Henrietta said quickly:

âYes, yes, the DL reaction has to be positive. I understand that. Go on.â

He said sharply, âHow do you know about the DL reaction?â

âI got a bookââ

âWhat book? Whose?â

She motioned towards the small book table. He snorted.

âScobell? Scobellâs no good. Heâs fundamentally unsound. Look here, if you want to readâdonâtââ

She interrupted him.

âI only want to understand some of the terms you useâenough so as to understand you without making you stop to explain everything the whole time. Go on. Iâm following you all right.â

âWell,â he said doubtfully, âremember Scobellâs unsound.â He went on talking. He talked for two hours and a half. Reviewing the setbacks, analysing the possibilities, outlining possible theories. He was hardly conscious of Henriettaâs presence. And yet, more than once, as he hesitated, her quick intelligence took him a step on the way, seeing, almost before he did, what he was hesitating to advance. He was interested now, and his belief in himself was creeping back. He had been rightâthe main theory was correctâand there were ways, more ways than one, of combating the toxic symptoms.

And then, suddenly, he was tired out. Heâd got it all clear now. Heâd get on to it tomorrow morning. Heâd ring up Neill, tell him to combine the two solutions and try that. Yes, try that. By God, he wasnât going to be beaten!

âIâm tired,â he said abruptly. âMy God, Iâm tired.â

And he had flung himself down and sleptâslept like the dead.

He had awoken to find Henrietta smiling at him in the morning light and making tea and he had smiled back at her.

âNot at all according to plan,â he said.

âDoes it matter?â

âNo. No. You are rather a nice person, Henrietta.â His eye went to the bookcase. âIf youâre interested in this sort of thing, Iâll get you the proper stuff to read.â

âIâm not interested in this sort of thing. Iâm interested in you, John.â

âYou canât read Scobell.â He took up the offending volume. âThe manâs a charlatan.â

And she had laughed. He could not understand why his strictures on Scobell amused her so.

But that was what, every now and then, startled him about Henrietta. The sudden revelation, disconcerting to him, that she was able to laugh at him.

He wasnât used to it. Gerda took him in deadly earnest. And Veronica had never thought about anything but herself. But Henrietta had a trick of throwing her head back, of looking at him through half-closed eyes, with a sudden tender half-mocking little smile, as though she were saying: âLet me have a good look at this funny person called Johnâ¦Let me get a long way away and look at himâ¦.â

It was, he thought, very much the same as the way she screwed up her eyes to look at her workâor a picture. It wasâdamn it allâit was detached. He didnât want Henrietta to be detached. He wanted Henrietta to think only of him, never to let her mind stray away from him.

(âJust what you object to in Gerda, in fact,â said his private imp, bobbing up again.)

The truth of it was that he was completely illogical. He didnât know what he wanted.

(âI want to go home.â What an absurd, what a ridiculous phrase. It didnât mean anything.)

In an hour or so at any rate heâd be driving out of Londonâforgetting about sick people with their faint sour âwrongâ smellâ¦sniffing wood smoke and pines and soft wet autumn leavesâ¦The very motion of the car would be soothingâthat smooth, effortless increase of speed.

But it wouldnât, he reflected suddenly, be at all like that because owing to a slightly strained wrist, Gerda would have to drive, and Gerda, God help her, had never been able to begin to drive a car! Every time she changed gear he would be silent, grinding his teeth together, managing not to say anything because he knew, by bitter experience, that when he did say anything Gerda became immediately worse. Curious that no one had ever been able to teach Gerda to change gearânot even Henrietta. Heâd turned her over to Henrietta, thinking that Henriettaâs enthusiasm might do better than his own irritability.

For Henrietta loved cars. She spoke of cars with the lyrical intensity that other people gave to spring, or the first snowdrop.

âIsnât he a beauty, John? Doesnât he just purr along?â (For Henriettaâs cars were always masculine.) âHeâll do Bale Hill in thirdânot straining at allâquite effortlessly. Listen to the even way he ticks over.â

Until he had burst out suddenly and furiously:

âDonât you think, Henrietta, you could pay some attention to me and forget the damned car for a minute or two!â

He was always ashamed of these outbursts.

He never knew when they would come upon him out of a blue sky.

It was the same thing over her work. He realized that her work was good. He admired itâand hated itâat the same time.

The most furious quarrel he had had with her had arisen over that.

Gerda had said to him one day:

âHenrietta has asked me to sit for her.â

âWhat?â His astonishment had not, if he came to think of it, been flattering. âYou?â

âYes, Iâm going over to the studio tomorrow.â

âWhat on earth does she want you for?â

Yes, he hadnât been very polite about it. But luckily Gerda hadnât realized that fact. She had looked pleased about it. He suspected Henrietta of one of those insincere kindnesses of hersâGerda, perhaps, had hinted that she would like to be modelled. Something of that kind.

Then, about ten days later, Gerda had shown him triumphantly a small plaster statuette.

It was a pretty thingâtechnically skillful like all Henriettaâs work. It idealized Gerdaâand Gerda herself was clearly pleased about it.

âI really think itâs rather charming, John.â

âIs that Henriettaâs work? It means nothingânothing at all. I donât see how she came to do a thing like that.â

âItâs different, of course, from her abstract workâbut I think itâs good, John, I really do.â

He had said no moreâafter all, he didnât want to spoil Gerdaâs pleasure. But he tackled Henrietta about it at the first opportunity.

âWhat did you want to make that silly thing of Gerda for? Itâs unworthy of you. After all, you usually turn out decent stuff.â

Henrietta said slowly:

âI didnât think it was bad. Gerda seemed quite pleased.â

âGerda was delighted. She would be. Gerda doesnât know art from a coloured photograph.â

âIt wasnât bad art, John. It was just a portrait statuetteâquite harmless and not at all pretentious.â

âYou donât usually waste your time doing that kind of stuffââ

He broke off, staring at a wooden figure about five feet high.

âHallo, whatâs this?â

âItâs for the International Group. Pearwood. The Worshipper.â

She watched him. He stared and thenâsuddenly, his neck swelled and he turned on her furiously.

âSo thatâs what you wanted Gerda for? How dare you?â

âI wondered if youâd seeâ¦.â

âSee it? Of course I see it. Itâs here.â He placed a finger on the broad heavy neck muscles.

Henrietta nodded.

âYes, itâs the neck and shoulders I wantedâand that heavy forward slantâthe submissionâthat bowed look. Itâs wonderful!â

âWonderful? Look here, Henrietta, I wonât have it. Youâre to leave Gerda alone.â

âGerda wonât know. Nobody will know. You know Gerda would never recognize herself hereânobody else would either. And it isnât Gerda. It isnât anybody.â

âI recognized it, didnât I?â

âYouâre different, John. Youâsee things.â

âItâs the damned cheek of it! I wonât have it, Henrietta! I wonât have it. Canât you see that it was an indefensible thing to do?â

âWas it?â

âDonât you know it was? Canât you feel it was? Whereâs your usual sensitiveness?â

Henrietta said slowly:

âYou donât understand, John. I donât think I could ever make you understandâ¦You donât know what it is to want somethingâto look at it day after dayâthat line of the neckâthose musclesâthe angle where the head goes forwardâthat heaviness round the jaw. Iâve been looking at them, wanting themâevery time I saw Gerdaâ¦In the end I just had to have them!â

âUnscrupulous!â

âYes, I suppose just that. But when you want things, in that way, you just have to take them.â

âYou mean you donât care a damn about anybody else. You donât care about Gerdaââ

âDonât be stupid, John. Thatâs why I made that statuette thing. To please Gerda and make her happy. Iâm not inhuman!â

âInhuman is exactly what you are.â

âDo you thinkâhonestlyâthat Gerda would ever recognize herself in this?â

John looked at it unwillingly. For the first time his anger and resentment became subordinated to his interest. A strange submissive figure, a figure offering up worship to an unseen deityâthe face raisedâblind, dumb, devotedâterribly strong, terribly fanaticalâ¦He said:

âThatâs rather a terrifying thing that you have made, Henrietta!â

Henrietta shivered slightly.

She said, âYesâI thought thatâ¦.â

John said sharply:

âWhatâs she looking atâwho is it? There in front of her?â

Henrietta hesitated. She said, and her voice had a queer note in it:

âI donât know. But I thinkâshe might be looking at you, John.â

Five

I

In the dining room the child Terry made another scientific statement.

âLead salts are more soluble in cold water than hot. If you add potassium iodide you get a yellow precipitate of lead iodide.â

He looked expectantly at his mother but without any real hope. Parents, in the opinion of young Terence, were sadly disappointing.

âDid you know that, Motherââ

âI donât know anything about chemistry, dear.â

âYou could read about it in a book,â said Terence.

It was a simple statement of fact, but there was a certain wistfulness behind it.

Gerda did not hear the wistfulness. She was caught in the trap of her anxious misery. Round and round and round. She had been miserable ever since she woke up this morning and realized that at last this long-dreaded weekend with the Angkatells was upon her. Staying at The Hollow was always a nightmare to her. She always felt bewildered and forlorn. Lucy Angkatell with her sentences that were never finished, her swift inconsequences, and her obvious attempts at kindliness, was the figure she dreaded most. But the others were nearly as bad. For Gerda it was two days of sheer martyrdomâto be endured for Johnâs sake.

For John that morning as he stretched himself had remarked in tones of unmitigated pleasure:

âSplendid to think weâll be getting into the country this weekend. It will do you good, Gerda, just what you need.â

She had smiled mechanically and had said with unselfish fortitude: âIt will be delightful.â

Her unhappy eyes had wandered round the bedroom. The wallpaper, cream striped with a black mark just by the wardrobe, the mahogany dressing table with the glass that swung too far forward, the cheerful bright blue carpet, the watercolours of the Lake District. All dear familiar things and she would not see them again until Monday.

Instead, tomorrow a housemaid who rustled would come into the strange bedroom and put down a little dainty tray of early tea by the bed and pull up the blinds, and would then rearrange and fold Gerdaâs clothesâa thing which made Gerda feel hot and uncomfortable all over. She would lie miserably, enduring these things, trying to comfort herself by thinking, âOnly one morning more.â Like being at school and counting the days.

Gerda had not been happy at school. At school there had been even less reassurance than elsewhere. Home had been better. But even home had not been very good. For they had all, of course, been quicker and cleverer than she was. Their comments, quick, impatient, not quite unkind, had whistled about her ears like a hailstorm. âOh, do be quick, Gerda.â âButterfingers, give it to me!â âOh donât let Gerda do it, sheâll be ages.â âGerda never takes in anythingâ¦.â

Hadnât they seen, all of them, that that was the way to make her slower and stupider still? Sheâd got worse and worse, more clumsy with her fingers, more slow-witted, more inclined to stare vacantly at what was said to her.

Until, suddenly, she had reached the point where she had found a way out. Almost accidentally, really, she found her weapon of defence.

She had grown slower still, her puzzled stare had become even blanker. But now, when they said impatiently: âOh, Gerda, how stupid you are, donât you understand that?â she had been able, behind her blank expression, to hug herself a little in her secret knowledgeâ¦For she wasnât as stupid as they thought. Often, when she pretended not to understand, she did understand. And often, deliberately, she slowed down in her task of whatever it was, smiling to herself when someoneâs impatient fingers snatched it away from her.

For, warm and delightful, was a secret knowledge of superiority. She began to be, quite often, a little amused. Yes, it was amusing to know more than they thought you knew. To be able to do a thing, but not let anybody know that you could do it.

And it had the advantage, suddenly discovered, that people often did things for you. That, of course, saved you a lot of trouble. And, in the end, if people got into the habit of doing things for you, you didnât have to do them at all, and then people didnât know that you did them badly. And so, slowly, you came round again almost to where you started. To feeling that you could hold your own on equal terms with the world at large.

(But that wouldnât, Gerda feared, hold good with the Angkatells; the Angkatells were always so far ahead that you didnât feel even in the same street with them. How she hated the Angkatells! It was good for JohnâJohn liked it there. He came home less tiredâand sometimes less irritable.)

Dear John, she thought. John was wonderful. Everyone thought so. Such a clever doctor, so terribly kind to his patients. Wearing himself outâand the interest he took in his hospital patientsâall that side of his work that didnât pay at all. John was so disinterestedâso truly noble.

She had always known, from the very first, that John was brilliant and was going to get to the top of the tree. And he had chosen her, when he might have married somebody far more brilliant. He had not minded her being slow and rather stupid and not very pretty. âIâll look after you,â he had said. Nicely, rather masterfully. âDonât worry about things, Gerda, Iâll take care of youâ¦.â

Just what a man ought to be. Wonderful to think John should have chosen her.

He had said with that sudden, very attractive, half-pleading smile of his: âI like my own way, you know, Gerda.â

Well, that was all right. She had always tried to give in to him in everything. Even lately when he had been so difficult and nervyâwhen nothing seemed to please him. When, somehow, nothing she did was right. One couldnât blame him. He was so busy, so unselfishâ

Oh, dear, that mutton! She ought to have sent it back. Still no sign of John. Why couldnât she, sometimes, decide right? Again those dark waves of misery swept over her. The mutton! This awful weekend with the Angkatells. She felt a sharp pain through both temples. Oh, dear, now she was going to have one of her headaches. And it did so annoy John when she had headaches. He never would give her anything for them, when surely it would be so easy, being a doctor. Instead he always said: âDonât think about it. No use poisoning yourself with drugs. Take a brisk walk.â

The mutton! Staring at it, Gerda felt the words repeating themselves in her aching head, âThe mutton, the MUTTON, THE MUTTONâ¦.â

Tears of self-pity sprang to her eyes. âWhy,â she thought, âdoes nothing ever go right for me?â

Terence looked across at the table at his mother and then at the joint. He thought: âWhy canât we have our dinner? How stupid grown-up people are. They havenât any sense!â

Aloud he said in a careful voice:

âNicholson Minor and I are going to make nitroglycerine in his fatherâs shrubbery. They live at Streatham.â

âAre you, dear? That will be very nice,â said Gerda.

There was still time. If she rang the bell and told Lewis to take the joint down nowâ

Terence looked at her with faint curiosity. He had felt instinctively that the manufacture of nitroglycerine was not the kind of occupation that would be encouraged by parents. With base opportunism he had selected a moment when he felt tolerably certain that he had a good chance of getting away with his statement. And his judgement had been justified. If, by any chance, there should be a fussâif, that is, the properties of nitroglycerine should manifest themselves too evidently, he would be able to say in an injured voice, âI told Mother.â

All the same, he felt vaguely disappointed.

âEven Mother,â he thought, âought to know about nitroglycerine.â

He sighed. There swept over him that intense sense of loneliness that only childhood can feel. His father was too impatient to listen, his mother was too inattentive. Zena was only a silly kid.

Pages of interesting chemical tests. And who cared about them? Nobody!

Bang! Gerda started. It was the door of Johnâs consulting room. It was John running upstairs.

John Christow burst into the room, bringing with him his own particular atmosphere of intense energy. He was good-humoured, hungry, impatient.

âGod,â he exclaimed as he sat down and energetically sharpened the carving knife against the steel. âHow I hate sick people!â

âOh, John.â Gerda was quickly reproachful. âDonât say things like that. Theyâll think you mean it.â

She gestured slightly with her head towards the children.

âI do mean it,â said John Christow. âNobody ought to be ill.â

âFatherâs joking,â said Gerda quickly to Terence.

Terence examined his father with the dispassionate attention he gave to everything.

âI donât think he is,â he said.

âIf you hated sick people, you wouldnât be a doctor, dear,â said Gerda, laughing gently.

âThatâs exactly the reason,â said John Christow. âNo doctors like sickness. Good God, this meatâs stone cold. Why on earth didnât you have it sent down to keep hot?â

âWell, dear, I didnât know. You see, I thought you were just comingââ

John Christow pressed the bell, a long, irritated push. Lewis came promptly.

âTake this down and tell Cook to warm it up.â

He spoke curtly.

âYes, sir.â Lewis, slightly impertinent, managed to convey in the two innocuous words exactly her opinion of a mistress who sat at the dining table watching a joint of meat grow cold.

Gerda went on rather incoherently:

âIâm so sorry, dear, itâs all my fault, but first, you see, I thought you were coming, and then I thought, well, if I did send it backâ¦.â

John interrupted her impatiently.

âOh, what does it matter? It isnât important. Not worth making a song and dance about.â

Then he asked:

âIs the car here?â

âI think so. Collie ordered it.â

âThen we can get away as soon as lunch is over.â

Across Albert Bridge, he thought, and then over Clapham Commonâthe shortcut by the Crystal PalaceâCroydonâPurley Way, then avoid the main roadâtake that right-hand fork up Metherly Hillâalong Haverston Ridgeâget suddenly right of the suburban belt, through Cormerton, and then up Shovel Downâtrees golden redâwoodland below one everywhereâthe soft autumn smell, and down over the crest of the hill.

Lucy and Henryâ¦Henriettaâ¦.

He hadnât seen Henrietta for four days. When he had last seen her, heâd been angry. Sheâd had that look in her eyes. Not abstracted, not inattentiveâhe couldnât quite describe itâthat look of seeing somethingâsomething that wasnât thereâsomething (and that was the crux of it) something that wasnât John Christow!

He said to himself: âI know sheâs a sculptor. I know her workâs good. But damn it all, canât she put it aside sometimes? Canât she sometimes think of meâand nothing else?â

He was unfair. He knew he was unfair. Henrietta seldom talked of her workâwas indeed less obsessed by it than most artists he knew. It was only on very rare occasions that her absorption with some inner vision spoiled the completeness of her interest in him. But it always roused his furious anger.

Once he had said, his voice sharp and hard: âWould you give all this up if I asked you to?â

âAllâwhat?â Her warm voice held surprise.

âAllâthis.â He waved a comprehensive hand round the studio.

And immediately he thought to himself: âFool! Why did you ask her that?â And again: âLet her say: âOf course.â Let her lie to me! If sheâll only say: âOf course I will.â It doesnât matter if she means it or not! But let her say it. I must have peace.â

Instead she had said nothing for some time. Her eyes had gone dreamy and abstracted. She had frowned a little.

Then she had said slowly:

âI suppose so. If it was necessary.â

âNecessary? What do you mean by necessary?â

âI donât really know what I mean by it, John. Necessary, as an amputation might be necessary.â

âNothing short of a surgical operation, in fact!â

âYou are angry. What did you want me to say?â

âYou know well enough. One word would have done. Yes. Why couldnât you say it? You say enough things to people to please them, without caring whether theyâre true or not. Why not to me? For Godâs sake, why not to me?â

And still very slowly she had answered:

âI donât knowâ¦really, I donât know, John. I canâtâthatâs all. I canât.â

He had walked up and down for a minute or two. Then he said:

âYou will drive me mad, Henrietta. I never feel that I have any influence over you at all.â

âWhy should you want to have?â

âI donât know. I do.â

He threw himself down on a chair.

âI want to come first.â

âYou do, John.â

âNo. If I were dead, the first thing youâd do, with the tears streaming down your face, would be to start modelling some damned mourning woman or some figure of grief.â

âI wonder. I believeâyes, perhaps I would. Itâs rather horrible.â

She had sat there looking at him with dismayed eyes.

II

The pudding was burnt. Christow raised his eyebrows over it and Gerda hurried into apologies.

âIâm sorry, dear. I canât think why that should happen. Itâs my fault. Give me the top and you take the underneath.â

The pudding was burnt because he, John Christow, had stayed sitting in his consulting room for a quarter of an hour after he need, thinking about Henrietta and Mrs. Crabtree and letting ridiculous nostalgic feelings about San Miguel sweep over him. The fault was his. It was idiotic of Gerda to try and take the blame, maddening of her to try and eat the burnt part herself. Why did she always have to make a martyr of herself? Why did Terence stare at him in that slow, interested way? Why, oh why, did Zena have to sniff so continually? Why were they all so damned irritating?

His wrath fell on Zena.

âWhy on earth donât you blow your nose?â

âSheâs got a little cold, I think, dear.â

âNo, she hasnât. Youâre always thinking they have colds! Sheâs all right.â

Gerda sighed. She had never been able to understand why a doctor, who spent his time treating the ailments of others, could be so indifferent to the health of his own family. He always ridiculed any suggestions of illness.

âI sneezed eight times before lunch,â said Zena importantly.

âHeat sneeze!â said John.

âItâs not hot,â said Terence. âThe thermometer in the hall is 55.â

John got up. âHave we finished? Good, letâs get on. Ready to start, Gerda?â

âIn a minute, John. Iâve just a few things to put in.â

âSurely you could have done that before. What have you been doing all the morning?â

He went out of the dining room fuming. Gerda had hurried off into her bedroom. Her anxiety to be quick would make her much slower. But why couldnât she have been ready? His own suitcase was packed and in the hall. Why on earthâ

Zena was advancing on him, clasping some rather sticky cards.

âCan I tell your fortune, Daddy? I know how. Iâve told Motherâs and Terryâs and Lewisâs and Janeâs and Cookâs.â

âAll right.â

He wondered how long Gerda was going to be. He wanted to get away from this horrible house and this horrible street and this city full of ailing, sniffing, diseased people. He wanted to get to woods and wet leavesâand the graceful aloofness of Lucy Angkatell, who always gave you the impression she hadnât even got a body.

Zena was importantly dealing out cards.

âThatâs you in the middle, Father, the King of Hearts. The person whose fortuneâs told is always the King of Hearts. And then I deal the others face down. Two on the left of you and two on the right of you and one over your headâthat has power over you, and one under your feetâyou have power over it. And this oneâcovers you!

âNow.â Zena drew a deep breath. âWe turn them over. On the right of you is the Queen of Diamondsâquite close.â

âHenrietta,â he thought, momentarily diverted and amused by Zenaâs solemnity.

âAnd the next one is the knave of clubsâheâs some quiet young man.

âOn the left of you is the eight of spadesâthatâs a secret enemy. Have you got a secret enemy, Father?â

âNot that I know of.â

âAnd beyond is the Queen of Spadesâthatâs a much older lady.â

âLady Angkatell,â he said.

âNow this is whatâs over your head and has power over youâthe Queen of Hearts.â

âVeronica,â he thought. âVeronica!â And then, âWhat a fool I am! Veronica doesnât mean a thing to me now.â

âAnd this is under your feet and you have power over itâthe Queen of Clubs.â

Gerda hurried into the room.

âIâm quite ready now, John.â

âOh, wait, Mother, wait, Iâm telling Daddyâs fortune. Just the last card, Daddyâthe most important of all. The one that covers you.â

Zenaâs small sticky fingers turned it over. She gave a gasp.

âOhâitâs the Ace of Spades! Thatâs usually a deathâbutââ

âYour mother,â said John, âis going to run over someone on the way out of London. Come on, Gerda. Good-bye, you two. Try and behave.â

Six

I

Midge Hardcastle came downstairs about eleven on Saturday morning. She had had breakfast in bed and had read a book and dozed a little and then got up.

It was nice lazing this way. About time she had a holiday! No doubt about it, Madame Alfregeâs got on your nerves.

She came out of the front door into the pleasant autumn sunshine. Sir Henry Angkatell was sitting on a rustic seat reading The Times. He looked up and smiled. He was fond of Midge.

âHallo, my dear.â

âAm I very late?â

âYou havenât missed lunch,â said Sir Henry, smiling.

Midge sat down beside him and said with a sigh:

âItâs nice being here.â

âYouâre looking rather peaked.â

âOh, Iâm all right. How delightful to be somewhere where no fat women are trying to get into clothes several sizes too small for them!â

âMust be dreadful!â Sir Henry paused and then said, glancing down at his wristwatch: âEdwardâs arriving by the 12:15.â

âIs he?â Midge paused, then said: âI havenât seen Edward for a long time.â

âHeâs just the same,â said Sir Henry. âHardly ever comes up from Ainswick.â

âAinswick,â thought Midge. âAinswick!â Her heart gave a sick pang. Those lovely days at Ainswick. Visits looked forward to for months! âIâm going to Ainswick.â Lying awake for nights beforehand thinking about it. And at lastâthe day! The little country station at which the trainâthe big London expressâhad to stop if you gave notice to the guard! The Daimler waiting outside. The driveâthe final turn in through the gate and up through the woods till you came out into the open and there the house wasâbig and white and welcoming. Old Uncle Geoffrey in his patchwork tweed coat.

âNow then, youngstersâenjoy yourselves.â And they had enjoyed themselves. Henrietta over from Ireland. Edward, home from Eton. She herself, from the Northcountry grimness of a manufacturing town. How like heaven it had been.

But always centring about Edward. Edward, tall and gentle and diffident and always kind. But never, of course, noticing her very much because Henrietta was there.

Edward, always so retiring, so very much of a visitor so that she had been startled one day when Tremlet, the head gardener, had said:

âThe place will be Mr. Edwardâs some day.â

âBut why, Tremlet? Heâs not Uncle Geoffreyâs son.â

âHeâs the heir, Miss Midge. Entailed, thatâs what they call it. Miss Lucy, sheâs Mr. Geoffreyâs only child, but she canât inherit because sheâs a female, and Mr. Henry, as she married, heâs only a second cousin. Not so near as Mr. Edward.â

And now Edward lived at Ainswick. Lived there alone and very seldom came away. Midge wondered, sometimes, if Lucy minded. Lucy always looked as though she never minded about anything.

Yet Ainswick had been her home, and Edward was only her first cousin once removed, and over twenty years younger than she was. Her father, old Geoffrey Angkatell, had been a great âcharacterâ in the country. He had had considerable wealth as well, most of which had come to Lucy, so that Edward was a comparatively poor man, with enough to keep the place up, but not much over when that was done.

Not that Edward had expensive tastes. He had been in the diplomatic service for a time, but when he inherited Ainswick he had resigned and come to live on his property. He was of a bookish turn of mind, collected first editions, and occasionally wrote rather hesitating ironical little articles for obscure reviews. He had asked his second cousin, Henrietta Savernake, three times to marry him.

Midge sat in the autumn sunshine thinking of these things. She could not make up her mind whether she was glad she was going to see Edward or not. It was not as though she were what is called âgetting over it.â One simply did not get over anyone like Edward. Edward of Ainswick was just as real to her as Edward rising to greet her from a restaurant table in London. She had loved Edward ever since she could rememberâ¦.

Sir Henryâs voice recalled her.

âHow do you think Lucy is looking?â

âVery well. Sheâs just the same as ever.â Midge smiled a little. âMore so.â

âYeâes.â Sir Henry drew on his pipe. He said unexpectedly:

âSometimes, you know, Midge, I get worried about Lucy.â

âWorried?â Midge looked at him in surprise. âWhy?â

Sir Henry shook his head.

âLucy,â he said, âdoesnât realize that there are things that she canât do.â

Midge stared. He went on:

âShe gets away with things. She always has.â He smiled. âSheâs flouted the traditions of Government Houseâsheâs played merry hell with precedence at dinner parties (and that, Midge, is a black crime!). Sheâs put deadly enemies next to each other at the dinner table, and run riot over the colour question! And instead of raising one big almighty row and setting everyone at loggerheads and bringing disgrace on the British RajâIâm damned if she hasnât got away with it! That trick of hersâsmiling at people and looking as though she couldnât help it! Servants are the sameâshe gives them any amount of trouble and they adore her.â

âI know what you mean,â said Midge thoughtfully. âThings that you wouldnât stand from anyone else, you feel are all right if Lucy does them. What is it, I wonder? Charm? Magnetism?â

Sir Henry shrugged his shoulders.

âSheâs always been the same from a girlâonly sometimes I feel itâs growing on her. I mean that she doesnât realize that there are limits. Why, I really believe, Midge,â he said, amused, âthat Lucy would feel she could get away with murder!â

II

Henrietta got the Delage out from the garage in the Mews and, after a wholly technical conversation with her friend Albert, who looked after the Delageâs health, she started off.

âRunning a treat, miss,â said Albert.

Henrietta smiled. She shot away down the Mews, savouring the unfailing pleasure she always felt when setting off in the car alone. She much preferred to be alone when driving. In that way she could realize to the full the intimate personal enjoyment that driving a car brought to her.

She enjoyed her own skill in traffic, she enjoyed nosing out new shortcuts out of London. She had routes of her own and when driving in London itself had as intimate a knowledge of its streets as any taxi driver.

She took now her own newly discovered way southwest, turning and twisting through intricate mazes of suburban streets.

When she came finally to the long ridge of Shovel Down it was half past twelve. Henrietta had always loved the view from that particular place. She paused now just at the point where the road began to descend. All around and below her were trees, trees whose leaves were turning from gold to brown. It was a world incredibly golden and splendid in the strong autumn sunlight.

Henrietta thought: âI love autumn. Itâs so much richer than spring.â

And suddenly one of those moments of intense happiness came to herâa sense of the loveliness of the worldâof her own intense enjoyment of that world.

She thought: âI shall never be as happy again as I am nowânever.â

She stayed there a minute, gazing out over that golden world that seemed to swim and dissolve into itself, hazy and blurred with its own beauty.

Then she came down over the crest of the hill, down through the woods, down the long steep road to The Hollow.

III

When Henrietta drove in, Midge was sitting on the low wall of the terrace, and waved to her cheerfully. Henrietta was pleased to see Midge, whom she liked.

Lady Angkatell came out of the house and said:

âOh, there you are, Henrietta. When youâve taken your car into the stables and given it a bran mash, lunch will be ready.â

âWhat a penetrating remark of Lucyâs,â said Henrietta as she drove round the house, Midge accompanying her on the step. âYou know, I always prided myself on having completely escaped the horsy taint of my Irish forebears. When youâve been brought up amongst people who talk nothing but horse, you go all superior about not caring for them. And now Lucy has just shown me that I treat my car exactly like a horse. Itâs quite true. I do.â

âI know,â said Midge. âLucy is quite devastating. She told me this morning that I was to be as rude as I liked whilst I was here.â

Henrietta considered this for a moment and then nodded.

âOf course,â she said. âThe shop!â

âYes. When one has to spend every day of oneâs life in a damnable little box being polite to rude women, calling them Madam, pulling frocks over their heads, smiling and swallowing their damned cheek whatever they like to say to oneâwell, one does want to cuss! You know, Henrietta, I always wonder why people think itâs so humiliating to go âinto serviceâ and that itâs grand and independent to be in a shop. One puts up with far more insolence in a shop than Gudgeon or Simmons or any decent domestic does.â

âIt must be foul, darling. I wish you werenât so grand and proud and insistent on earning your own living.â

âAnyway, Lucyâs an angel. I shall be gloriously rude to everyone this weekend.â

âWhoâs here?â said Henrietta as she got out of the car.

âThe Christows are coming.â Midge paused and then went on, âEdwardâs just arrived.â

âEdward? How nice. I havenât seen Edward for ages. Anybody else?â

âDavid Angkatell. That, according to Lucy, is where you are going to come in useful. Youâre going to stop him biting his nails.â

âIt sounds very unlike me,â said Henrietta. âI hate interfering with people, and I wouldnât dream of checking their personal habits. What did Lucy really say?â

âIt amounted to that! Heâs got an Adamâs apple, too!â

âIâm not expected to do anything about that, am I?â asked Henrietta, alarmed.

âAnd youâre to be kind to Gerda.â

âHow I should hate Lucy if I were Gerda!â

âAnd someone who solves crimes is coming to lunch tomorrow.â

âWeâre not going to play the Murder Game, are we?â

âI donât think so. I think it is just neighbourly hospitality.â

Midgeâs voice changed a little.

âHereâs Edward coming out to meet us.â

âDear Edward,â thought Henrietta with a sudden rush of warm affection.

Edward Angkatell was very tall and thin. He was smiling now as he came towards the two young women.

âHallo, Henrietta, I havenât seen you for over a year.â

âHallo, Edward.â

How nice Edward was! That gentle smile of his, the little creases at the corners of his eyes. And all his nice knobbly bones. âI believe itâs his bones I like so much,â thought Henrietta. The warmth of her affection for Edward startled her. She had forgotten that she liked Edward so much.

IV

After lunch Edward said: âCome for a walk, Henrietta.â

It was Edwardâs kind of walkâa stroll.

They went up behind the house, taking a path that zigzagged up through the trees. Like the woods at Ainswick, thought Henrietta. Dear Ainswick, what fun they had had there! She began to talk to Edward about Ainswick. They revived old memories.

âDo you remember our squirrel? The one with the broken paw. And we kept it in a cage and it got well?â

âOf course. It had a ridiculous nameâwhat was it now?â

âCholmondeley-Marjoribanks!â

âThatâs it.â

The both laughed.

âAnd old Mrs. Bondy, the housekeeperâshe always said it would go up the chimney one day.â

âAnd we were so indignant.â

âAnd then it did.â

âShe made it,â said Henrietta positively. âShe put the thought into the squirrelâs head.â

She went on:

âIs it all the same, Edward? Or is it changed? I always imagine it just the same.â

âWhy donât you come and see, Henrietta? Itâs a long long time since youâve been there.â

âI know.â

Why, she thought, had she let so long a time go by? One got busyâinterestedâtangled up with peopleâ¦.

âYou know youâre always welcome there at any time.â

âHow sweet you are, Edward!â

Dear Edward, she thought, with his nice bones.

He said presently:

âIâm glad youâre fond of Ainswick, Henrietta.â

She said dreamily: âAinswick is the loveliest place in the world.â

A long-legged girl, with a mane of untidy brown hairâ¦a happy girl with no idea at all of the things that life was going to do to herâ¦a girl who loved treesâ¦.

To have been so happy and not to have known it! âIf I could go back,â she thought.

And aloud she said suddenly:

âIs Ygdrasil still there?â

âIt was struck by lightning.â

âOh, no, not Ygdrasil!â

She was distressed. Ygdrasilâher own special name for the big oak tree. If the gods could strike down Ygdrasil, then nothing was safe! Better not go back.

âDo you remember your special sign, the Ygdrasil sign?â

âThe funny tree like no tree that ever was I used to draw on bits of paper? I still do, Edward! On blotters, and on telephone books, and on bridge scores. I doodle it all the time. Give me a pencil.â

He handed her a pencil and notebook, and laughing, she drew the ridiculous tree.

âYes,â he said, âthatâs Ygdrasil.â

They had come almost to the top of the path. Henrietta sat on a fallen tree trunk. Edward sat down beside her.

She looked down through the trees.

âItâs a little like Ainswick hereâa kind of pocket Ainswick. Iâve sometimes wonderedâEdward, do you think that that is why Lucy and Henry came here?â

âItâs possible.â

âOne never knows,â said Henrietta slowly, âwhat goes on in Lucyâs head.â Then she asked: âWhat have you been doing with yourself, Edward, since I saw you last?â

âNothing, Henrietta.â

âThat sounds very peaceful.â

âIâve never been very good atâdoing things.â

She threw him a quick glance. There had been something in his tone. But he was smiling at her quietly.

And again she felt that rush of deep affection.

âPerhaps,â she said, âyou are wise.â

âWise?â

âNot to do things.â

Edward said slowly, âThatâs an odd thing for you to say, Henrietta. You, whoâve been so successful.â

âDo you think of me as successful? How funny.â

âBut you are, my dear. Youâre an artist. You must be proud of yourself; you canât help being.â

âI know,â said Henrietta. âA lot of people say that to me. They donât understandâthey donât understand the first thing about it. You donât, Edward. Sculpture isnât a thing you set out to do and succeed in. Itâs a thing that gets at you, that nags at youâand haunts youâso that youâve got, sooner or later, to make terms with it. And then, for a bit, you get some peaceâuntil the whole thing starts over again.â

âDo you want to be peaceful, Henrietta?â

âSometimes I think I want to be peaceful more than anything in the world, Edward!â

âYou could be peaceful at Ainswick. I think you could be happy there. Evenâeven if you had to put up with me. What about it, Henrietta? Wonât you come to Ainswick and make it your home? Itâs always been there, you know, waiting for you.â

Henrietta turned her head slowly. She said in a low voice: âI wish I wasnât so dreadfully fond of you, Edward. It makes it so very much harder to go on saying No.â

âIt is No, then?â

âIâm sorry.â

âYouâve said No beforeâbut this timeâwell, I thought it might be different. Youâve been happy this afternoon, Henrietta. You canât deny that.â

âIâve been very happy.â

âYour face evenâitâs younger than it was this morning.â

âI know.â

âWeâve been happy together, talking about Ainswick, thinking about Ainswick. Donât you see what that means, Henrietta?â

âItâs you who donât see what it means, Edward! Weâve been living all this afternoon in the past.â

âThe past is sometimes a very good place to live.â

âOne canât go back. Thatâs the one thing one canât doâgo back.â

He was silent for a minute or two. Then he said in a quiet, pleasant and quite unemotional voice:

âWhat you really mean is that you wonât marry me because of John Christow?â

Henrietta did not answer, and Edward went on:

âThatâs it, isnât it? If there were no John Christow in the world you would marry me.â

Henrietta said harshly, âI canât imagine a world in which there was no John Christow! Thatâs what youâve got to understand.â

âIf itâs like that, why on earth doesnât the fellow get a divorce from his wife and then you could marry?â

âJohn doesnât want to get a divorce from his wife. And I donât know that I should want to marry John if he did. It isnâtâit isnât in the least like you think.â

Edward said in a thoughtful, considering way:

âJohn Christow. There are too many John Christows in this world.â

âYouâre wrong,â said Henrietta. âThere are very few people like John.â

âIf thatâs soâitâs a good thing! At least, thatâs what I think!â

He got up. âWeâd better go back again.â

Seven

As they got into the car and Lewis shut the front door of the Harley Street house, Gerda felt the pang of exile go through her. That shut door was so final. She was barred outâthis awful weekend was upon her. And there were things, quite a lot of things, that she ought to have done before leaving. Had she turned off that tap in the bathroom? And that note for the laundryâsheâd put itâwhere had she put it? Would the children be all right with Mademoiselle? Mademoiselle was soâsoâWould Terence, for instance, ever do anything that Mademoiselle told him to? French governesses never seemed to have any authority.

She got into the driving seat, still bowed down by misery, and nervously pressed the starter. She pressed it again and again. John said: âThe car will start better, Gerda, if you switch on the engine.â

âOh, dear, how stupid of me.â She shot a quick, alarmed glance at him. If John was going to become annoyed straightawayâBut to her relief he was smiling.

âThatâs because,â thought Gerda, with one of her flashes of acumen, âheâs so pleased to be going to the Angkatells.â

Poor John, he worked so hard! His life was so unselfish, so completely devoted to others. No wonder he looked forward to this long weekend. And, her mind harking back to the conversation at lunch, she said, as she let in the clutch rather too suddenly so that the car leapt forward from the kerb:

âYou know, John, you really shouldnât make jokes about hating sick people. Itâs wonderful of you to make light of all you do, and I understand. But the children donât. Terry, in particular, has such a very literal mind.â

âThere are times,â said John Christow, âwhen Terry seems to me almost humanânot like Zena! How long do girls go on being a mass of affectation?â

Gerda gave a little quiet sweet laugh. John, she knew, was teasing her. She stuck to her point. Gerda had an adhesive mind.

âI really think, John, that itâs good for children to realize the unselfishness and devotion of a doctorâs life.â

âOh God!â said Christow.

Gerda was momentarily deflected. The traffic lights she was approaching had been green for a long time. They were almost sure, she thought, to change before she got to them. She began to slow down. Still green.

John Christow forgot his resolutions of keeping silent about Gerdaâs driving and said, âWhat are you stopping for?â

âI thought the lights might changeââ

She pressed her foot on the accelerator, the car moved forward a little, just beyond the lights, then, unable to pick up, the engine stalled. The lights changed.

The cross traffic hooted angrily.

John said, but quite pleasantly:

âYou really are the worst driver in the world, Gerda!â

âI always find traffic lights so worrying. One doesnât know just when they are going to change.â

John cast a quick sideways look at Gerdaâs anxious unhappy face.

âEverything worries Gerda,â he thought, and tried to imagine what it must feel like to live in that state. But since he was not a man of much imagination, he could not picture it at all.

âYou see,â Gerda stuck to her point, âIâve always impressed on the children just what a doctorâs life isâthe self-sacrifice, the dedication of oneself to helping pain and sufferingâthe desire to serve others. Itâs such a noble lifeâand Iâm so proud of the way you give your time and energy and never spare yourselfââ

John Christow interrupted her.

âHasnât it ever occurred to you that I like doctoringâthat itâs a pleasure, not a sacrifice!âDonât you realize that the damned thingâs interesting!â

But no, he thought, Gerda would never realize a thing like that! If he told her about Mrs. Crabtree and the Margaret Russell Ward she would only see him as a kind of angelic helper of the Poor with a capital P.

âDrowning in treacle,â he said under his breath.

âWhat?â Gerda leaned towards him.

He shook his head.

If he were to tell Gerda that he was trying to âfind a cure for cancer,â she would respondâshe could understand a plain sentimental statement. But she would never understand the peculiar fascination of the intricacies of Ridgewayâs Diseaseâhe doubted if he could even make her understand what Ridgewayâs Disease actually was. (âParticularly,â he thought with a grin, âas weâre not really quite sure ourselves! We donât really know why the cortex degenerates!â)

But it occurred to him suddenly that Terence, child though he was, might be interested in Ridgewayâs Disease. He had liked the way that Terence had eyed him appraisingly before stating: âI think Father does mean it.â

Terence had been out of favour the last few days for breaking the Cona coffee machineâsome nonsense about trying to make ammonia. Ammonia? Funny kid, why should he want to make ammonia? Interesting in a way.

Gerda was relieved at Johnâs silence. She could cope with driving better if she were not distracted by conversation. Besides, if John was absorbed in thought, he was not so likely to notice that jarring noise of her occasional forced changes of gear. (She never changed down if she could help it.)

There were times, Gerda knew, when she changed gear quite well (though never with confidence), but it never happened if John were in the car. Her nervous determination to do it right this time was almost disastrous, her hand fumbled, she accelerated too much or not enough, and then she pushed the gear lever quickly and clumsily so that it shrieked in protest.

âStroke it in, Gerda, stroke it in,â Henrietta had pleaded once, years ago. Henrietta had demonstrated. âCanât you feel the way it wants to goâit wants to slide inâkeep your hand flat till you get the feeling of itâdonât just push it anywhereâfeel it.â

But Gerda had never been able to feel anything about a gear lever. If she was pushing it more or less in the proper direction it ought to go in! Cars ought to be made so that you didnât have that horrible grinding noise.

On the whole, thought Gerda, as she began the ascent of Mersham Hill, this drive wasnât going too badly. John was still absorbed in thoughtâand he hadnât noticed rather a bad crashing of gears in Croydon. Optimistically, as the car gained speed, she changed up into third, and immediately the car slackened. John, as it were, woke up.

âWhat on earthâs the point of changing up just when youâre coming to a steep bit?â

Gerda set her jaw. Not very much farther now. Not that she wanted to get there. No, indeed, sheâd much rather drive on for hours and hours, even if John did lose his temper with her!

But now they were driving along Shovel Downâflaming autumn woods all round them.

âWonderful to get out of London into this,â exclaimed John. âThink of it, Gerda, most afternoons weâre stuck in that dingy drawing room having teaâsometimes with the light on.â

The image of the somewhat dark drawing room of the flat rose up before Gerdaâs eyes with the tantalizing delight of a mirage. Oh, if only she could be sitting there now.

âThe country looks lovely,â she said heroically.

Down the steep hillâno escape now. That vague hope that something, she didnât know what, might intervene to save her from the nightmare, was unrealized. They were there.

She was a little comforted as she drove in to see Henrietta sitting on a wall with Midge and a tall thin man. She felt a certain reliance on Henrietta, who would sometimes unexpectedly come to the rescue if things were getting very bad.

John was glad to see Henrietta too. It seemed to him exactly the fitting journeyâs end to that lovely panorama of autumn, to drop down from the hilltop and find Henrietta waiting for him.

She had on the green tweed coat and the skirt he liked her in and which he thought suited her so much better than London clothes. Her long legs were stuck out in front of her, ending in well-polished brown brogues.

They exchanged a quick smileâa brief recognition of the fact that each was glad of the otherâs presence. John didnât want to talk to Henrietta now. He just enjoyed feeling that she was thereâknowing that without her the weekend would be barren and empty.

Lady Angkatell came out from the house and greeted them. Her conscience made her more effusive to Gerda than she would have been normally to any guest.

âBut how very nice to see you, Gerda! Itâs been such a long time. And John!â

The idea was clearly that Gerda was the eagerly awaited guest, and John the mere adjunct. It failed miserably of its object, making Gerda stiff and uncomfortable.

Lucy said: âYou know Edward? Edward Angkatell?â

John nodded to Edward and said: âNo, I donât think so.â

The afternoon sun lighted up the gold of Johnâs hair and the blue of his eyes. So might a Viking look who had just come ashore on a conquering mission. His voice, warm and resonant, charmed the ear, and the magnetism of his whole personality took charge of the scene.

That warmth and that objectiveness did no damage to Lucy. It set off, indeed, that curious elfin elusiveness of hers. It was Edward who seemed, suddenly, by contrast with the other man, bloodlessâa shadowy figure, stooping a little.

Henrietta suggested to Gerda that they should go and look at the kitchen garden.

âLucy is sure to insist on showing us the rock garden and the autumn border,â she said as she led the way. âBut I always think kitchen gardens are nice and peaceful. One can sit on the cucumber frames, or go inside a greenhouse if itâs cold, and nobody bothers one and sometimes thereâs something to eat.â

They found, indeed, some late peas, which Henrietta ate raw, but which Gerda did not much care for. She was glad to have got away from Lucy Angkatell, whom she had found more alarming than ever.

She began to talk to Henrietta with something like animation. The questions Henrietta asked always seemed to be questions to which Gerda knew the answers. After ten minutes Gerda felt very much better and began to think that perhaps the weekend wouldnât be so bad after all.

Zena was going to dancing class now and had just had a new frock. Gerda described it at length. Also she had found a very nice new leathercraft shop. Henrietta asked whether it would be difficult to make herself a handbag. Gerda must show her.

It was really very easy, she thought, to make Gerda look happy, and what an enormous difference it made to her when she did look happy!

âShe only wants to be allowed to curl up and purr,â thought Henrietta.

They sat happily on the corner of the cucumber frames where the sun, now low in the sky, gave an illusion of a summer day.

Then a silence fell. Gerdaâs face lost its expression of placidity. Her shoulders drooped. She sat there, the picture of misery. She jumped when Henrietta spoke.

âWhy do you come,â said Henrietta, âif you hate it so much?â

Gerda hurried into speech.

âOh, I donât! I mean, I donât know why you should thinkââ

She paused, then went on:

âIt is really delightful to get out of London, and Lady Angkatell is so very kind.â

âLucy? Sheâs not a bit kind.â

Gerda looked faintly shocked.

âOh, but she is. Sheâs so very nice to me always.â

âLucy has got good manners and she can be gracious. But she is rather a cruel person. I think really because she isnât quite humanâshe doesnât know what itâs like to feel and think like ordinary people. And you are hating being here, Gerda! You know you are. And why should you come if you feel like that?â

âWell, you see, John likes itââ

âOh, John likes it all right. But you could let him come by himself?â

âHe wouldnât like that. He wouldnât enjoy it without me. John is so unselfish. He thinks it is good for me to get out into the country.â

âThe country is all right,â said Henrietta. âBut thereâs no need to throw in the Angkatells.â

âIâI donât want you to feel that Iâm ungrateful.â

âMy dear Gerda, why should you like us? I always have thought the Angkatells were an odious family. We all like getting together and talking an extraordinary language of our own. I donât wonder outside people want to murder us.â

Then she added:

âI expect itâs about teatime. Letâs go back.â

She was watching Gerdaâs face as the latter got up and started to walk towards the house.

âItâs interesting,â thought Henrietta, one portion of whose mind was always detached, âto see exactly what a female Christian martyrâs face looked like before she went into the arena.â

As they left the walled kitchen garden, they heard shots, and Henrietta remarked: âSounds as though the massacre of the Angkatells has begun!â

It turned out to be Sir Henry and Edward discussing firearms and illustrating their discussion by firing revolvers. Henry Angkatellâs hobby was firearms and he had quite a collection of them.

He had brought out several revolvers and some target cards, and he and Edward were firing at them.

âHallo, Henrietta, want to try if you could kill a burglar?â

Henrietta took the revolver from him.

âThatâs rightâyes, so, aim like this.â

Bang!

âMissed him,â said Sir Henry.

âYou try, Gerda.â

âOh, I donât think Iââ

âCome on, Mrs. Christow. Itâs quite simple.â

Gerda fired the revolver, flinching, and shutting her eyes. The bullet went even wider than Henriettaâs had done.

âOh, I want to do it,â said Midge, strolling up.

âItâs more difficult than youâd think,â she remarked after a couple of shots. âBut itâs rather fun.â

Lucy came out from the house. Behind her came a tall, sulky young man with an Adamâs apple.

âHereâs David,â she announced.

She took the revolver from Midge, as her husband greeted David Angkatell, reloaded it, and without a word put three holes close to the centre of the target.

âWell done, Lucy,â exclaimed Midge. âI didnât know shooting was one of your accomplishments.â

âLucy,â said Sir Henry gravely, âalways kills her man!â

Then he added reminiscently, âCame in useful once. Do you remember, my dear, those thugs that set upon us that day on the Asian side of the Bosphorus? I was rolling about with two of them on top of me feeling for my throat.â

âAnd what did Lucy do?â asked Midge.

âFired two shots in the mÃªlÃ©e. I didnât even know she had the pistol with her. Got one bad man through the leg and the other in the shoulder. Nearest escape in the world Iâve ever had. I canât think how she didnât hit me.â

Lady Angkatell smiled at him.

âI think one always has to take some risk,â she said gently. âAnd one should do it quickly and not think too much about it.â

âAn admirable sentiment, my dear,â said Sir Henry. âBut I have always felt slightly aggrieved that I was the risk you took!â

Eight

I

After tea John said to Henrietta, âCome for a walk,â and Lady Angkatell said that she must show Gerda the rock garden though of course it was quite the wrong time of year.

Walking with John, thought Henrietta, was as unlike walking with Edward as anything could be.

With Edward one seldom did more than potter. Edward, she thought, was a born potterer. Walking with John, it was all she could do to keep up, and by the time they got up to Shovel Down she said breathlessly: âItâs not a marathon, John!â

He slowed down and laughed.

âAm I walking you off your feet?â

âI can do itâbut is there any need? We havenât got a train to catch. Why do you have this ferocious energy? Are you running away from yourself?â

He stopped dead. âWhy do you say that?â

Henrietta looked at him curiously.

âI didnât mean anything particular by it.â

John went on again, but walking more slowly.

âAs a matter of fact,â he said, âIâm tired. Iâm very tired.â

She heard the lassitude in his voice.

âHowâs the Crabtree?â

âItâs early days to say, but I think, Henrietta, that Iâve got the hang of things. If Iâm rightââhis footsteps began to quickenââa lot of our ideas will be revolutionizedâweâll have to reconsider the whole question of hormone secretionââ

âYou mean that there will be a cure for Ridgewayâs Disease? That people wonât die?â

âThat, incidentally.â

What odd people doctors were, thought Henrietta. Incidentally!

âScientifically, it opens up all sorts of possibilities!â

He drew a deep breath. âBut itâs good to get down hereâgood to get some air into your lungsâgood to see you.â He gave her one of his sudden quick smiles. âAnd it will do Gerda good.â

âGerda, of course, simply loves coming to The Hollow!â

âOf course she does. By the way, have I met Edward Angkatell before?â

âYouâve met him twice,â said Henrietta dryly.

âI couldnât remember. Heâs one of those vague, indefinite people.â

âEdwardâs a dear. Iâve always been very fond of him.â

âWell, donât letâs waste time on Edward! None of these people count.â

Henrietta said in a low voice:

âSometimes, JohnâIâm afraid for you!â

âAfraid for meâwhat do you mean?â

He turned an astonished face upon her.

âYou are so obliviousâsoâyes, blind.â

âBlind?â

âYou donât knowâyou donât seeâyouâre curiously insensitive! You donât know what other people are feeling and thinking.â

âI should have said just the opposite.â

âYou see what youâre looking at, yes. Youâreâyouâre like a searchlight. A powerful beam turned on to the one spot where your interest is, and behind it and each side of it, darkness!â

âHenrietta, my dear, what is all this?â

âItâs dangerous, John. You assume that everyone likes you, that they mean well to you. People like Lucy, for instance.â

âDoesnât Lucy like me?â he said, surprised. âIâve always been extremely fond of her.â

âAnd so you assume that she likes you. But Iâm not sure. And Gerda and Edwardâoh, and Midge and Henry. How do you know what they feel towards you?â

âAnd Henrietta? Do I know how she feels?â He caught her hand for a moment. âAt leastâIâm sure of you.â

She took her hand away.

âYou can be sure of no one in this world, John.â

His face had grown grave.

âNo, I wonât believe that. Iâm sure of you and Iâm sure of myself. At leastââ His face changed.

âWhat is it, John?â

âDo you know what I found myself saying today? Something quite ridiculous. âI want to go home.â Thatâs what I said and I hadnât the least idea what I meant by it.â

Henrietta said slowly: âYou must have had some picture in your mind.â

He said sharply: âNothing. Nothing at all!â

II

At dinner that night, Henrietta was put next to David, and from the end of the table Lucyâs delicate eyebrows telegraphed not a commandâLucy never commandedâbut an appeal.

Sir Henry was doing his best with Gerda and succeeding quite well. John, his face amused, was following the leaps and bounds of Lucyâs discursive mind. Midge talked in rather a stilted way to Edward, who seemed more absentminded than usual.

David was glowering and crumbling his bread with a nervous hand.

David had come to The Hollow in a spirit of considerable unwillingness. Until now, he had never met either Sir Henry or Lady Angkatell, and disapproving of the Empire generally, he was prepared to disapprove of these relatives of his. Edward, whom he did not know, he despised as a dilettante. The remaining four guests he examined with a critical eye. Relations, he thought, were pretty awful, and one was expected to talk to people, a thing which he hated doing.

Midge and Henrietta he discounted as empty-headed. This Dr. Christow was just one of these Harley Street charlatansâall manner and social successâhis wife obviously did not count.

David shifted his neck in his collar and wished fervently that all these people could know how little he thought of them! They were really all quite negligible.

When he had repeated that three times to himself he felt rather better. He still glowered but he was able to leave his bread alone.

Henrietta, though responding loyally to the eyebrows, had some difficulty in making headway. Davidâs curt rejoinders were snubbing in the extreme. In the end she had recourse to a method she had employed before with the tongue-tied young.

She made, deliberately, a dogmatic and quite unjustifiable pronouncement on a modern composer, knowing that David had much technical and musical knowledge.

To her amusement the plan worked. David drew himself up from his slouching position where he had been more or less reclining on his spine. His voice was no longer low and mumbling. He stopped crumbling his bread.

âThat,â he said in loud, clear tones, fixing a cold eye on Henrietta, âshows that you donât know the first thing about the subject!â

From then on until the end of dinner he lectured her in clear and biting accents, and Henrietta subsided into the proper meekness of one instructed.

Lucy Angkatell sent a benignant glance down the table, and Midge grinned to herself.

âSo clever of you, darling,â muttered Lady Angkatell as she slipped an arm through Henriettaâs on the way to the drawing room. âWhat an awful thought it is that if people had less in their heads they would know better what to do with their hands! Do you think Hearts or Bridge or Rummy or something terribly terribly simple like Animal Grab?â

âI think David would be rather insulted by Animal Grab.â

âPerhaps you are right. Bridge, then. I am sure he will feel that Bridge is rather worthless, and then he can have a nice glow of contempt for us.â

They made up two tables. Henrietta played with Gerda against John and Edward. It was not her idea of the best grouping. She had wanted to segregate Gerda from Lucy and if possible from John alsoâbut John had shown determination. And Edward had then forestalled Midge.

The atmosphere was not, Henrietta thought, quite comfortable, but she did not quite know from whence the discomfort arose. Anyway, if the cards gave them anything like a break, she intended that Gerda should win. Gerda was not really a bad Bridge playerâaway from John she was quite averageâbut she was a nervous player with bad judgment and with no real knowledge of the value of her hand. John was a good, if slightly overconfident player. Edward was a very good player indeed.

The evening wore on, and at Henriettaâs table they were still playing the same rubber. The scores rose above the line on either side. A curious tensity had come into the play of which only one person was unaware.

To Gerda this was just a rubber of Bridge which she happened for once to be quite enjoying. She felt indeed a pleasurable excitement. Difficult decisions had been unexpectedly eased by Henriettaâs overcalling her own bids and playing the hand.

Those moments when John, unable to refrain from that critical attitude which did more to undermine Gerdaâs self-confidence than he could possibly have imagined, exclaimed: âWhy on earth did you lead that club, Gerda?â were countered almost immediately by Henriettaâs swift, âNonsense, John, of course she had to lead the club! It was the only possible thing to do.â

Finally, with a sigh, Henrietta drew the score towards her.

âGame and rubber, but I donât think we shall make much out of it, Gerda.â

John said: âA lucky finesse,â in a cheerful voice.

Henrietta looked up sharply. She knew his tone. She met his eyes and her own dropped.

She got up and went to the mantelpiece, and John followed her. He said conversationally: âYou donât always look deliberately into peopleâs hands, do you?â

Henrietta said calmly: âPerhaps I was a little obvious. How despicable it is to want to win at games!â

âYou wanted Gerda to win the rubber, you mean. In your desire to give pleasure to people, you donât draw the line at cheating.â

âHow horribly you put things! And you are always quite right.â

âYour wishes seemed to be shared by my partner.â

So he had noticed, thought Henrietta. She had wondered herself, if she had been mistaken. Edward was so skilfulâthere was nothing you could have taken hold of. A failure, once, to call the game. A lead that had been sound and obviousâbut when a less obvious lead would have assured success.

It worried Henrietta. Edward, she knew, would never play his cards in order that she, Henrietta, might win. He was far too imbued with English sportsmanship for that. No, she thought, it was just one more success for John Christow that he was unable to endure.

She felt suddenly keyed up, alert. She didnât like this party of Lucyâs.

And then dramatically, unexpectedlyâwith the unreality of a stage entrance, Veronica Cray came through the window.

The french windows had been pushed to, not closed, for the evening was warm. Veronica pushed them wide, came through them and stood there framed against the night, smiling, a little rueful, wholly charming, waiting just that infinitesimal moment before speaking so that she might be sure of her audience.

âYou must forgive meâbursting in upon you this way. Iâm your neighbour, Lady Angkatellâfrom that ridiculous cottage Dovecotesâand the most frightful catastrophe has occurred!â

Her smile broadenedâbecame more humorous.

âNot a match! Not a single match in the house! And Saturday evening. So stupid of me. But what could I do? I came along here to beg help from my only neighbour within miles.â

Nobody spoke for a moment, for Veronica had rather that effect. She was lovelyânot quietly lovely, not even dazzlingly lovelyâbut so efficiently lovely that it made you gasp! The waves of pale shimmering hair, the curving mouthâthe platinum foxes that swathed her shoulders and the long sweep of white velvet underneath them.

She was looking from one to the other of them, humorous, charming!

âAnd I smoke,â she said, âlike a chimney! And my lighter wonât work! And besides thereâs breakfastâgas stovesââ She thrust out her hands. âI do feel such a complete fool.â

Lucy came forward, gracious, faintly amused.

âWhy, of courseââ she began, but Veronica Cray interrupted.

She was looking at John Christow. An expression of utter amazement, of incredulous delight, was spreading over her face. She took a step towards him, hands outstretched.

âWhy, surelyâJohn! Itâs John Christow! Now isnât that too extraordinary? I havenât seen you for years and years and years! And suddenlyâto find you here!â

She had his hands in hers by now. She was all warmth and simple eagerness. She half-turned her head to Lady Angkatell.

âThis is just the most wonderful surprise. Johnâs an old old friend of mine. Why, Johnâs the first man I ever loved! I was crazy about you, John.â

She was half laughing nowâa woman moved by the ridiculous remembrance of first love.

âI always thought John was just wonderful!â

Sir Henry, courteous and polished, had moved forward to her.

She must have a drink. He manoeuvred glasses. Lady Angkatell said:

âMidge, dear, ring the bell.â

When Gudgeon came, Lucy said:

âA box of matches, Gudgeonâat least, has Cook got plenty?â

âA new dozen came in today, mâlady.â

âThen bring in half a dozen, Gudgeon.â

âOh, no, Lady Angkatellâjust one!â

Veronica protested, laughing. She had her drink now and was smiling round at everyone. John Christow said:

âThis is my wife, Veronica.â

âOh, but how lovely to meet you.â Veronica beamed upon Gerdaâs air of bewilderment.

Gudgeon brought in the matches, stacked on a silver salver.

Lady Angkatell indicated Veronica Cray with a gesture and he brought the salver to her.

âOh, dear Lady Angkatell, not all these!â

Lucyâs gesture was negligently royal.

âItâs so tiresome only having one of a thing. We can spare them quite easily.â

Sir Henry was saying pleasantly:

âAnd how do you like living at Dovecotes?â

âI adore it. Itâs wonderful here, near London, and yet one feels so beautifully isolated.â

Veronica put down her glass. She drew the platinum foxes a little closer round her. She smiled on them all.

âThank you so much! Youâve been so kind.â The words floated between Sir Henry, Lady Angkatell, and for some reason, Edward. âI shall now carry home the spoils. John,â she gave him an artless, friendly smile, âyou must see me safely back, because I want dreadfully to hear all youâve been doing in the years and years since Iâve seen you. It makes me feel, of course, dreadfully old.â

She moved to the window, and John Christow followed her. She flung a last brilliant smile at them all.

âIâm so dreadfully sorry to have bothered you in this stupid way. Thank you so much, Lady Angkatell.â

She went out with John. Sir Henry stood by the window looking after them.

âQuite a fine warm night,â he said.

Lady Angkatell yawned.

âOh, dear,â she murmured, âwe must go to bed. Henry, we must go and see one of her pictures. Iâm sure, from tonight, she must give a lovely performance.â

They went upstairs. Midge, saying goodnight, asked Lucy:

âA lovely performance?â

âDidnât you think so, darling?â

âI gather, Lucy, that you think itâs just possible she may have some matches in Dovecotes all the time.â

âDozens of boxes, I expect, darling. But we mustnât be uncharitable. And it was a lovely performance!â

Doors were shutting all down the corridor, voices were murmuring goodnights. Sir Henry said: âIâll leave the window for Christow.â His own door shut.

Henrietta said to Gerda: âWhat fun actresses are. They make such marvellous entrances and exits!â She yawned and added: âIâm frightfully sleepy.â

Veronica Cray moved swiftly along the narrow path through the chestnut woods.

She came out from the woods to the open space by the swimming pool. There was a small pavilion here where the Angkatells sat on days that were sunny but when there was a cold wind.

Veronica Cray stood still. She turned and faced John Christow.

Then she laughed. With her hand she gestured towards the leaf-strewn surface of the swimming pool.

âNot quite like the Mediterranean, is it, John?â she said.

He knew then what he had been waiting forâknew that in all those fifteen years of separation from Veronica she had still been with him. The blue sea, the scent of mimosa, the hot dustâpushed down, thrust out of sight, but never really forgotten. They all meant one thingâVeronica. He was a young man of twenty-four, desperately and agonizingly in love, and this time he was not going to run away.

Nine

John Christow came out from the chestnut woods on to the green slope by the house. There was a moon and the house basked in the moonlight with a strange innocence in its curtained windows. He looked down at the wristwatch he wore.

It was three oâclock. He drew a deep breath and his face was anxious. He was no longer, even remotely, a young man of twenty-four in love. He was a shrewd, practical man of just on forty, and his mind was clear and levelheaded.

Heâd been a fool, of course, a complete damned fool, but he didnât regret that! For he was, he now realized, completely master of himself. It was as though, for years, he had dragged a weight upon his legâand now the weight was gone. He was free.

He was free and himself, John Christowâand he knew that to John Christow, successful Harley Street specialist, Veronica Cray meant nothing whatsoever. All that had been in the pastâand because that conflict had never been resolved, because he had always suffered humiliatingly from the fear that he had, in plain language, ârun away,â so Veronicaâs image had never completely left him. She had come to him tonight out of a dream, and he had accepted the dream, and now, thank God, he was delivered from it forever. He was back in the presentâand it was 3 a.m., and it was just possible that he had mucked up things rather badly.

Heâd been with Veronica for three hours. She had sailed in like a frigate, and cut him out of the circle and carried him off as her prize, and he wondered now what on earth everybody had thought about it.

What, for instance, would Gerda think?

And Henrietta? (But he didnât care quite so much about Henrietta. He could, he felt, at a pinch explain to Henrietta. He could never explain to Gerda.)

And he didnât, definitely he didnât want to lose anything.

All his life he had been a man who took a justifiable number of risks. Risks with patients, risks with treatment, risks with investments. Never a fantastic riskâonly the kind of risk that was just beyond the margin of safety.

If Gerda guessedâif Gerda had the least suspicionâ¦.

But would she have? How much did he really know about Gerda? Normally, Gerda would believe white was black if he told her so. But over a thing like thisâ¦.

What had he looked like when he followed Veronicaâs tall, triumphant figure out of that window? What had he shown in his face? Had they seen a boyâs dazed, lovesick face? Or had they only observed a man doing a polite duty? He didnât know. He hadnât the least idea.

But he was afraidâafraid for the ease and order and safety of his life. Heâd been madâquite mad, he thought with exasperationâand then took comfort in that very thought. Nobody would believe, surely, he could have been as mad as that?

Everybody was in bed and sleep, that was clear. The french window of the drawing room stood half open, left for his return. He looked up again at the innocent, sleeping house. It looked, somehow, too innocent.

Suddenly he started. He had heard, or he had imagined he heard, the faint closing of a door.

He turned his head sharply. If someone had come down to the pool, following him there. If someone had waited and followed him back that someone could have taken a higher path and so gained entrance to the house again by the side garden door, and the soft closing of the garden door would have made just the sound that he had heard.

He looked up sharply at the windows. Was that curtain moving, had it been pushed aside for someone to look out, and then allowed to fall? Henriettaâs room.

Henrietta! Not Henrietta, his heart cried in a sudden panic. I canât lose Henrietta!

He wanted suddenly to fling up a handful of pebbles at her window, to cry out to her.

âCome out, my dear love. Come out to me now and walk with me up through the woods to Shovel Down and there listenâlisten to everything that I now know about myself and that you must know, too, if you do not know it already.â

He wanted to say to Henrietta:

âI am starting again. A new life begins from today. The things that crippled and hindered me from living have fallen away. You were right this afternoon when you asked me if I was running away from myself. That is what I have been doing for years. Because I never knew whether it was strength or weakness that took me away from Veronica. I have been afraid of myself, afraid of life, afraid of you.â

If he were to wake Henrietta and make her come out with him nowâup through the woods to where they could watch, together, the sun come up over the rim of the world.

âYouâre mad,â he said to himself. He shivered. It was cold now, late September after all. âWhat the devil is the matter with you?â he asked himself. âYouâve behaved quite insanely enough for one night. If you get away with it as it is, youâre damned lucky!â What on earth would Gerda think if he stayed out all night and came home with the milk?

What, for the matter of that, would the Angkatells think?

But that did not worry him for a moment. The Angkatells took Greenwich time, as it were, from Lucy Angkatell. And to Lucy Angkatell, the unusual always appeared perfectly reasonable.

But Gerda, unfortunately, was not an Angkatell.

Gerda would have to be dealt with, and heâd better go in and deal with Gerda as soon as possible.

Supposing it had been Gerda who had followed him tonight?

No good saying people didnât do such things. As a doctor, he knew only too well what people, high-minded, sensitive, fastidious, honourable people, constantly did. They listened at doors, and opened letters and spied and snoopedânot because for one moment they approved of such conduct, but because before the sheer necessity of human anguish they were rendered desperate.

Poor devils, he thought, poor suffering human devils. John Christow knew a good deal about human suffering. He had not very much pity for weakness, but he had for suffering, for it was, he knew, the strong who suffer.

If Gerda knewâ

Nonsense, he said to himself, why should she? Sheâs gone up to bed and sheâs fast asleep. Sheâs no imagination, never has had.

He went in through the french windows, switched on a lamp, closed and locked the windows. Then, switching off the light, he left the room, found the switch in the hall, went quickly and lightly up the stairs. A second switch turned off the hall light. He stood for a moment by the bedroom door, his hand on the doorknob, then he turned it and went in.

The room was dark and he could hear Gerdaâs even breathing. She stirred as he came in and closed the door. Her voice came to him, blurred and indistinct with sleep.

âIs that you, John?â

âYes.â

âArenât you very late? What time is it?â

He said easily:

âIâve no idea. Sorry I woke you up. I had to go in with the woman and have a drink.â

He made his voice sound bored and sleepy.

Gerda murmured: âOh? Goodnight, John.â

There was a rustle as she turned over in bed.

It was all right! As usual, heâd been lucky. As usualâjust for a moment it sobered him, the thought of how often his luck had held! Time and again there had been a moment when heâd held his breath and said, âIf this goes wrong.â And it hadnât gone wrong! But some day, surely, his luck would change.

He undressed quickly and got into bed. Funny that kidâs fortune. âAnd this one is over your head and has power over youâ¦â Veronica! And she had had power over him all right.

âBut not anymore, my girl,â he thought with a kind of savage satisfaction. âAll thatâs over. Iâm quit of you now!â

Ten

It was ten oâclock the next morning when John came down. Breakfast was on the sideboard. Gerda had had her breakfast sent up to her in bed and had been rather perturbed since perhaps she might be âgiving trouble.â

Nonsense, John had said. People like the Angkatells who still managed to have butlers and servants might just as well give them something to do.

He felt very kindly towards Gerda this morning. All that nervous irritation that had so fretted him of late seemed to have died down and disappeared.

Sir Henry and Edward had gone out shooting, Lady Angkatell told him. She herself was busy with a gardening basket and gardening gloves. He stayed talking to her for a while until Gudgeon approached him with a letter on a salver.

âThis has just come by hand, sir.â

He took it with slightly raised eyebrows.

Veronica!

He strolled into the library, tearing it open.

Please come over this morning. I must see you.

Veronica.

Imperious as ever, he thought. Heâd a good mind not to go. Then he thought he might as well and get it over. Heâd go at once.

He took the path opposite the library window, passed by the swimming pool which was a kind of nucleus with paths radiating from it in every direction, one up the hill to the woods proper, one from the flower walk above the house, one from the farm and the one that led on to the lane which he took now. A few yards up the lane was the cottage called Dovecotes.

Veronica was waiting for him. She spoke from the window of the pretentious half-timbered building.

âCome inside, John. Itâs cold this morning.â

There was a fire lit in the sitting room, which was furnished in off-white with pale cyclamen cushions.

Looking at her this morning with an appraising eye, he saw the differences there were from the girl he remembered, as he had not been able to see them last night.

Strictly speaking, he thought, she was more beautiful now than then. She understood her beauty better, and she cared for it and enhanced it in every way. Her hair, which had been deep golden, was now a silvery platinum colour. Her eyebrows were different, giving much more poignancy to her expression.

Hers had never been a mindless beauty. Veronica, he remembered, had qualified as one of our âintellectual actresses.â She had a university degree and had views on Strindberg and on Shakespeare.

He was struck now with what had only been dimly apparent to him in the pastâthat she was a woman whose egoism was quite abnormal. Veronica was accustomed to getting her own way, and beneath the smooth beautiful contours of flesh he seemed to sense an ugly iron determination.

âI sent for you,â said Veronica, as she handed him a box of cigarettes, âbecause weâve got to talk. Weâve got to make arrangements. For our future, I mean.â

He took a cigarette and lighted it. Then he said quite pleasantly:

âBut have we a future?â

She gave him a sharp glance.

âWhat do you mean, John? Of course we have got a future. Weâve wasted fifteen years. Thereâs no need to waste any more time.â

He sat down.

âIâm sorry, Veronica. But Iâm afraid youâve got all this taped out wrong. Iâveâenjoyed meeting you again very much. But your life and mine donât touch anywhere. They are quite divergent.â

âNonsense, John. I love you and you love me. Weâve always loved each other. You were incredibly obstinate in the past! But never mind that now. Our lives neednât clash. I donât mean to go back to the States. When Iâve finished this picture Iâm working on now, Iâm going to play a straight play on the London stage. Iâve got a wonderful playâEldertonâs written it for me. It will be a terrific success.â

âIâm sure it will,â he said politely.

âAnd you can go on being a doctor.â Her voice was kind and condescending. âYouâre quite well-known, they tell me.â

âMy dear girl, Iâm married. Iâve got children.â

âIâm married myself at the moment,â said Veronica. âBut all these things are easily arranged. A good lawyer can fix up everything.â She smiled at him dazzlingly. âI always did mean to marry you, darling. I canât think why I have this terrible passion for you, but there it is!â

âIâm sorry, Veronica, but no good lawyer is going to fix up anything. Your life and mine have nothing to do with each other.â

âNot after last night?â

âYouâre not a child, Veronica. Youâve had a couple of husbands, and by all accounts several lovers. What does last night mean actually? Nothing at all, and you know it.â

âOh, my dear John.â She was still amused, indulgent. âIf youâd seen your faceâthere in that stuffy drawing room! You might have been in San Miguel again.â

John sighed. He said:

âI was in San Miguel. Try to understand, Veronica. You came to me out of the past. Last night, I, too, was in the past, but todayâtodayâs different. Iâm a man fifteen years older. A man you donât even knowâand whom I daresay you wouldnât like much if you did know.â

âYou prefer your wife and children to me?â

She was genuinely amazed.

âOdd as it may seem to you, I do.â

âNonsense, John, you love me.â

âIâm sorry, Veronica.â

She said incredulously:

âYou donât love me?â

âItâs better to be quite clear about these things. You are an extraordinarily beautiful woman, Veronica, but I donât love you.â

She sat so still that she might have been a waxwork. That stillness of hers made him just a little uneasy.

When she spoke it was with such venom that he recoiled.

âWho is she?â

âShe? Who do you mean?â

âThat woman by the mantelpiece last night?â

Henrietta! he thought. How the devil did she get on to Henrietta? Aloud he said:

âWho are you talking about? Midge Hardcastle?â

âMidge? Thatâs the square, dark girl, isnât it? No, I donât mean her. And I donât mean your wife. I mean that insolent devil who was leaning against the mantelpiece! Itâs because of her that youâre turning me down! Oh, donât pretend to be so moral about your wife and children. Itâs that other woman.â

She got up and came towards him.

âDonât you understand, John, that ever since I came back to England, eighteen months ago, Iâve been thinking about you? Why do you imagine I took this idiotic place here? Simply because I found out that you often came down for weekends with the Angkatells!â

âSo last night was all planned, Veronica?â

âYou belong to me, John. You always have!â

âI donât belong to anyone, Veronica. Hasnât life taught you even now that you canât own other human beings body and soul? I loved you when I was a young man. I wanted you to share my life. You wouldnât do it!â

âMy life and career were much more important than yours. Anyone can be a doctor!â

He lost his temper a little.

âAre you quite as wonderful as you think you are?â

âYou mean that I havenât got to the top of the tree. I shall! I shall!â

John Christow looked at her with a sudden, quite dispassionate interest.

âI donât believe, you know, that you will. Thereâs a lack in you, Veronica. Youâre all grab and snatchâno real generosityâI think thatâs it.â

Veronica got up. She said in a quiet voice:

âYou turned me down fifteen years ago. Youâve turned me down again today. Iâll make you sorry for this.â

John got up and went to the door.

âIâm sorry, Veronica, if Iâve hurt you. Youâre very lovely, my dear, and I once loved you very much. Canât we leave it at that?â

âGood-bye, John. Weâre not leaving it at that. Youâll find that out all right. I thinkâI think I hate you more than I believed I could hate anyone.â

He shrugged his shoulders:

âIâm sorry. Goodbye.â

John walked back slowly through the wood. When he got to the swimming pool he sat down on the bench there. He had no regrets for his treatment of Veronica. Veronica, he thought dispassionately, was a nasty bit of work. She always had been a nasty bit of work, and the best thing he had ever done was to get clear of her in time. God alone knew what would have happened to him by now if he hadnât!

As it was, he had that extraordinary sensation of starting a new life, unfettered and unhampered by the past. He must have been extremely difficult to live with for the last year or two. Poor Gerda, he thought, with her unselfishness and her continual anxiety to please him. He would be kinder in future.

And perhaps now he would be able to stop trying to bully Henrietta. Not that one could really bully Henriettaâshe wasnât made that way. Storms broke over her and she stood there, meditative, her eyes looking at you from very far away.

He thought: âI shall go to Henrietta and tell her.â

He looked up sharply, disturbed by some small unexpected sound. There had been shots in the woods higher up, and there had been the usual small noises of woodlands, birds, and the faint melancholy dropping of leaves. But this was another noiseâa very faint businesslike click.

And suddenly, John was acutely conscious of danger. How long had he been sitting here? Half an hour? An hour? There was someone watching him. Someoneâ

And that click wasâof course it wasâ

He turned sharply, a man very quick in his reactions. But he was not quick enough. His eyes widened in surprise, but there was no time for him to make a sound.

The shot rang out and he fell, awkwardly, sprawled out by the edge of the swimming pool.

A dark stain welled up slowly on his left side and trickled slowly on to the concrete of the pool edge; and from there dripped red into the blue water.

Eleven

I

Hercule Poirot flicked a last speck of dust from his shoes. He had dressed carefully for his luncheon party and he was satisfied with the result.

He knew well enough the kind of clothes that were worn in the country on a Sunday in England, but he did not choose to conform to English ideas. He preferred his own standards of urban smartness. He was not an English country gentleman. He was Hercule Poirot!

He did not, he confessed it to himself, really like the country. The weekend cottageâso many of his friends had extolled itâhe had allowed himself to succumb, and had purchased Resthaven, though the only thing he had liked about it was its shape, which was quite square like a box. The surrounding landscape he did not care for though it was, he knew, supposed to be a beauty spot. It was, however, too wildly asymmetrical to appeal to him. He did not care much for trees at any timeâthey had that untidy habit of shedding their leaves. He could endure poplars and he approved of a monkey puzzleâbut this riot of beech and oak left him unmoved. Such a landscape was best enjoyed from a car on a fine afternoon. You exclaimed, âQuel beau paysage!â and drove back to a good hotel.

The best thing about Resthaven, he considered, was the small vegetable garden neatly laid out in rows by his Belgian gardener Victor. Meanwhile FranÃ§oise, Victorâs wife, devoted herself with tenderness to the care of her employerâs stomach.

Hercule Poirot passed through the gate, sighed, glanced down once more at his shining black shoes, adjusted his pale grey Homburg hat, and looked up and down the road.

He shivered slightly at the aspect of Dovecotes. Dovecotes and Resthaven had been erected by rival builders, both of whom had acquired a small piece of land. Further enterprise on their part had been swiftly curtailed by a National Trust for preserving the beauties of the countryside. The two houses remained representative of two schools of thought. Resthaven was a box with a roof, severely modern and a little dull. Dovecotes was a riot of half-timbering and Olde Worlde packed into as small a space as possible.

Hercule Poirot debated within himself as to how he should approach The Hollow. There was, he knew, a little higher up the lane, a small gate and a path. This, the unofficial way, would save a half-mile dÃ©tour by the road. Nevertheless Hercule Poirot, a stickler for etiquette, decided to take the longer way round and approach the house correctly by the front entrance.

This was his first visit to Sir Henry and Lady Angkatell. One should not, he considered, take shortcuts uninvited, especially when one was the guest of people of social importance. He was, it must be admitted, pleased by their invitation.

âJe suis un peu snob,â he murmured to himself.

He had retained an agreeable impression of the Angkatells from the time in Baghdad, particularly of Lady Angkatell. âUne originale!â he thought to himself.

His estimation of the time required for walking to The Hollow by road was accurate. It was exactly one minute to one when he rang the front doorbell. He was glad to have arrived and felt slightly tired. He was not fond of walking.

The door was opened by the magnificent Gudgeon, of whom Poirot approved. His reception, however, was not quite as he had hoped. âHer ladyship is in the pavilion by the swimming pool, sir. Will you come this way?â

The passion of the English for sitting out of doors irritated Hercule Poirot. Though one had to put up with this whimsy in the height of summer, surely, Poirot thought, one should be safe from it by the end of September! The day was mild, certainly, but it had, as autumn days always had, a certain dampness. How infinitely pleasanter to have been ushered into a comfortable drawing room with, perhaps, a small fire in the grate. But no, here he was being led out through french windows across a slope of lawn, past a rockery and then through a small gate and along a narrow track between closely planted young chestnuts.

It was the habit of the Angkatells to invite guests for one oâclock, and on fine days they had cocktails and sherry in the small pavilion by the swimming pool. Lunch itself was scheduled for one thirty, by which time the most unpunctual of guests should have managed to arrive, which permitted Lady Angkatellâs excellent cook to embark on soufflÃ©s and such accurately timed delicacies without too much trepidation.

To Hercule Poirot, the plan did not commend itself.

âIn a little minute,â he thought, âI shall be almost back where I started.â

With an increasing awareness of his feet in his shoes, he followed Gudgeonâs tall figure.

It was at that moment from just ahead of him that he heard a little cry. It increased, somehow, his dissatisfaction. It was incongruous, in some way unfitting. He did not classify it, nor indeed think about it. When he thought about it afterwards he was hard put to it to remember just what emotions it had seemed to convey. Dismay? Surprise? Horror? He could only say that it suggested, very definitely, the unexpected.

Gudgeon stepped out from the chestnuts. He was moving to one side, deferentially, to allow Poirot to pass and at the same time clearing his throat preparatory to murmuring, âM. Poirot, my ladyâ in the proper subdued and respectful tones when his suppleness became suddenly rigid. He gasped. It was an unbutlerlike noise.

Hercule Poirot stepped out on to the open space surrounding the swimming pool, and immediately he, too, stiffened, but with annoyance.

It was too muchâit was really too much! He had not suspected such cheapness of the Angkatells. The long walk by the road, the disappointment at the houseâand now this! The misplaced sense of humour of the English!

He was annoyed and he was boredâoh, how he was bored. Death was not, to him, amusing. And here they had arranged for him, by way of a joke, a set piece.

For what he was looking at was a highly artificial murder scene. By the side of the pool was the body, artistically arranged with an outflung arm and even some red paint dripping gently over the edge of the concrete into the pool. It was a spectacular body, that of a handsome fair-haired man. Standing over the body, revolver in hand, was a woman, a short, powerfully built, middle-aged woman with a curiously blank expression.

And there were three other actors. On the far side of the pool was a tall young woman whose hair matched the autumn leaves in its rich brown; she had a basket in her hand full of dahlia heads. A little farther off was a man, a tall, inconspicuous man in a shooting coat, carrying a gun. And immediately on his left, with a basket of eggs in her hand, was his hostess, Lady Angkatell.

It was clear to Hercule Poirot that several different paths converged here at the swimming pool and that these people had each arrived by a different path.

It was all very mathematical and artificial.

He sighed. Enfin, what did they expect him to do? Was he to pretend to believe in this âcrime?â Was he to register dismayâalarm? Or was he to bow, to congratulate his hostess: âAh, but it is very charming, what you arrange for me here?â

Really, the whole thing was very stupidânot spirituel at all! Was it not Queen Victoria who had said: âWe are not amused?â He felt very inclined to say the same: âI, Hercule Poirot, am not amused.â

Lady Angkatell had walked towards the body. He followed, conscious of Gudgeon, still breathing hard, behind him. âHe is not in the secret, that one,â Hercule Poirot thought to himself. From the other side of the pool, the other two people joined them. They were all quite close now, looking down on that spectacular sprawling figure by the poolâs edge.

And suddenly, with a terrific shock, with that feeling as of blurring on a cinematograph screen before the picture comes into focus, Hercule Poirot realized that this artificially set scene had a point of reality.

For what he was looking down at was, if not a dead, at least a dying man.

It was not red paint dripping off the edge of the concrete, it was blood. This man had been shot, and shot a very short time ago.

He darted a quick glance at the woman who stood there, revolver in hand. Her face was quite blank, without feeling of any kind. She looked dazed and rather stupid.

âCurious,â he thought.

Had she, he wondered, drained herself of all emotion, all feeling, in the firing of the shot? Was she now all passion spent, nothing but an exhausted shell? It might be so, he thought.

Then he looked down on the shot man, and he started. For the dying manâs eyes were open. They were intensely blue eyes and they held an expression that Poirot could not read but which he described to himself as a kind of intense awareness.

And suddenly, or so it felt to Poirot, there seemed to be in all this group of people only one person who was really aliveâthe man who was at the point of death.

Poirot had never received so strong an impression of vivid and intense vitality. The others were pale shadowy figures, actors in a remote drama, but this man was real.

John Christow opened his mouth and spoke. His voice was strong, unsurprised and urgent.

âHenriettaââ he said.

Then his eyelids dropped, his head jerked sideways.

Hercule Poirot knelt down, made sure, then rose to his feet, mechanically dusting the knees of his trousers.

âYes,â he said. âHe is dead.â

II

The picture broke up, wavered, refocused itself. There were individual reactions nowâtrivial happenings. Poirot was conscious of himself as a kind of magnified eyes and earsârecording. Just that, recording.

He was aware of Lady Angkatellâs hand relaxing its grip on her basket and Gudgeon springing forward, quickly taking it from her.

âAllow me, my lady.â

Mechanically, quite naturally, Lady Angkatell murmured:

âThank you, Gudgeon.â

And then, hesitantly, she said:

âGerdaââ

The woman holding the revolver stirred for the first time. She looked round at them all. When she spoke, her voice held what seemed to be pure bewilderment.

âJohnâs dead,â she said. âJohnâs dead.â

With a kind of swift authority, the tall young woman with the leaf-brown hair came swiftly to her.

âGive that to me, Gerda,â she said.

And dexterously, before Poirot could protest or intervene, she had taken the revolver out of Gerda Christowâs hand.

Poirot took a quick step forward.

âYou should not do that, Mademoiselleââ

The young woman started nervously at the sound of his voice. The revolver slipped through her fingers. She was standing by the edge of the pool and the revolver fell with a splash into the water.

Her mouth opened and she uttered an âOhâ of consternation, turning her head to look at Poirot apologetically.

âWhat a fool I am,â she said. âIâm sorry.â

Poirot did not speak for a moment. He was staring into a pair of clear hazel eyes. They met his quite steadily and he wondered if his momentary suspicion had been unjust.

He said quietly:

âThings should be handled as little as possible. Everything must be left exactly as it is for the police to see.â

There was a little stir thenâvery faint, just a ripple of uneasiness.

Lady Angkatell murmured distastefully: âOf course. I supposeâyes, the policeââ

In a quite, pleasant voice, tinged with fastidious repulsion, the man in the shooting coat said: âIâm afraid, Lucy, itâs inevitable.â

Into that moment of silence and realization there came the sound of footsteps and voices, assured, brisk footsteps and cheerful, incongruous voices.

Along the path from the house came Sir Henry Angkatell and Midge Hardcastle, talking and laughing together.

At the sight of the group round the pool, Sir Henry stopped short, and exclaimed in astonishment:

âWhatâs the matter? Whatâs happened?â

His wife answered: âGerda hasââ She broke off sharply. âI meanâJohn isââ

Gerda said in her flat, bewildered voice:

âJohn has been shot. Heâs dead.â

They all looked away from her, embarrassed.

Then Lady Angkatell said quickly:

âMy dear, I think youâd better go andâand lie down. Perhaps we had better all go back to the house? Henry, you and M. Poirot can stay here andâand wait for the police.â

âThat will be the best plan, I think,â said Sir Henry. He turned to Gudgeon. âWill you ring up the police station, Gudgeon? Just state exactly what has occurred. When the police arrive, bring them straight out here.â

Gudgeon bent his head a little and said: âYes, Sir Henry.â He was looking a little white about the gills, but he was still the perfect servant.

The tall young woman said: âCome, Gerda,â and putting her hand through the other womanâs arm, she led her unresistingly away and along the path towards the house. Gerda walked as though in a dream. Gudgeon stood back a little to let them pass, and then followed carrying the basket of eggs.

Sir Henry turned sharply to his wife. âNow, Lucy, what is all this? What happened exactly?â

Lady Angkatell stretched out vague hands, a lovely helpless gesture. Hercule Poirot felt the charm of it and the appeal.

âMy dear, I hardly know. I was down by the hens. I heard a shot that seemed very near, but I didnât really think anything about it. After all,â she appealed to them all, âone doesnât! And then I came up the path to the pool and there was John lying there and Gerda standing over him with the revolver. Henrietta and Edward arrived almost at the same momentâfrom over there.â

She nodded towards the farther side of the pool, where two paths ran into the woods.

Hercule Poirot cleared his throat.

âWho are they, this John and this Gerda? If I may know,â he added apologetically.

âOh, of course.â Lady Angkatell turned to him in quick apology. âOne forgetsâbut then one doesnât exactly introduce peopleânot when somebody has just been killed. John is John Christow, Dr. Christow. Gerda Christow is his wife.â

âAnd the lady who went with Mrs. Christow to the house?â

âMy cousin, Henrietta Savernake.â

There was a movement, a very faint movement from the man on Poirotâs left.

âHenrietta Savernake,â thought Poirot, âand he does not like that she should say itâbut it is, after all, inevitable that I should knowâ¦.â

(âHenrietta!â the dying man had said. He had said it in a very curious way. A way that reminded Poirot of somethingâof some incidentâ¦now, what was it? No matter, it would come to him.)

Lady Angkatell was going on, determined now on fulfilling her social duties.

âAnd this is another cousin of ours, Edward Angkatell. And Miss Hardcastle.â

Poirot acknowledged the introductions with polite bows. Midge felt suddenly that she wanted to laugh hysterically; she controlled herself with an effort.

âAnd now, my dear,â said Sir Henry, âI think that, as you suggested, you had better go back to the house. I will have a word or two here with M. Poirot.â

Lady Angkatell looked thoughtfully at them.

âI do hope,â she said, âthat Gerda is lying down. Was that the right thing to suggest? I really couldnât think what to say. I mean, one has no precedent. What does one say to a woman who has just killed her husband?â

She looked at them as though hoping that some authoritative answer might be given to her question.

Then she went along the path towards the house. Midge followed her. Edward brought up the rear.

Poirot was left with his host.

Sir Henry cleared his throat. He seemed a little uncertain what to say.

âChristow,â he observed at last, âwas a very able fellowâa very able fellow.â

Poirotâs eyes rested once more on the dead man. He still had the curious impression that the dead man was more alive than the living.

He wondered what gave him that impression.

He responded politely to Sir Henry.

âSuch a tragedy as this is very unfortunate,â he said.

âThis sort of thing is more your line than mine,â said Sir Henry. âI donât think I have ever been at close quarters with a murder before. I hope Iâve done the right thing so far?â

âThe procedure has been quite correct,â said Poirot. âYou have summoned the police, and until they arrive and take charge there is nothing for us to doâexcept to make sure that nobody disturbs the body or tampers with the evidence.â

As he said the last word he looked down into the pool where he could see the revolver lying on the concrete bottom, slightly distorted by the blue water.

The evidence, he thought, had perhaps already been tampered with before he, Hercule Poirot, had been able to prevent it.

But noâthat had been an accident.

Sir Henry murmured distastefully:

âThink weâve got to stand about? A bit chilly. It would be all right, I should think, if we went inside the pavilion?â

Poirot, who had been conscious of damp feet and a disposition to shiver, acquiesced gladly. The pavilion was at the side of the pool farthest from the house, and through its open door they commanded a view of the pool and the body and the path to the house along which the police would come.

The pavilion was luxuriously furnished with comfortable settees and gay native rugs. On a painted iron table a tray was set with glasses and a decanter of sherry.

âIâd offer you a drink,â said Sir Henry, âbut I suppose Iâd better not touch anything until the police comeânot, I should imagine, that thereâs anything to interest them in here. Still, it is better to be on the safe side. Gudgeon hadnât brought out the cocktails yet, I see. He was waiting for you to arrive.â

The two sat down rather gingerly in two wicker chairs near the door so that they could watch the path from the house.

A constraint settled over them. It was an occasion on which it was difficult to make small talk.

Poirot glanced round the pavilion, noting anything that struck him as unusual. An expensive cape of platinum fox had been flung carelessly across the back of one of the chairs. He wondered whose it was. Its rather ostentatious magnificence did not harmonize with any of the people he had seen up to now. He could not, for instance, imagine it round Lady Angkatellâs shoulders.

It worried him. It breathed a mixture of opulence and self-advertisementâand those characteristics were lacking in anyone he had seen so far.

âI suppose we can smoke,â said Sir Henry, offering his case to Poirot.

Before taking the cigarette, Poirot sniffed the air.

French perfumeâan expensive French perfume.

Only a trace of it lingered, but it was there, and again the scent was not the scent that associated itself in his mind with any of the occupants of The Hollow.

As he leaned forward to light his cigarette at Sir Henryâs lighter, Poirotâs glance fell on a little pile of matchboxesâsix of themâstacked on a small table near one of the settees.

It was a detail that struck him as definitely odd.

Twelve

I

âHalf past two,â said Lady Angkatell.

She was in the drawing room, with Midge and Edward. From behind the closed door of Sir Henryâs study came the murmur of voices. Hercule Poirot, Sir Henry and Inspector Grange were in there.

Lady Angkatell sighed:

âYou know, Midge, I still feel one ought to do something about lunch. It seems, of course, quite heartless to sit down round the table as though nothing had happened. But after all, M. Poirot was asked to lunchâand he is probably hungry. And it canât be upsetting to him that poor John Christow has been killed like it is to us. And I must say that though I really do not feel like eating myself, Henry and Edward must be extremely hungry after being out shooting all the morning.â

Edward Angkatell said: âDonât worry on my account, Lucy, dear.â

âYou are always considerate, Edward. And then there is DavidâI noticed that he ate a great deal at dinner last night. Intellectual people always seem to need a good deal of food. Where is David, by the way?â

âHe went up to his room,â said Midge, âafter he had heard what had happened.â

âYesâwell, that was rather tactful of him. I daresay it made him feel awkward. Of course, say what you like, a murder is an awkward thingâit upsets the servants and puts the general routine outâwe were having ducks for lunchâfortunately they are quite nice eaten cold. What does one do about Gerda, do you think? Something on a tray? A little strong soup, perhaps?â

âReally,â thought Midge, âLucy is inhuman!â And then with a qualm she reflected that it was perhaps because Lucy was too human that it shocked one so! Wasnât it the plain unvarnished truth that all catastrophes were hedged round with these little trivial wonderings and surmises? Lucy merely gave utterance to the thoughts which most people did not acknowledge. One did remember the servants, and worry about meals. And one did, even, feel hungry. She felt hungry herself at this very moment! Hungry, she thought, and at the same time, rather sick. A curious mixture.

And there was, undoubtedly, just plain awkward embarrassment in not knowing how to react to a quiet, commonplace woman whom one had referred to, only yesterday, as âpoor Gerdaâ and who was now, presumably, shortly to be standing in the dock accused of murder.

âThese things happen to other people,â thought Midge. âThey canât happen to us.â

She looked across the room at Edward. âThey oughtnât,â she thought, âto happen to people like Edward. People who are so very unviolent.â She took comfort in looking at Edward. Edward, so quiet, so reasonable, so kind and calm.

Gudgeon entered, inclined himself confidentially and spoke in a suitably muted voice.

âI have placed sandwiches and some coffee in the dining room, my lady.â

âOh, thank you, Gudgeon!â

âReally,â said Lady Angkatell as Gudgeon left the room. âGudgeon is wonderful: I donât know what I should do without Gudgeon. He always knows the right thing to do. Some really substantial sandwiches are as good as lunchâand nothing heartless about them, if you know what I mean!â

âOh, Lucy, donât.â

Midge suddenly felt warm tears running down her cheek. Lady Angkatell looked surprised, murmured:

âPoor darling. Itâs all been too much for you.â

Edward crossed to the sofa and sat down by Midge. He put his arm round her.

âDonât worry, little Midge,â he said.

Midge buried her face on his shoulder and sobbed there comfortably. She remembered how nice Edward had been to her when her rabbit had died at Ainswick one Easter holidays.

Edward said gently: âItâs been a shock. Can I get her some brandy, Lucy?â

âOn the sideboard in the dining room. I donât thinkââ

She broke off as Henrietta came into the room. Midge sat up. She felt Edward stiffen and sit very still.

What, thought Midge, does Henrietta feel? She felt almost reluctant to look at her cousinâbut there was nothing to see. Henrietta looked, if anything, belligerent. She had come in with her chin up, her colour high, and with a certain swiftness.

âOh, there you are, Henrietta,â cried Lady Angkatell. âI have been wondering. The police are with Henry and M. Poirot. What have you given Gerda? Brandy? Or tea and aspirin?â

âI gave her some brandyâand a hot-water bottle.â

âQuite right,â said Lady Angkatell approvingly. âThatâs what they tell you in First Aid classesâthe hot-water bottle, I mean, for shockânot the brandy; there is a reaction nowadays against stimulants. But I think that is only a fashion. We always gave brandy for shock when I was a girl at Ainswick. Though, really, I suppose, it canât be exactly shock with Gerda. I donât know really what one would feel if one had killed oneâs husbandâitâs the sort of thing one just canât begin to imagineâbut it wouldnât exactly give one a shock. I mean, there wouldnât be any element of surprise.â

Henriettaâs voice, icy cold, cut into the placid atmosphere.

She said: âWhy are you all so sure that Gerda killed John?â

There was a momentâs pauseâand Midge felt a curious shifting in the atmosphere. There was confusion, strain and, finally, a kind of slow watchfulness.

Then Lady Angkatell said, her voice quite devoid of any inflection:

âIt seemedâself-evident. What else do you suggest?â

âIsnât it possible that Gerda came along to the pool, that she found John lying there, and that she had just picked up the revolver whenâwhen we came upon the scene?â

Again there was that silence. Then Lady Angkatell asked:

âIs that what Gerda says?â

âYes.â

It was not a simple assent. It had force behind it. It came out like a revolver shot.

Lady Angkatell raised her eyebrows, then she said with apparent irrelevancy:

âThere are sandwiches and coffee in the dining room.â

She broke off with a little gasp as Gerda Christow came through the open door. She said hurriedly and apologetically:

âIâI really didnât feel I could lie down any longer. One isâone is so terribly restless.â

Lady Angkatell cried:

âYou must sit downâyou must sit down at once.â

She displaced Midge from the sofa, settled Gerda there, put a cushion at her back.

âYou poor dear,â said Lady Angkatell.

She spoke with emphasis, but the words seemed quite meaningless.

Edward walked to the window and stood there looking out.

Gerda pushed back the untidy hair from her forehead. She spoke in a worried, bewildered tone.

âIâI really am only just beginning to realize it. You know I havenât been able to feelâI still canât feelâthat itâs realâthat Johnâis dead.â She began to shake a little. âWho can have killed him? Who can possibly have killed him?â

Lady Angkatell drew a deep breathâthen she turned her head sharply. Sir Henryâs door had opened. He came in accompanied by Inspector Grange, who was a large, heavily built man with a down-drooping, pessimistic moustache.

âThis is my wifeâInspector Grange.â

Grange bowed and said:

âI was wondering, Lady Angkatell, if I could have a few words with Mrs. Christowââ

He broke off as Lady Angkatell indicated the figure on the sofa.

âMrs. Christow?â

Gerda said eagerly:

âYes, I am Mrs. Christow.â

âI donât want to distress you, Mrs. Christow, but I would like to ask you a few questions. You can, of course, have your solicitor present if you prefer itââ

Sir Henry put in:

âIt is sometimes wiser, Gerdaââ

She interrupted:

âA solicitor? Why a solicitor? Why should a solicitor know anything about Johnâs death?â

Inspector Grange coughed. Sir Henry seemed about to speak. Henrietta put in:

âThe inspector only wants to know just what happened this morning.â

Gerda turned to him. She spoke in a wondering voice:

âIt seems all like a bad dreamânot real. IâI havenât been able to cry or anything. One just doesnât feel anything at all.â

Grange said soothingly:

âThatâs the shock, Mrs. Christow.â

âYes, yesâI suppose it is. But you see it was all so sudden. I went out from the house and along the path to the swimming poolââ

âAt what time, Mrs. Christow?â

âIt was just before one oâclockâabout two minutes to one. I know because I looked at that clock. And when I got thereâthere was John, lying thereâand blood on the edge of the concrete.â

âDid you hear a shot, Mrs. Christow?â

âYes,ânoâI donât know. I knew Sir Henry and Mr. Angkatell were out shooting. IâI just saw Johnââ

âYes, Mrs. Christow?â

âJohnâand bloodâand a revolver. I picked up the revolverââ

âWhy?â

âI beg your pardon?â

âWhy did you pick up the revolver, Mrs. Christow?â

âIâI donât know.â

âYou shouldnât have touched it, you know.â

âShouldnât I?â Gerda was vague, her face vacant. âBut I did. I held it in my hands.â

She looked down now at her hands as though she was, in fancy, seeing the revolver lying in them.

She turned sharply to the inspector. Her voice was suddenly sharpâanguished.

âWho could have killed John? Nobody could have wanted to kill him. He wasâhe was the best of men. So kind, so unselfishâhe did everything for other people. Everybody loved him, Inspector. He was a wonderful doctor. The best and kindest of husbands. It must have been an accidentâit mustâit must!â

She flung out a hand to the room.

âAsk anyone, Inspector. Nobody could have wanted to kill John, could they?â

She appealed to them all.

Inspector Grange closed up his notebook.

âThank you, Mrs. Christow,â he said in an unemotional voice. âThat will be all for the present.â

Hercule Poirot and Inspector Grange went together through the chestnut woods to the swimming pool. The thing that had been John Christow but which was now âthe bodyâ had been photographed and measured and written about and examined by the police surgeon, and had now been taken away to the mortuary. The swimming pool, Poirot thought, looked curiously innocent. Everything about today, he thought, had been strangely fluid. Except John Christowâhe had not been fluid. Even in death he had been purposeful and objective. The swimming pool was not now preeminently a swimming pool, it was the place where John Christowâs body had lain and where his lifeblood had welled away over concrete into artificially blue water.

Artificialâfor a moment Poirot grasped at the word. Yes, there had been something artificial about it all. As thoughâ

A man in a bathing suit came up to the inspector.

âHereâs the revolver, sir,â he said.

Grange took the dripping object gingerly.

âNo hope of fingerprints now,â he remarked, âbut luckily it doesnât matter in this case. Mrs. Christow was actually holding the revolver when you arrived, wasnât she, M. Poirot?â

âYes.â

âIdentification of the revolver is the next thing,â said Grange. âI should imagine Sir Henry will be able to do that for us. She got it from his study, I should say.â

He cast a glance round the pool.

âNow, letâs have that again to be quite clear. The path below the pool comes up from the farm and thatâs the way Lady Angkatell came. The other two, Mr. Edward Angkatell and Miss Savernake, came down from the woodsâbut not together. He came by the left-hand path, and she by the right-hand one which leads out of the long flower walk above the house. But they were both standing on the far side of the pool when you arrived?â

âYes.â

âAnd this path here, beside the pavilion, leads on to Podderâs Lane. Rightâweâll go along it.â

As they walked, Grange spoke, without excitement, just with knowledge and quiet pessimism.

âNever like these cases much,â he said. âHad one last yearâdown near Ashridge. Retired military man, he wasâdistinguished career. Wife was the nice quiet, old-fashioned kind, sixty-five, grey hairârather pretty hair with a wave in it. Did a lot of gardening. One day she goes up to his room, gets out his service revolver, and walks out into the garden and shoots him. Just like that! A good deal behind it, of course, that one had to dig out. Sometimes they think up some fool story about a tramp! We pretend to accept it, of course, keep things quiet whilst weâre making inquiries, but we know whatâs what.â

âYou mean,â said Poirot, âthat you have decided that Mrs. Christow shot her husband.â

Grange gave him a look of surprise.

âWell, donât you think so?â

Poirot said slowly: âIt could all have happened as she said.â

Inspector Grange shrugged his shoulders.

âIt could haveâyes. But itâs a thin story. And they all think she killed him! They know something we donât.â He looked curiously at his companion. âYou thought sheâd done it all right, didnât you, when you arrived on the scene?â

Poirot half-closed his eyes. Coming along the pathâ¦Gudgeon steppingâ¦Gerda Christow standing over her husband with the revolver in her hand and that blank look on her face. Yes, as Grange had said, he had thought she had done itâ¦had thought, at least, that that was the impression he was meant to have.

Yes, but that was not the same thing.

A scene stagedâset to deceive.

Had Gerda Christow looked like a woman who had just shot her husband? That was what Inspector Grange wanted to know.

And with a sudden shock of surprise, Hercule Poirot realized that in all his long experience of deeds of violence he had never actually come face to face with a woman who had just killed her husband. What would a woman look like in such circumstances? Triumphant, horrified, satisfied, dazed, incredulous, empty?

Any one of these things, he thought.

Inspector Grange was talking. Poirot caught the end of his speech.

ââOnce you get all the facts behind the case, and you can usually get all that from the servants.â

âMrs. Christow is going back to London?â

âYes. Thereâs a couple of kids there. Have to let her go. Of course, we keep a sharp eye on her, but she wonât know that. She thinks sheâs got away with it all right. Looks rather a stupid kind of woman to meâ¦.â

Did Gerda Christow realize, Poirot wondered, what the police thoughtâand what the Angkatells thought? She had looked as though she did not realize anything at all. She had looked like a woman whose reactions were slow and who was completely dazed and heartbroken by her husbandâs death.

They had come out into the lane.

Poirot stopped by his gate. Grange said:

âThis your little place? Nice and snug. Well, good-bye for the present, M. Poirot. Thanks for your cooperation. Iâll drop in some time and give you the lowdown on how weâre getting on.â

His eye travelled up the lane.

âWhoâs your neighbour? Thatâs not where our new celebrity hangs out, is it?â

âMiss Veronica Cray, the actress, comes there for weekends, I believe.â

âOf course. Dovecotes. I liked her in Lady Rides on Tiger, but sheâs a bit highbrow for my taste. Give me Hedy Lamarr.â

He turned away.

âWell, I must get back to the job. So long, M. Poirot.â

II

âYou recognize this, Sir Henry?â

Inspector Grange laid the revolver on the desk in front of Sir Henry and looked at him expectantly.

âI can handle it?â Sir Henryâs hand hesitated over the revolver as he asked the question.

Grange nodded. âItâs been in the pool. Destroyed whatever fingerprints there were on it. A pity, if I may say so, that Miss Savernake let it slip out of her hand.â

âYes, yesâbut of course it was a very tense moment for all of us. Women are apt to get flustered andâerâdrop things.â

Again Inspector Grange nodded. He said:

âMiss Savernake seems a cool, capable young lady on the whole.â

The words were devoid of emphasis, yet something in them made Sir Henry look up sharply. Grange went on:

âNow, do you recognize it, sir?â

Sir Henry picked up the revolver and examined it. He noted the number and compared it with a list in a small leather-bound book. Then, closing the book with a sigh, he said:

âYes, Inspector, this comes from my collection here.â

âWhen did you see it last?â

âYesterday afternoon. We were doing some shooting in the garden with a target, and this was one of the firearms we were using.â

âWho actually fired this revolver on that occasion?â

âI think everybody had at least one shot with it.â

âIncluding Mrs. Christow?â

âIncluding Mrs. Christow.â

âAnd after you had finished shooting?â

âI put the revolver away in its usual place. Here.â

He pulled out the drawer of a big bureau. It was half-full of guns.

âYouâve got a big collection of firearms, Sir Henry.â

âItâs been a hobby of mine for many years.â

Inspector Grangeâs eyes rested thoughtfully on the ex-Governor of the Hollowene Islands. A good-looking, distinguished man, the kind of man he would be quite pleased to serve under himselfâin fact, a man he would much prefer to his own present Chief Constable. Inspector Grange did not think much of the Chief Constable of Wealdshireâa fussy despot and a tuft-hunter. He brought his mind back to the job in hand.

âThe revolver was not, of course, loaded when you put it away, Sir Henry?â

âCertainly not.â

âAnd you keep your ammunitionâwhere?â

âHere.â Sir Henry took a key from a pigeonhole and unlocked one of the lower drawers of the desk.

âSimple enough,â thought Grange. The Christow woman had seen where it was kept. Sheâd only got to come along and help herself. Jealousy, he thought, plays the dickens with women. Heâd lay ten to one it was jealousy. The thing would come clear enough when heâd finished the routine here and got on to the Harley Street end. But youâd got to do things in their proper order.

He got up and said:

âWell, thank you, Sir Henry. Iâll let you know about the inquest.â

Thirteen

They had the cold ducks for supper. After the ducks there was a caramel custard which, Lady Angkatell said, showed just the right feeling on the part of Mrs. Medway.

Cooking, she said, really gave great scope to delicacy of feeling.

âWe are only, as she knows, moderately fond of caramel custard. There would be something very gross, just after the death of a friend, in eating oneâs favourite pudding. But caramel custard is so easyâslippery if you know what I meanâand then one leaves a little on oneâs plate.â

She sighed and said that she hoped they had done right in letting Gerda go back to London.

âBut quite correct of Henry to go with her.â

For Sir Henry had insisted on driving Gerda to Harley Street.

âShe will come back here for the inquest, of course,â went on Lady Angkatell, meditatively eating caramel custard. âBut naturally she wanted to break it to the childrenâthey might see it in the papers and only a Frenchwoman in the houseâone knows how excitableâa crise de nerfs, possibly. But Henry will deal with her, and I really think Gerda will be quite all right. She will probably send for some relationsâsisters perhaps. Gerda is the sort of person who is sure to have sistersâthree or four, I should think, probably living at Tunbridge Wells.â

âWhat extraordinary things you do say, Lucy,â said Midge.

âWell, darling, Torquay if you prefer itâno, not Torquay. They would be at least sixty-five if they were living at Torquay. Eastbourne, perhaps, or St. Leonards.â

Lady Angkatell looked at the last spoonful of caramel custard, seemed to condole with it, and laid it down very gently uneaten.

David, who only liked savouries, looked down gloomily at his empty plate.

Lady Angkatell got up.

âI think we shall all want to go to bed early tonight,â she said. âSo much has happened, hasnât it? One has no idea from reading about these things in the paper how tiring they are. I feel, you know, as though I had walked about fifteen miles. Instead of actually having done nothing but sit downâbut that is tiring, too, because one does not like to read a book or a newspaper, it looks so heartless. Though I think perhaps the leading article in The Observer would have been all rightâbut not the News of the World. Donât you agree with me, David? I like to know what the young people think, it keeps one from losing touch.â

David said in a gruff voice that he never read the News of the World.

âI always do,â said Lady Angkatell. âWe pretend we get it for the servants, but Gudgeon is very understanding and never takes it out until after tea. It is a most interesting paper, all about women who put their heads in gas ovensâan incredible number of them!â

âWhat will they do in the houses of the future which are all electric?â asked Edward Angkatell with a faint smile.

âI suppose they will just have to decide to make the best of thingsâso much more sensible.â

âI disagree with you, sir,â said David, âabout the houses of the future being all electric. There can be communal heating laid on from a central supply. Every working-class house should be completely laboursaving.â

Edward Angkatell said hastily that he was afraid that was a subject he was not very well up in. Davidâs lip curled with scorn.

Gudgeon brought in coffee on a tray, moving a little slower than usual to convey a sense of mourning.

âOh, Gudgeon,â said Lady Angkatell, âabout those eggs. I meant to write the date in pencil on them as usual. Will you ask Mrs. Medway to see to it?â

âI think you will find, my lady, that everything has been attended to quite satisfactorily.â He cleared his throat. âI have seen to things myself.â

âOh, thank you, Gudgeon.â

As Gudgeon went out she murmured: âReally, Gudgeon is wonderful. The servants are all being marvellous. And one does so sympathize with them having the police hereâit must be dreadful for them. By the way, are there any left?â

âPolice, do you mean?â asked Midge.

âYes. Donât they usually leave one standing in the hall? Or perhaps heâs watching the front door from the shrubbery outside.â

âWhy should he watch the front door?â

âI donât know, Iâm sure. They do in books. And then somebody else is murdered in the night.â

âOh, Lucy, donât,â said Midge.

Lady Angkatell looked at her curiously.

âDarling, I am so sorry. Stupid of me. And of course nobody else could be murdered. Gerdaâs gone homeâI meanâOh, Henrietta dear, I am sorry. I didnât mean to say that.â

But Henrietta did not answer. She was standing by the round table staring down at the bridge score she had kept last night.

She said, rousing herself, âSorry, Lucy, what did you say?â

âI wondered if there were any police left over.â

âLike remnants in a sale? I donât think so. Theyâve all gone back to the police station, to write out what we said in proper police language.â

âWhat are you looking at, Henrietta?â

âNothing.â

Henrietta moved across to the mantelpiece.

âWhat do you think Veronica Cray is doing tonight?â she asked.

A look of dismay crossed Lady Angkatellâs face.

âMy dear! You donât think she might come over here again? She must have heard by now.â

âYes,â said Henrietta thoughtfully. âI suppose sheâs heard.â

âWhich reminds me,â said Lady Angkatell. âI really must telephone to the Careys. We canât have them coming to lunch tomorrow just as though nothing had happened.â

She left the room.

David, hating his relations, murmured that he wanted to look up something in the EncyclopÃ¦dia Britannica. The library, he thought, would be a peaceful place.

Henrietta went to the french windows, opened them, and passed through. After a momentâs hesitation Edward followed her.

He found her standing outside looking up at the sky. She said:

âNot so warm as last night, is it?â

In his pleasant voice, Edward said: âNo, distinctly chilly.â

She was standing looking up at the house. Her eyes were running along the windows. Then she turned and looked towards the woods. He had no clue to what was in her mind.

He made a movement towards the open window.

âBetter come in. Itâs cold.â

She shook her head.

âIâm going for a stroll. To the swimming pool.â

âOh, my dear.â He took a quick step towards her. âIâll come with you.â

âNo, thank you, Edward.â Her voice cut sharply through the chill of the air. âI want to be alone with my dead.â

âHenrietta! My dearâI havenât said anything. But you do know howâhow sorry I am.â

âSorry? That John Christow is dead?â

There was still the brittle sharpness in her tone.

âI meantâsorry for you, Henrietta. I know it must have been aâa great shock.â

âShock? Oh, but Iâm very tough, Edward. I can stand shocks. Was it a shock to you? What did you feel when you saw him lying there? Glad, I suppose. You didnât like John Christow.â

Edward murmured: âHe and Iâhadnât much in common.â

âHow nicely you put things! In such a restrained way. But as a matter of fact you did have one thing in common. Me! You were both fond of me, werenât you? Only that didnât make a bond between youâquite the opposite.â

The moon came fitfully through a cloud and he was startled as he suddenly saw her face looking at him. Unconsciously he always saw Henrietta as a projection of the Henrietta he had known at Ainswick. She was always to him a laughing girl, with dancing eyes full of eager expectation. The woman he saw now seemed to him a stranger, with eyes that were brilliant but cold and which seemed to look at him inimically.

He said earnestly:

âHenrietta, dearest, do believe thisâthat I do sympathize with youâinâin your grief, your loss.â

âIs it grief?â

The question startled him. She seemed to be asking it, not of him, but of herself.

She said in a low voice:

âSo quickâit can happen so quickly. One moment living, breathing, and the nextâdeadâgoneâemptiness. Oh, the emptiness! And here we are, all of us, eating caramel custard and calling ourselves aliveâand John, who was more alive than any of us, is dead. I say the word, you know, over and over again to myself. Deadâdeadâdeadâdeadâdead. And soon it hasnât got any meaningânot any meaning at all. Itâs just a funny little word like the breaking off a rotten branch. Deadâdeadâdeadâdead. Itâs like a tom-tom, isnât it, beating in the jungle. Deadâdeadâdeadâdeadâdeadââ

âHenrietta, stop! For Godâs sake, stop!â

She looked at him curiously.

âDidnât you know Iâd feel like this? What did you think? That Iâd sit gently crying into a nice little pocket handkerchief while you held my hand? That it would all be a great shock but that presently Iâd begin to get over it? And that youâd comfort me very nicely? You are nice, Edward. Youâre very nice, but youâre soâso inadequate.â

He drew back. His face stiffened. He said in a dry voice:

âYes, Iâve always known that.â

She went on fiercely:

âWhat do you think itâs been like all the evening, sitting round, with John dead and nobody caring but me and Gerda! With you glad, and David embarrassed and Midge distressed and Lucy delicately enjoying the News of the World come from print into real life! Canât you see how like a fantastic nightmare it all is?â

Edward said nothing. He stepped back a pace, into shadows.

Looking at him, Henrietta said:

âTonightânothing seems real to me, nobody is realâbut John!â

Edward said quietly: âI knowâ¦I am not very real.â

âWhat a brute I am, Edward. But I canât help it. I canât help resenting that John, who was so alive, is dead.â

âAnd that I who am half-dead, am alive.â

âI didnât mean that, Edward.â

âI think you did, Henrietta. I think, perhaps, you are right.â

But she was saying, thoughtfully, harking back to an earlier thought:

âBut it is not grief. Perhaps I cannot feel grief. Perhaps I never shall. And yetâI would like to grieve for John.â

Her words seemed to him fantastic. Yet he was even more startled when she added suddenly, in an almost businesslike voice:

âI must go to the swimming pool.â

She glided away through the trees.

Walking stiffly, Edward went through the open window.

Midge looked up as Edward came through the window with unseeing eyes. His face was grey and pinched. It looked bloodless.

He did not hear the little gasp that Midge stifled immediately.

Almost mechanically he walked to a chair and sat down. Aware of something expected of him, he said:

âItâs cold.â

âAre you very cold, Edward? Shall weâshall Iâlight a fire?â

âWhat?â

Midge took a box of matches from the mantelpiece. She knelt down and set a match to the fire. She looked cautiously sideways at Edward. He was quite oblivious, she thought, of everything.

She said: âA fire is nice. It warms one.â

âHow cold he looks,â she thought. âBut it canât be as cold as that outside? Itâs Henrietta! What has she said to him?â

âBring your chair nearer, Edward. Come close to the fire.â

âWhat?â

âOh, it was nothing. Just the fire.â

She was talking to him now loudly and slowly, as though to a deaf person.

And suddenly, so suddenly that her heart turned over with relief, Edward, the real Edward, was there again. Smiling at her gently:

âHave you been talking to me, Midge? Iâm sorry. Iâm afraid I was thinkingâthinking of something.â

âOh, it was nothing. Just the fire.â

The sticks were crackling and some fircones were burning with a bright, clean flame. Edward looked at them. He said:

âItâs a nice fire.â

He stretched out his long, thin hands to the blaze, aware of relief from tension.

Midge said: âWe always had fircones at Ainswick.â

âI still do. A basket of them is brought every day and put by the grate.â

Edward at Ainswick. Midge half-closed her eyes, picturing it. He would sit, she thought, in the library, on the west side of the house. There was a magnolia that almost covered one window and which filled the room with a golden green light in the afternoons. Through the other window you looked out on the lawn and a tall Wellingtonia stood up like a sentinel. And to the right was the big copper beech.

Oh, AinswickâAinswick.

She could smell the soft air that drifted in from the magnolia which would still, in September, have some great white sweet-smelling waxy flowers on it. And the pinecones on the fire. And a faintly musty smell from the kind of book that Edward was sure to be reading. He would be sitting in the saddleback chair, and occasionally, perhaps, his eyes would go from the book to the fire, and he would think, just for a minute, of Henrietta.

Midge stirred and asked:

âWhere is Henrietta?â

âShe went to the swimming pool.â

Midge stared. âWhy?â

Her voice, abrupt and deep, roused Edward a little.

âMy dear Midge, surely you knewâoh, wellâguessed. She knew Christow pretty well.â

âOh, of course one knew that. But I donât see why she should go mooning off to where he was shot. Thatâs not at all like Henrietta. Sheâs never melodramatic.â

âDo any of us know what anyone else is like? Henrietta, for instance.â

Midge frowned. She said:

âAfter all, Edward, you and I have known Henrietta all our lives.â

âShe has changed.â

âNot really. I donât think one changes.â

âHenrietta has changed.â

Midge looked at him curiously.

âMore than we have, you and I?â

âOh, I have stood still, I know that well enough. And youââ

His eyes, suddenly focusing, looked at her where she knelt by the fender. It was as though he was looking at her from a long way away, taking in the square chin, the dark eyes, the resolute mouth. He said:

âI wish I saw you more often, Midge, my dear.â

She smiled up at him. She said:

âI know. It isnât easy, these days, to keep in touch.â

There was a sound outside and Edward got up.

âLucy was right,â he said. âIt has been a tiring dayâoneâs first introduction to murder. I shall go to bed. Good night.â

He had left the room when Henrietta came through the window.

Midge turned on her.

âWhat have you done to Edward?â

âEdward?â Henrietta was vague. Her forehead was puckered. She seemed to be thinking of something a long way away.

âYes, Edward. He came in looking dreadfulâso cold and grey.â

âIf you care about Edward so much, Midge, why donât you do something about him?â

âDo something? What do you mean?â

âI donât know. Stand on a chair and shout! Draw attention to yourself. Donât you know thatâs the only hope with a man like Edward?â

âEdward will never care about anyone but you, Henrietta. He never has.â

âThen itâs very unintelligent of him.â She threw a quick glance at Midgeâs white face. âIâve hurt you. Iâm sorry. But I hate Edward tonight.â

âHate Edward? You canât.â

âOh, yes, I can! You donât knowââ

âWhat?â

Henrietta said slowly:

âHe reminds me of such a lot of things I would like to forget.â

âWhat things?â

âWell, Ainswick, for instance.â

âAinswick? You want to forget Ainswick?â

Midgeâs tone was incredulous.

âYes, yes, yes! I was happy there. I canât stand, just now, being reminded of happiness. Donât you understand? A time when one didnât know what was coming. When one said confidently, everything is going to be lovely! Some people are wiseâthey never expect to be happy. I did.â

She said abruptly:

âI shall never go back to Ainswick.â

Midge said slowly:

âI wonder.â

Fourteen

Midge woke up abruptly on Monday morning.

For a moment she lay there bemused, her eyes going confusedly towards the door, for she half-expected Lady Angkatell to appear. What was it Lucy had said when she came drifting in that first morning?

A difficult weekend? She had been worriedâhad thought that something unpleasant might happen.

Yes, and something unpleasant had happenedâsomething that was lying now upon Midgeâs heart and spirits like a thick black cloud. Something that she didnât want to think aboutâdidnât want to remember. Something, surely, that frightened her. Something to do with Edward.

Memory came with a rush. One ugly stark wordâMurder!

âOh, no,â thought Midge, âit canât be true. Itâs a dream Iâve been having. John Christow, murdered, shotâlying there by the pool. Blood and blue waterâlike a jacket of a detective story. Fantastic, unreal. The sort of thing that doesnât happen to oneself. If we were at Ainswick now. It couldnât have happened at Ainswick.â

The black weight moved from her forehead. It settled in the pit of her stomach, making her feel slightly sick.

It was not a dream. It was a real happeningâa News of the World happeningâand she and Edward and Lucy and Henry and Henrietta were all mixed up with it.

Unfairâsurely unfairâsince it was nothing to do with them if Gerda had shot her husband.

Midge stirred uneasily.

Quiet, stupid, slightly pathetic Gerdaâyou couldnât associate Gerda with melodramaâwith violence.

Gerda, surely, couldnât shoot anybody.

Again that inward uneasiness rose. No, no, one mustnât think like that. Because who else could have shot John? And Gerda had been standing there by his body with the revolver in her hand. The revolver she had taken from Henryâs study.

Gerda had said that she had found John dead and picked up the revolver. Well, what else could she say? Sheâd have to say something, poor thing.

All very well for Henrietta to defend herâto say that Gerdaâs story was perfectly possible. Henrietta hadnât considered the impossible alternatives.

Henrietta had been very odd last night.

But that, of course, had been the shock of John Christowâs death.

Poor Henriettaâwho had cared so terribly for John.

But she would get over it in timeâone got over everything. And then she would marry Edward and live at Ainswickâand Edward would be happy at last.

Henrietta had always loved Edward very dearly. It was only the aggressive, dominant personality of John Christow that had come in the way. He had made Edward look soâso pale by comparison.

It struck Midge when she came down to breakfast that morning that already Edwardâs personality, freed from John Christowâs dominance, had begun to assert itself. He seemed more sure of himself, less hesitant and retiring.

He was talking pleasantly to the glowering and unresponsive David.

âYou must come more often to Ainswick, David. Iâd like you to feel at home there and to get to know all about the place.â

Helping himself to marmalade, David said coldly:

âThese big estates are completely farcical. They should be split up.â

âThat wonât happen in my time, I hope,â said Edward, smiling. âMy tenants are a contented lot.â

âThey shouldnât be,â said David. âNobody should be contented.â

âIf apes had been content with tailsââ murmured Lady Angkatell from where she was standing by the sideboard looking vaguely at a dish of kidneys. âThatâs a poem I learnt in the nursery, but I simply canât remember how it goes on. I must have a talk with you, David, and learn all the new ideas. As far as I can see, one must hate everybody, but at the same time give them free medical attention and a lot of extra education (poor things, all those helpless little children herded into schoolhouses every day)âand cod-liver oil forced down babiesâ throats whether they like it or notâsuch nasty-smelling stuff.â

Lucy, Midge thought, was behaving very much as usual.

And Gudgeon, when she passed him in the hall, also looked just as usual. Life at The Hollow seemed to have resumed its normal course. With the departure of Gerda, the whole business seemed like a dream.

Then there was a scrunch of wheels on the gravel outside, and Sir Henry drew up in his car. He had stayed the night at his club and driven down early.

âWell, dear,â said Lucy, âwas everything all right?â

âYes. The secretary was thereâcompetent sort of girl. She took charge of things. Thereâs a sister, it seems. The secretary telegraphed to her.â

âI knew there would be,â said Lady Angkatell. âAt Tunbridge Wells?â

âBexhill, I think,â said Sir Henry, looking puzzled.

âI daresayââLucy considered Bexhill. âYesâquite probably.â

Gudgeon approached.

âInspector Grange telephoned, Sir Henry. The inquest will be at eleven oâclock on Wednesday.â

Sir Henry nodded. Lady Angkatell said:

âMidge, youâd better ring up your shop.â

Midge went slowly to the telephone.

Her life had always been so entirely normal and commonplace that she felt she lacked the phraseology to explain to her employers that after four daysâ holiday she was unable to return to work owing to the fact that she was mixed up in a murder case.

It did not sound credible. It did not even feel credible.

And Madame Alfrege was not a very easy person to explain things to at any time.

Midge set her chin resolutely and picked up the receiver.

It was all just as unpleasant as she had imagined it would be. The raucous voice of the vitriolic little Jewess came angrily over the wires.

âWhat wath that, Mith Hardcathle? A death? A funeral? Do you not know very well I am shorthanded? Do you think I am going to stand for these excutheth? Oh, yeth, you are having a good time, I darethay!â

Midge interrupted, speaking sharply and distinctly.

âThe poleeth? The poleeth, you thay?â It was almost a scream. âYou are mixed up with the poleeth?â

Setting her teeth, Midge continued to explain. Strange how sordid that woman at the other end made the whole thing seem. A vulgar police case. What alchemy there was in human beings!

Edward opened the door and came in, then seeing that Midge was telephoning, he was about to go out. She stopped him.

âDo stay, Edward. Please. Oh, I want you to.â

The presence of Edward in the room gave her strengthâcounteracted the poison.

She took her hand from where she had laid it over the mouthpiece.

âWhat? Yes. I am sorry, Madame. But after all, it is hardly my faultââ

The ugly raucous voice was screaming angrily.

âWho are thethe friendth of yourth? What thort of people are they to have the poleeth there and a man shot? Iâve a good mind not to have you back at all! I canât have the tone of my ethtablishment lowered.â

Midge made a few submissive noncommittal replies. She replaced the receiver at last, with a sigh of relief. She felt sick and shaken.

âItâs the place I work,â she explained. âI had to let them know that I wouldnât be back until Thursday because of the inquest and theâthe police.â

âI hope they were decent about it? What is it like, this dress shop of yours? Is the woman who runs it pleasant and sympathetic to work for?â

âI should hardly describe her as that! Sheâs a Whitechapel Jewess with dyed hair and a voice like a corncrake.â

âBut my dear Midgeââ

Edwardâs face of consternation almost made Midge laugh. He was so concerned.

âBut my dear childâyou canât put up with that sort of thing. If you must have a job, you must take one where the surroundings are harmonious and where you like the people you are working with.â

Midge looked at him for a moment without answering.

How explain, she thought, to a person like Edward? What did Edward know of the labour market, of jobs?

And suddenly a tide of bitterness rose in her. Lucy, Henry, Edwardâyes, even Henriettaâthey were all divided from her by an impassable gulfâthe gulf that separates the leisured from the working.

They had no conception of the difficulties of getting a job, and once you had got it, of keeping it! One might say, perhaps, that there was no need, actually, for her to earn her living. Lucy and Henry would gladly give her a homeâthey would with equal gladness have made her an allowance. Edward would also willingly have done the latter.

But something in Midge rebelled against the acceptance of ease offered her by her well-to-do relations. To come on rare occasions and sink into the well-ordered luxury of Lucyâs life was delightful. She could revel in that. But some sturdy independence of spirit held her back from accepting that life as a gift. The same feeling had prevented her from starting a business on her own with money borrowed from relations and friends. She had seen too much of that.

She would borrow no moneyâuse no influence. She had found a job for herself at four pounds a week, and if she had actually been given the job because Madame Alfrege hoped that Midge would bring her âsmartâ friends to buy, Madame Alfrege was disappointed. Midge discouraged any such notion sternly on the part of her friends.

She had no particular illusions about working. She disliked the shop, she disliked Madame Alfrege, she disliked the eternal subservience to ill-tempered and impolite customers, but she doubted very much whether she could obtain any other job which she would like better since she had none of the necessary qualifications.

Edwardâs assumption that a wide range of choice was open to her was simply unbearably irritating this morning. What right had Edward to live in a world so divorced from reality?

They were Angkatells, all of them. And sheâwas only half an Angkatell! And sometimes, like this morning, she did not feel like an Angkatell at all! She was all her fatherâs daughter.

She thought of her father with the usual pang of love and compunction, a grey-haired, middle-aged man with a tired face. A man who had struggled for years running a small family business that was bound, for all his care and efforts, to go slowly down the hill. It was not incapacity on his partâit was the march of progress.

Strangely enough, it was not to her brilliant Angkatell mother but to her quiet, tired father that Midgeâs devotion had always been given. Each time, when she came back from those visits to Ainswick, which were the wild delight of her life, she would answer the faint deprecating questions in her fatherâs tired face by flinging her arms round his neck and saying: âIâm glad to be homeâIâm glad to be home.â

Her mother had died when Midge was thirteen. Sometimes Midge realized that she knew very little about her mother. She had been vague, charming, gay. Had she regretted her marriage, the marriage that had taken her outside the circle of the Angkatell clan? Midge had no idea. Her father had grown greyer and quieter after his wifeâs death. His struggles against the extinction of his business had grown more unavailing. He had died quietly and inconspicuously when Midge was eighteen.

Midge had stayed with various Angkatell relations, had accepted presents from the Angkatells, had had good times with the Angkatells, but she had refused to be financially dependent on their goodwill. And much as she loved them, there were times, such as these, when she felt suddenly and violently divergent from them.

She thought with rancour: âThey donât know anything!â

Edward, sensitive as always, was looking at her with a puzzled face. He asked gently:

âIâve upset you? Why?â

Lucy drifted into the room. She was in the middle of one of her conversations.

ââyou see, one doesnât really know whether sheâd prefer the White Hart to us or not?â

Midge looked at her blanklyâthen at Edward.

âItâs no use looking at Edward,â said Lady Angkatell. âEdward simply wouldnât know; you, Midge, are always so practical.â

âI donât know what you are talking about, Lucy.â

Lucy looked surprised.

âThe inquest, darling. Gerda has to come down for it. Should she stay here? Or go to the White Hart? The associations here are painful, of courseâbut then at the White Hart there will be people who will stare and quantities of reporters. Wednesday, you know, at eleven, or is it eleven thirty?â A smile lit up Lady Angkatellâs face. âI have never been to an inquest! I thought my greyâand a hat, of course, like churchâbut not gloves.

âYou know,â went on Lady Angkatell, crossing the room and picking up the telephone receiver and gazing down at it earnestly, âI donât believe Iâve got any gloves except gardening gloves nowadays! And of course lots of long evening ones put away from the Government House days. Gloves are rather stupid, donât you think so?â

âThe only use is to avoid fingerprints in crimes,â said Edward, smiling.

âNow, itâs very interesting that you should say that, Edwardâvery interesting. What am I doing with this thing?â Lady Angkatell looked at the telephone receiver with faint distaste.

âWere you going to ring up someone?â

âI donât think so.â Lady Angkatell shook her head vaguely and put the receiver back on its stand very gingerly.

She looked from Edward to Midge.

âI donât think, Edward, that you ought to upset Midge. Midge minds sudden deaths more than we do.â

âMy dear Lucy,â exclaimed Edward. âI was only worrying about this place where Midge works. It sounds all wrong to me.â

âEdward thinks I ought to have a delightful sympathetic employer who would appreciate me,â said Midge dryly.

âDear Edward,â said Lucy with complete appreciation.

She smiled at Midge and went out again.

âSeriously, Midge,â said Edward, âI am worried.â

She interrupted him:

âThe damned woman pays me four pounds a week. Thatâs all that matters.â

She brushed past him and went out into the garden.

Sir Henry was sitting in his usual place on the low wall, but Midge turned away and walked up towards the flower walk.

Her relations were charming, but she had no use for their charm this morning.

David Angkatell was sitting on the seat at the top of the path.

There was no overdone charm about David, and Midge made straight for him and sat down by him, noting with malicious pleasure his look of dismay.

How extraordinarily difficult it was, thought David, to get away from people.

He had been driven from his bedroom by the brisk incursion of housemaids, purposeful with mops and dusters.

The library (and the EncyclopÃ¦dia Britannica) had not been the sanctuary he had hoped optimistically it might be. Twice Lady Angkatell had drifted in and out, addressing him kindly with remarks to which there seemed no possible intelligent reply.

He had come out here to brood upon his position. The mere weekend to which he had unwillingly committed himself had now lengthened out owing to the exigencies connected with sudden and violent death.

David, who preferred the contemplation of an Academic past or the earnest discussion of a Left Wing future, had no aptitude for dealing with a violent and realistic present. As he had told Lady Angkatell, he did not read the News of the World. But now the News of the World seemed to have come to The Hollow.

Murder! David shuddered distastefully. What would his friends think? How did one, so to speak, take murder? What was oneâs attitude? Bored? Disgusted? Lightly amused?

Trying to settle these problems in his mind, he was by no means pleased to be disturbed by Midge. He looked at her uneasily as she sat beside him.

He was rather startled by the defiant stare with which she returned his look. A disagreeable girl of no intellectual value.

She said, âHow do you like your relations?â

David shrugged his shoulders. He said:

âDoes one really think about relations?â

Midge said:

âDoes one really think about anything?â

Doubtless, David thought, she didnât. He said almost graciously:

âI was analysing my reactions to murder.â

âIt is certainly odd,â said Midge, âto be in one.â

David sighed and said:

âWearisome.â That was quite the best attitude. âAll the clichÃ©s that one thought only existed in the pages of detective fiction!â

âYou must be sorry you came,â said Midge.

David sighed.

âYes, I might have been staying with a friend of mine in London.â He added, âHe keeps a Left Wing bookshop.â

âI expect itâs more comfortable here,â said Midge.

âDoes one really care about being comfortable?â David asked scornfully.

âThere are times,â said Midge, âwhen I feel I donât care about anything else.â

âThe pampered attitude to life,â said David. âIf you were a workerââ

Midge interrupted him.

âI am a worker. Thatâs just why being comfortable is so attractive. Box beds, down pillowsâearly-morning tea softly deposited beside the bedâa porcelain bath with lashings of hot waterâand delicious bath salts. The kind of easy chair you really sink intoâ¦.â

Midge paused in her catalogue.

âThe workers,â said David, âshould have all these things.â

But he was a little doubtful about the softly deposited early-morning tea, which sounded impossibly sybaritic for an earnestly organized world.

âI couldnât agree with you more,â said Midge heartily.

Fifteen

Hercule Poirot, enjoying a mid-morning cup of chocolate, was interrupted by the ringing of the telephone. He got up and lifted the receiver.

ââAllo?â

âM. Poirot?â

âLady Angkatell?â

âHow nice of you to know my voice! Am I disturbing you?â

âBut not at all. You are, I hope, none the worse for the distressing events of yesterday?â

âNo, indeed. Distressing, as you say, but one feels, I find, quite detached. I rang you up to know if you could possibly come overâan imposition, I know, but I am really in great distress.â

âBut certainly, Lady Angkatell. Did you mean now?â

âWell, yes, I did mean now. As quickly as you can. Thatâs very sweet of you.â

âNot at all. I will come by the woods, then?â

âOh, of courseâthe shortest way. Thank you so much, dear M. Poirot.â

Pausing only to brush a few specks of dust off the lapels of his coat and to slip on a thin overcoat, Poirot crossed the lane and hurried along the path through the chestnuts. The swimming pool was desertedâthe police had finished their work and gone. It looked innocent and peaceful in the soft misty autumn light.

Poirot took a quick look into the pavilion. The platinum fox cape, he noted, had been removed. But the six boxes of matches still stood upon the table by the settee. He wondered more than ever about those matches.

âIt is not a place to keep matchesâhere in the damp. One box, for convenience, perhapsâbut not six.â

He frowned down on the painted iron table. The tray of glasses had been removed. Someone had scrawled with a pencil on the tableâa rough design of a nightmarish tree. It pained Hercule Poirot. It offended his tidy mind.

He clicked his tongue, shook his head, and hurried on towards the house, wondering at the reason for this urgent summons.

Lady Angkatell was waiting for him at the french windows and swept him into the empty drawing room.

âIt was nice of you to come, M. Poirot.â

She clasped his hand warmly.

âMadame, I am at your service.â

Lady Angkatellâs hands floated out expressively. Her wide, beautiful eyes opened.

âYou see, itâs all so difficult. The inspector person is interviewingâno, questioningâtaking a statementâwhat is the term they use?âGudgeon. And really our whole life here depends on Gudgeon, and one does so sympathize with him. Because naturally it is terrible for him to be questioned by the policeâeven Inspector Grange, who I do feel is really nice and probably a family manâboys, I think, and he helps them with Meccano in the eveningsâand a wife who has everything spotless but a little overcrowdedâ¦.â

Hercule Poirot blinked as Lady Angkatell developed her imaginary sketch of Inspector Grangeâs home life.

âBy the way his moustache droops,â went on Lady Angkatell, âI think that a home that is too spotless might be sometimes depressingâlike soap on hospital nursesâ faces. Quite a shine! But that is more in the country where things lag behindâin London nursing homes they have lots of powder and really vivid lipstick. But I was saying, M. Poirot, that you really must come to lunch properly when all this ridiculous business is over.â

âYou are very kind.â

âI do not mind the police myself,â said Lady Angkatell. âI really find it all quite interesting. âDo let me help you in any way I can,â I said to Inspector Grange. He seems rather a bewildered sort of person, but methodical.

âMotive seems so important to policemen,â she went on. âTalking of hospital nurses just now, I believe that John Christowâa nurse with red hair and an upturned noseâquite attractive. But of course it was a long time ago and the police might not be interested. One doesnât really know how much poor Gerda had to put up with. She is the loyal type, donât you think? Or possibly she believes what is told her. I think if one has not a great deal of intelligence, it is wise to do that.â

Quite suddenly, Lady Angkatell flung open the study door and ushered Poirot in, crying brightly, âHere is M. Poirot.â She swept round him and out, shutting the door. Inspector Grange and Gudgeon were sitting by the desk. A young man with a notebook was in a corner. Gudgeon rose respectfully to his feet.

Poirot hastened into apologies.

âI retire immediately. I assure you I had no idea that Lady Angkatellââ

âNo, no, you wouldnât have.â Grangeâs moustache looked more pessimistic than ever this morning. âPerhaps,â thought Poirot, fascinated by Lady Angkatellâs recent sketch of Grange, âthere has been too much cleaning or perhaps a Benares brass table has been purchased so that the good inspector he really cannot have space to move.â

Angrily he dismissed these thoughts. Inspector Grangeâs clean but overcrowded home, his wife, his boys and their addiction to Meccano were all figments of Lady Angkatellâs busy brain.

But the vividness with which they assumed concrete reality interested him. It was quite an accomplishment.

âSit down, M. Poirot,â said Grange. âThereâs something I want to ask you about, and Iâve nearly finished here.â

He turned his attention back to Gudgeon, who deferentially and almost under protest resumed his seat and turned an expressionless face towards his interlocutor.

âAnd thatâs all you can remember?â

âYes, sir. Everything, sir, was very much as usual. There was no unpleasantness of any kind.â

âThereâs a fur cape thingâout in that summerhouse by the pool. Which of the ladies did it belong to?â

âAre you referring, sir, to a cape of platinum fox? I noticed it yesterday when I took out the glasses to the pavilion. But it is not the property of anyone in this house, sir.â

âWhose is it, then?â

âIt might possibly belong to Miss Cray, sir. Miss Veronica Cray, the motion picture actress. She was wearing something of the kind.â

âWhen?â

âWhen she was here the night before last, sir.â

âYou didnât mention her as having been a guest here?â

âShe was not a guest, sir. Miss Cray lives at Dovecotes, theâerâcottage up the lane, and she came over after dinner, having run out of matches, to borrow some.â

âDid she take away six boxes?â asked Poirot.

Gudgeon turned to him.

âThat is correct, sir. Her ladyship, after having inquired if we had plenty, insisted on Miss Crayâs taking half a dozen boxes.â

âWhich she left in the pavilion,â said Poirot.

âYes, sir, I observed them there yesterday morning.â

âThere is not much that that man does not observe,â remarked Poirot as Gudgeon departed, closing the door softly and deferentially behind him.

Inspector Grange merely remarked that servants were the devil!

âHowever,â he said with a little renewed cheerfulness, âthereâs always the kitchenmaid. Kitchenmaids talkânot like these stuck-up upper servants.

âIâve put a man on to make inquiries at Harley Street,â he went on. âAnd I shall be there myself later in the day. We ought to get something there. Daresay, you know, that wife of Christowâs had a good bit to put up with. Some of these fashionable doctors and their lady patientsâwell, youâd be surprised! And I gather from Lady Angkatell that there was some trouble over a hospital nurse. Of course, she was very vague about it.â

âYes,â Poirot agreed. âShe would be vague.â

A skilfully built-up pictureâ¦John Christow and amorous intrigues with hospital nursesâ¦the opportunities of a doctorâs lifeâ¦plenty of reasons for Gerda Christowâs jealousy which had culminated at last in murder.

Yes, a skilfully suggested picture, drawing attention to a Harley Street backgroundâaway from The Hollowâaway from the moment when Henrietta Savernake, stepping forward, had taken the revolver from Gerda Christowâs unresisting handâ¦Away from that other moment when John Christow, dying, had said âHenrietta.â

Suddenly opening his eyes, which had been half-closed, Hercule Poirot demanded with irresistible curiosity:

âDo your boys play with Meccano?â

âEh, what?â Inspector Grange came back from a frowning reverie to stare at Poirot. âWhy, what on earth? As a matter of fact, theyâre a bit youngâbut I was thinking of giving Teddy a Meccano set for Christmas. What made you ask?â

Poirot shook his head.

What made Lady Angkatell dangerous, he thought, was the fact that those intuitive, wild guesses of hers might be often right. With a careless (seemingly careless?) word she built up a pictureâand if part of the picture was right, wouldnât you, in spite of yourself, believe in the other half of the picture?â¦.

Inspector Grange was speaking.

âThereâs a point I want to put to you, M. Poirot. This Miss Cray, the actressâshe traipses over here borrowing matches. If she wanted to borrow matches, why didnât she come to your place, only a step or two away? Why come about half a mile?â

Hercule Poirot shrugged his shoulders.

âThere might be reasons. Snob reasons, shall we say? My little cottage, it is small, unimportant. I am only a weekender, but Sir Henry and Lady Angkatell are importantâthey live hereâthey are what is called in the country. This Miss Veronica Cray, she may have wanted to get to know themâand after all, this was a way.â

Inspector Grange got up.

âYes,â he said, âthatâs perfectly possible, of course, but one doesnât want to overlook anything. Still, Iâve no doubt that everythingâs going to be plain sailing. Sir Henry has identified the gun as one of his collection. It seems they were actually practising with it the afternoon before. All Mrs. Christow had to do was to go into the study and get it from where sheâd seen Sir Henry put it and the ammunition away. Itâs all quite simple.â

âYes,â Poirot murmured. âIt seems all quite simple.â

Just so, he thought, would a woman like Gerda Christow commit a crime. Without subterfuge or complexityâdriven suddenly to violence by the bitter anguish of a narrow but deeply loving nature.

And yet surelyâsurely, she would have had some sense of self-preservation. Or had she acted in that blindnessâthat darkness of the spiritâwhen reason is entirely laid aside?

He recalled her blank, dazed face.

He did not knowâhe simply did not know.

But he felt that he ought to know.

Sixteen

Gerda Christow pulled the black dress up over her head and let it fall on a chair.

Her eyes were piteous with uncertainty.

She said: âI donât knowâI really donât know. Nothing seems to matter.â

âI know, dear, I know.â Mrs. Patterson was kind but firm. She knew exactly how to treat people who had had a bereavement. âElsie is wonderful in a crisis,â her family said of her.

At the present moment she was sitting in her sister Gerdaâs bedroom in Harley Street being wonderful. Elsie Patterson was tall and spare with an energetic manner. She was looking now at Gerda with a mixture of irritation and compassion.

Poor dear Gerdaâtragic for her to lose her husband in such an awful way. And really, even now, she didnât seem to take in theâwell, the implications, properly. Of course, Mrs. Patterson reflected, Gerda always was terribly slow. And there was shock, too, to take into account.

She said in a brisk voice: âI think I should decide on that black marocain at twelve guineas.â

One always did have to make up Gerdaâs mind for her.

Gerda stood motionless, her brow puckered. She said hesitantly:

âI donât really know if John liked mourning. I think I once heard him say he didnât.â

âJohn,â she thought. âIf only John were here to tell me what to do.â

But John would never be there again. Neverâneverâneverâ¦Mutton getting coldâcongealing on the tableâ¦the bang of the consulting room door, John running up two steps at a time, always in a hurry, so vital, so aliveâ¦.

Alive.

Lying on his back by the swimming poolâ¦the slow drip of blood over the edgeâ¦the feel of the revolver in her handâ¦.

A nightmare, a bad dream, presently she would wake up and none of it would be true.

Her sisterâs crisp voice came cutting through her nebulous thoughts.

âYou must have something black for the inquest. It would look most odd if you turned up in bright blue.â

Gerda said: âThat awful inquest!â and half-shut her eyes.

âTerrible for you, darling,â said Elsie Patterson quickly. âBut after it is all over you will come straight down to us and we shall take great care of you.â

The nebulous blur of Gerda Christowâs thoughts hardened. She said, and her voice was frightened, almost panic-stricken:

âWhat am I going to do without John?â

Elsie Patterson knew the answer to that one. âYouâve got your children. Youâve got to live for them.â

Zena, sobbing and crying, âMy Daddyâs dead!â Throwing herself on her bed. Terry, pale, inquiring, shedding no tears.

An accident with a revolver, she had told themâpoor Daddy has had an accident.

Beryl Collins (so thoughtful of her) had confiscated the morning papers so that the children should not see them. She had warned the servants too. Really, Beryl had been most kind and thoughtful.

Terence coming to his mother in the dim drawing room, his lips pursed close together, his face almost greenish in its odd pallor.

âWhy was Father shot?â

âAn accident, dear. IâI canât talk about it.â

âIt wasnât an accident. Why do you say what isnât true? Father was killed. It was murder. The paper says so.â

âTerry, how did you get hold of a paper? I told Miss Collinsââ

He had noddedâqueer repeated nods like a very old man.

âI went out and bought one, of course. I knew there must be something in them that you werenât telling us, or else why did Miss Collins hide them?â

It was never any good hiding truth from Terence. That queer, detached, scientific curiosity of his had always to be satisfied.

âWhy was he killed, Mother?â

She had broken down then, becoming hysterical.

âDonât ask me about itâdonât talk about itâI canât talk about itâ¦itâs all too dreadful.â

âBut theyâll find out, wonât they? I mean, they have to find out. Itâs necessary.â

So reasonable, so detached. It made Gerda want to scream and laugh and cry. She thought: âHe doesnât careâhe canât careâhe just goes on asking questions. Why, he hasnât cried, even.â

Terence had gone away, evading his Aunt Elsieâs ministrations, a lonely little boy with a stiff, pinched face. He had always felt alone. But it hadnât mattered until today.

Today, he thought, was different. If only there was someone who would answer questions reasonably and intelligently.

Tomorrow, Tuesday, he and Nicholson Minor were going to make nitroglycerine. He had been looking forward to it with a thrill. The thrill had gone. He didnât care if he never made nitroglycerine.

Terence felt almost shocked at himself. Not to care any more about scientific experiment. But when a chapâs father had been murderedâ¦He thought: âMy fatherâmurdered.â

And something stirredâtook rootâgrewâ¦a slow anger.

Beryl Collins tapped on the bedroom door and came in. She was pale, composed, efficient. She said:

âInspector Grange is here.â And as Gerda gasped and looked at her piteously, Beryl went on quickly: âHe said there was no need for him to worry you. Heâll have a word with you before he goes, but it is just routine questions about Dr. Christowâs practice and I can tell him everything he wants to know.â

âOh thank you, Collie.â

Beryl made a rapid exit and Gerda sighed out:

âCollie is such a help. Sheâs so practical.â

âYes, indeed,â said Mrs. Patterson. âAn excellent secretary, Iâm sure. Very plain, poor girl, isnât she? Oh, well, I always think thatâs just as well. Especially with an attractive man like John.â

Gerda flamed out at her:

âWhat do you mean, Elsie? John would neverâhe neverâyou talk as though John would have flirted or something horrid if he had had a pretty secretary. John wasnât like that at all.â

âOf course not, darling,â said Mrs. Patterson. âBut after all, one knows what men are like!â

In the consulting room Inspector Grange faced the cool, belligerent glance of Beryl Collins. It was belligerent, he noted that. Well, perhaps that was only natural.

âPlain bit of goods,â he thought. âNothing between her and the doctor, I shouldnât think. She may have been sweet on him, though. It works that way sometimes.â

But not this time, he came to the conclusion, when he leaned back in his chair a quarter of an hour later. Beryl Collinsâs answers to his questions had been models of clearness. She replied promptly, and obviously had every detail of the doctorâs practice at her fingertips. He shifted his ground and began to probe gently into the relations existing between John Christow and his wife.

They had been, Beryl said, on excellent terms.

âI suppose they quarrelled every now and then like most married couples?â The inspector sounded easy and confidential.

âI do not remember any quarrels. Mrs. Christow was quite devoted to her husbandâreally quite slavishly so.â

There was a faint edge of contempt in her voice. Inspector Grange heard it.

âBit of a feminist, this girl,â he thought.

Aloud he said:

âDidnât stand up for herself at all?â

âNo. Everything revolved round Dr. Christow.â

âTyrannical, eh?â

Beryl considered.

âNo, I wouldnât say that. But he was what I should call a very selfish man. He took it for granted that Mrs. Christow would always fall in with his ideas.â

âAny difficulties with patientsâwomen, I mean? You neednât think about being frank, Miss Collins. One knows doctors have their difficulties in that line.â

âOh, that sort of thing!â Berylâs voice was scornful. âDr. Christow was quite equal to dealing with any difficulties in that line. He had an excellent manner with patients.â She added, âHe was really a wonderful doctor.â

There was an almost grudging admiration in her voice.

Grange said: âWas he tangled up with any woman? Donât be loyal, Miss Collins, itâs important that we should know.â

âYes, I can appreciate that. Not to my knowledge.â

A little too brusque, he thought. She doesnât know, but perhaps she guesses.

He said sharply, âWhat about Miss Henrietta Savernake?â

Berylâs lips closed tightly.

âShe was a close friend of the familyâs.â

âNoâtrouble between Dr. and Mrs. Christow on her account?â

âCertainly not.â

The answer was emphatic. (Overemphatic?)

The inspector shifted his ground.

âWhat about Miss Veronica Cray?â

âVeronica Cray?â

There was pure astonishment in Berylâs voice.

âShe was a friend of Dr. Christowâs, was she not?â

âI never heard of her. At least, I seem to know the nameââ

âThe motion picture actress.â

Berylâs brow cleared.

âOf course! I wondered why the name was familiar. But I didnât even know that Dr. Christow knew her.â

She seemed so positive on the point that the inspector abandoned it at once. He went on to question her about Dr. Christowâs manner on the preceding Saturday. And here, for the first time, the confidence of Berylâs replies wavered. She said slowly:

âHis manner wasnât quite as usual.â

âWhat was the difference?â

âHe seemed distrait. There was quite a long gap before he rang for his last patientâand yet normally he was always in a hurry to get through when he was going away. I thoughtâyes, I definitely thought he had something on his mind.â

But she could not be more definite.

Inspector Grange was not very satisfied with his investigations. Heâd come nowhere near establishing motiveâand motive had to be established before there was a case to go to the Public Prosecutor.

He was quite certain in his own mind that Gerda Christow had shot her husband. He suspected jealousy as the motiveâbut so far he had found nothing to go on. Sergeant Coombes had been working on the maids but they all told the same story. Mrs. Christow worshipped the ground her husband walked on.

Whatever happened, he thought, must have happened down at The Hollow. And remembering The Hollow he felt a vague disquietude. They were an odd lot down there.

The telephone on the desk rang and Miss Collins picked up the receiver.

She said: âItâs for you, Inspector,â and passed the instrument to him.

âHallo, Grange here. Whatâs that?â Beryl heard the alteration in his tone and looked at him curiously. The wooden-looking face was impassive as ever. He was gruntingâlistening.

âYesâ¦yes, Iâve got that. Thatâs absolutely certain, is it? No margin of error. Yesâ¦yesâ¦yes, Iâll be down. Iâve about finished here. Yes.â

He put the receiver back and sat for a moment motionless. Beryl looked at him curiously.

He pulled himself together and asked in a voice that was quite different from the voice of his previous questions:

âYouâve no ideas of your own, I suppose, Miss Collins, about this matter?â

âYou meanââ

âI mean no ideas as to who it was killed Dr. Christow?â

She said flatly:

âIâve absolutely no idea at all, Inspector.â

Grange said slowly:

âWhen the body was found, Mrs. Christow was standing beside it with the revolver in her handââ

He left it purposely as an unfinished sentence.

Her reaction came promptly. Not heated, cool and judicial.

âIf you think Mrs. Christow killed her husband, I am quite sure you are wrong. Mrs. Christow is not at all a violent woman. She is very meek and submissive, and she was entirely under the doctorâs thumb. It seems to me quite ridiculous that anyone could imagine for a moment that she shot him, however much appearances may be against her.â

âThen if she didnât, who did?â he asked sharply.

Beryl said slowly, âIâve no idea.â

The inspector moved to the door. Beryl asked:

âDo you want to see Mrs. Christow before you go?â

âNoâyes, perhaps Iâd better.â

Again Beryl wondered; this was not the same man who had been questioning her before the telephone rang. What news had he got that had altered him so much?

Gerda came into the room nervously. She looked unhappy and bewildered. She said in a low, shaky voice:

âHave you found out any more about who killed John?â

âNot yet, Mrs. Christow.â

âItâs so impossibleâso absolutely impossible.â

âBut it happened, Mrs. Christow.â

She nodded, looking down, screwing a handkerchief into a little ball.

He said quietly:

âHad your husband any enemies, Mrs. Christow?â

âJohn? Oh, no. He was wonderful. Everyone adored him.â

âYou canât think of anyone who had a grudge against himââhe pausedââor against you?â

âAgainst me?â She seemed amazed. âOh, no, Inspector.â

Inspector Grange sighed.

âWhat about Miss Veronica Cray?â

âVeronica Cray? Oh, you mean the one who came that night to borrow matches?â

âYes, thatâs the one. You knew her?â

Gerda shook her head.

âIâd never seen her before. John knew her years agoâor so she said.â

âI suppose she might have had a grudge against him that you didnât know about.â

Gerda said with dignity:

âI donât believe anybody could have had a grudge against John. He was the kindest and most unselfishâoh, and one of the noblest men.â

âHâm,â said the inspector. âYes. Quite so. Well, good morning, Mrs. Christow. You understand about the inquest? Eleven oâclock Wednesday in Market Depleach. It will be very simpleânothing to upset youâprobably be adjourned for a week so that we can make further inquiries.â

âOh, I see. Thank you.â

She stood there staring after him. He wondered whether, even now, she had grasped the fact that she was the principal suspect.

He hailed a taxiâjustifiable expense in view of the piece of information he had just been given over the telephone. Just where that piece of information was leading him, he did not know. On the face of it, it seemed completely irrelevantâcrazy. It simply did not make sense. Yet in some way he could not yet see, it must make sense.

The only inference to be drawn from it was that the case was not quite the simple, straightforward one that he had hitherto assumed it to be.

Seventeen

Sir Henry stared curiously at Inspector Grange.

He said slowly: âIâm not quite sure that I understand you, Inspector.â

âItâs quite simple, Sir Henry. Iâm asking you to check over your collection of firearms. I presume they are catalogued and indexed?â

âNaturally. But I have already identified the revolver as part of my collection.â

âIt isnât quite so simple as that, Sir Henry.â Grange paused a moment. His instincts were always against giving out any information, but his hand was being forced in this particular instance. Sir Henry was a person of importance. He would doubtless comply with the request that was being made to him, but he would also require a reason. The inspector decided that he had got to give him the reason.

He said quietly:

âDr. Christow was not shot with the revolver you identified this morning.â

Sir Henryâs eyebrows rose.

âRemarkable!â he said.

Grange felt vaguely comforted. Remarkable was exactly what he felt himself. He was grateful to Sir Henry for saying so, and equally grateful for his not saying any more. It was as far as they could go at the moment. The thing was remarkableâand beyond that simply did not make sense.

Sir Henry asked:

âHave you any reason to believe that the weapon from which the fatal shot was fired comes from my collection?â

âNo reason at all. But I have got to make sure, shall we say, that it doesnât.â

Sir Henry nodded his head in confirmation.

âI appreciate your point. Well, we will get to work. It will take a little time.â

He opened the desk and took out a leather-bound volume.

As he opened it he repeated:

âIt will take a little time to check upââ

Grangeâs attention was held by something in his voice. He looked up sharply. Sir Henryâs shoulders sagged a littleâhe seemed suddenly an older and more tired man.

Inspector Grange frowned.

He thought: âDevil if I know what to make of these people down here.â

âAhââ

Grange spun round. His eyes noted the time by the clock, thirty minutesâtwenty minutesâsince Sir Henry had said, âIt will take a little time.â

Grange said sharply:

âYes, sir?â

âA .38 Smith and Wesson is missing. It was in a brown leather holster and was at the end of the rack in this drawer.â

âAh!â The inspector kept his voice calm, but he was excited. âAnd when, sir, to your certain knowledge, did you last see it in its proper place?â

Sir Henry reflected for a moment or two.

âThat is not very easy to say, Inspector. I last had this drawer open about a week ago and I thinkâI am almost certainâthat if the revolver had been missing then I should have noticed the gap. But I should not like to swear definitely that I saw it there.â

Inspector Grange nodded his head.

âThank you, sir, I quite understand. Well, I must be getting on with things.â

He left the room, a busy, purposeful man.

Sir Henry stood motionless for a while after the inspector had gone, then he went out slowly through the french windows on to the terrace. His wife was busy with a gardening basket and gloves. She was pruning some rare shrubs with a pair of secateurs.

She waved to him brightly.

âWhat did the inspector want? I hope he is not going to worry the servants again. You know, Henry, they donât like it. They canât see it as amusing or as a novelty like we do.â

âDo we see it like that?â

His tone attracted her attention. She smiled up at him sweetly.

âHow tired you look, Henry. Must you let all this worry you so much?â

âMurder is worrying, Lucy.â

Lady Angkatell considered a moment, absently clipping off some branches, then her face clouded over.

âOh, dearâthat is the worst of secateurs, they are so fascinatingâone canât stop and one always clips off more than one means. What was it you were sayingâsomething about murder being worrying? But really, Henry, I have never seen why. I mean, if one has to die, it may be cancer, or tuberculosis in one of those dreadful bright sanatoriums, or a strokeâhorrid, with oneâs face all on one sideâor else one is shot or stabbed or strangled perhaps. But the whole thing comes to the same in the end. There one is, I mean, dead! Out of it all. And all the worry over. And the relations have all the difficultiesâmoney quarrels and whether to wear black or notâand who was to have Aunt Selinaâs writing deskâthings like that!â

Sir Henry sat down on the stone coping. He said:

âThis is all going to be more upsetting than we thought, Lucy.â

âWell, darling, we shall have to bear it. And when itâs all over we might go away somewhere. Letâs not bother about present troubles but look forward to the future. I really am happy about that. Iâve been wondering whether it would be nice to go to Ainswick for Christmasâor leave it until Easter. What do you think?â

âPlenty of time to make plans for Christmas.â

âYes, but I like to see things in my mind. Easter, perhapsâ¦yes.â Lucy smiled happily. âShe will certainly have got over it by then.â

âWho?â Sir Henry was startled.

Lady Angkatell said calmly:

âHenrietta. I think if they were to have the wedding in OctoberâOctober of next year, I mean, then we could go and stop for that Christmas. Iâve been thinking, Henryââ

âI wish you wouldnât, my dear. You think too much.â

âYou know the barn? It will make a perfect studio. And Henrietta will need a studio. She has real talent, you know. Edward, I am sure, will be immensely proud of her. Two boys and a girl would be niceâor two boys and two girls.â

âLucyâLucy! How you run on.â

âBut, darling,â Lady Angkatell opened wide, beautiful eyes. âEdward will never marry anyone but Henrietta. He is very, very obstinate. Rather like my father in that way. He gets an idea in his head! So of course Henrietta must marry himâand she will now that John Christow is out of the way. He was really the greatest misfortune that could possibly have happened to her.â

âPoor devil!â

âWhy? Oh, you mean because heâs dead? Oh, well, everyone has to die sometime. I never worry over people dyingâ¦.â

He looked at her curiously.

âI always thought you liked Christow, Lucy?â

âI found him amusing. And he had charm. But I never think one ought to attach too much importance to anybody.â

And gently, with a smiling face, Lady Angkatell clipped remorselessly at a Viburnum Carlesii.

Eighteen

Hercule Poirot looked out of his window and saw Henrietta Savernake walking up the path to the front door. She was wearing the same green tweeds that she had worn on the day of the tragedy. There was a spaniel with her.

He hastened to the front door and opened it. She stood smiling at him.

âCan I come in and see your house? I like looking at peopleâs houses. Iâm just taking the dog for a walk.â

âBut most certainly. How English it is to take the dog for a walk!â

âI know,â said Henrietta. âI thought of that. Do you know that nice poem: âThe days passed slowly one by one. I fed the ducks, reproved my wife, played Handelâs Largo on the fife and took the dog a run.ââ

Again she smiled, a brilliant, insubstantial smile.

Poirot ushered her into his sitting room. She looked round its neat and prim arrangement and nodded her head.

âNice,â she said, âtwo of everything. How you would hate my studio.â

âWhy should I hate it?â

âOh, a lot of clay sticking to thingsâand here and there just one thing that I happen to like and which would be ruined if there were two of them.â

âBut I can understand that, Mademoiselle. You are an artist.â

âArenât you an artist, too, M. Poirot?â

Poirot put his head on one side.

âIt is a question, that. But on the whole I would say, no. I have known crimes that were artisticâthey were, you understand, supreme exercises of imagination. But the solving of themâno, it is not the creative power that is needed. What is required is a passion for the truth.â

âA passion for the truth,â said Henrietta meditatively. âYes, I can see how dangerous that might make you. Would the truth satisfy you?â

He looked at her curiously.

âWhat do you mean, Miss Savernake?â

âI can understand that you would want to know. But would knowledge be enough? Would you have to go a step further and translate knowledge into action?â

He was interested in her approach.

âYou are suggesting that if I knew the truth about Dr. Christowâs deathâI might be satisfied to keep that knowledge to myself. Do you know the truth about his death?â

Henrietta shrugged her shoulders.

âThe obvious answer seems to be Gerda. How cynical it is that a wife or a husband is always the first suspect.â

âBut you do not agree?â

âI always like to keep an open mind.â

Poirot said quietly:

âWhy did you come here, Miss Savernake?â

âI must admit that I havenât your passion for truth, M. Poirot. Taking the dog for a walk was such a nice English countryside excuse. But of course the Angkatells havenât got a dogâas you may have noticed the other day.â

âThe fact had not escaped me.â

âSo I borrowed the gardenerâs spaniel. I am not, you must understand, M. Poirot, very truthful.â

Again that brilliant brittle smile flashed out. He wondered why he should suddenly find it unendurably moving. He said quietly:

âNo, but you have integrity.â

âWhy on earth do you say that?â

She was startledâalmost, he thought, dismayed.

âBecause I believe it to be true.â

âIntegrity,â Henrietta repeated thoughtfully. âI wonder what that word really means.â

She sat very still, staring down at the carpet, then she raised her head and looked at him steadily.

âDonât you want to know why I did come?â

âYou find a difficulty, perhaps, in putting it into words.â

âYes, I think I do. The inquest, M. Poirot, is tomorrow. One has to make up oneâs mind just how muchââ

She broke off. Getting up, she wandered across to the mantelpiece, displaced one or two of the ornaments and moved a vase of Michaelmas daisies from its position in the middle of a table to the extreme corner of the mantelpiece. She stepped back, eyeing the arrangement with her head on one side.

âHow do you like that, M. Poirot?â

âNot at all, Mademoiselle.â

âI thought you wouldnât.â She laughed, moved everything quickly and deftly back to its original position. âWell, if one wants to say a thing one has to say it! You are, somehow, the sort of person one can talk to. Here goes. Is it necessary, do you think, that the police should know that I was John Christowâs mistress?â

Her voice was quite dry and unemotional. She was looking, not at him, but at the wall over his head. With one forefinger she was following the curve of the jar that held the purple flowers. He had an idea that in the touch of that finger was her emotional outlet.

Hercule Poirot said precisely and also without emotion:

âI see. You were lovers?â

âIf you prefer to put it like that.â

He looked at her curiously.

âIt was not how you put it, Mademoiselle.â

âNo.â

âWhy not?â

Henrietta shrugged her shoulders. She came and sat down by him on the sofa. She said slowly:

âOne likes to describe things asâas accurately as possible.â

His interest in Henrietta Savernake grew stronger. He said:

âYou had been Dr. Christowâs mistressâfor how long?â

âAbout six months.â

âThe police will have, I gather, no difficulty in discovering the fact?â

Henrietta considered.

âI imagine not. That is, if they are looking for something of that kind.â

âOh, they will be looking, I can assure you of that.â

âYes, I rather thought they would.â She paused, stretched out her fingers on her knee and looked at them, then gave him a swift, friendly glance. âWell, M. Poirot, what does one do? Go to Inspector Grange and sayâwhat does one say to a moustache like that? Itâs such a domestic, family moustache.â

Poirotâs hand crawled upwards to his own proudly borne adornment.

âWhereas mine, Mademoiselle?â

âYour moustache, M. Poirot, is an artistic triumph. It has no associations with anything but itself. It is, I am sure, unique.â

âAbsolutely.â

âAnd it is probably the reason why I am talking to you as I am. Granted that the police have to know the truth about John and myself, will it necessarily have to be made public?â

âThat depends,â said Poirot. âIf the police think it had no bearing on the case, they will be quite discreet. Youâare very anxious on this point?â

Henrietta nodded. She stared down at her fingers for a moment or two, then suddenly lifted her head and spoke. Her voice was no longer dry and light.

âWhy should things be made worse than they are for poor Gerda? She adored John and heâs dead. Sheâs lost him. Why should she have to bear an added burden?â

âIt is for her that you mind?â

âDo you think that is hypocritical? I suppose youâre thinking that if I cared at all about Gerdaâs peace of mind, I would never have become Johnâs mistress. But you donât understandâit was not like that. I did not break up his married life. I was only oneâof a procession.â

âAh, it was like that?â

She turned on him sharply.

âNo, no, no! Not what you are thinking. Thatâs what I mind most of all! The false idea that everybody will have of what John was like. Thatâs why Iâm here talking to youâbecause Iâve got a vague, foggy hope that I can make you understand. Understand, I mean, the sort of person John was. I can see so well what will happenâthe headlines in the papersâA Doctorâs Love LifeâGerda, myself, Veronica Cray. John wasnât like thatâhe wasnât, actually, a man who thought much about women. It wasnât women who mattered to him most, it was his work. It was in his work that his interest and excitementâyes, and his sense of adventureâreally lay. If John had been taken unawares at any moment and asked to name the woman who was most in his mind, do you know who he would have said?âMrs. Crabtree.â

âMrs. Crabtree?â Poirot was surprised. âWho, then, is this Mrs. Crabtree?â

There was something between tears and laughter in Henriettaâs voice as she went on:

âSheâs an old womanâugly, dirty, wrinkled, quite indomitable. John thought the world of her. Sheâs a patient in St. Christopherâs Hospital. Sheâs got Ridgewayâs Disease. Thatâs a disease thatâs very rare, but if you get it youâre bound to dieâthere just isnât any cure. But John was finding a cureâI canât explain technicallyâit was all very complicatedâsome question of hormone secretions. Heâd been making experiments and Mrs. Crabtree was his prize patientâyou see, sheâs got guts, she wants to liveâand she was fond of John. She and he were fighting on the same side. Ridgewayâs Disease and Mrs. Crabtree is what has been uppermost in Johnâs mind for monthsânight and dayânothing else really counted. Thatâs what being the kind of doctor John was really meansânot all the Harley Street stuff and the rich, fat women, thatâs only a sideline. Itâs the intense scientific curiosity and the achievement. Iâoh, I wish I could make you understand.â

Her hands flew out in a curiously despairing gesture, and Hercule Poirot thought how very lovely and sensitive those hands were.

He said:

âYou seem to understand very well.â

âOh, yes, I understood. John used to come and talk, do you see? Not quite to meâpartly, I think, to himself. He got things clear that way. Sometimes he was almost despairingâhe couldnât see how to overcome the heightened toxicityâand then heâd get an idea for varying the treatment. I canât explain to you what it was likeâit was like, yes, a battle. You canât imagine theâthe fury of it and the concentrationâand yes, sometimes the agony. And sometimes the sheer tirednessâ¦.â

She was silent for a minute or two, her eyes dark with remembrance.

Poirot said curiously:

âYou must have a certain technical knowledge yourself?â

She shook her head.

âNot really. Only enough to understand what John was talking about. I got books and read about it.â

She was silent again, her face softened, her lips half-parted. She was, he thought, remembering.

With a sigh, her mind came back to the present. She looked at him wistfully.

âIf I could only make you seeââ

âBut you have, Mademoiselle.â

âReally?â

âYes. One recognizes authenticity when one hears it.â

âThank you. But it wonât be so easy to explain to Inspector Grange.â

âProbably not. He will concentrate on the personal angle.â

Henrietta said vehemently:

âAnd that was so unimportantâso completely unimportant.â

Poirotâs eyebrows rose slowly. She answered his unspoken protest.

âBut it was! You seeâafter a whileâI got between John and what he was thinking of. I affected him, as a woman. He couldnât concentrate as he wanted to concentrateâbecause of me. He began to be afraid that he was beginning to love meâhe didnât want to love anyone. Heâhe made love to me because he didnât want to think about me too much. He wanted it to be light, easy, just an affair like other affairs that he had had.â

âAnd youââ Poirot was watching her closely. âYou were content to have itâlike that.â

Henrietta got up. She said, and once more it was her dry voice:

âNo, I wasnâtâcontent. After all, one is humanâ¦.â

Poirot waited a minute then he said:

âThen why, Mademoiselleââ

âWhy?â She whirled round on him. âI wanted John to be satisfied, I wanted John to have what he wanted. I wanted him to be able to go on with the thing he cared aboutâhis work. If he didnât want to be hurtâto be vulnerable againâwhyâwhy, that was all right by me.â

Poirot rubbed his nose.

âJust now, Miss Savernake, you mentioned Veronica Cray. Was she also a friend of John Christowâs?â

âUntil last Saturday night, he hadnât seen her for fifteen years.â

âHe knew her fifteen years ago?â

âThey were engaged to be married.â Henrietta came back and sat down. âI see Iâve got to make it all clearer. John loved Veronica desperately. Veronica was, and is, a bitch of the first water. Sheâs the supreme egoist. Her terms were that John was to chuck everything he cared about and become Miss Veronica Crayâs little tame husband. John broke up the whole thingâquite rightly. But he suffered like hell. His one idea was to marry someone as unlike Veronica as possible. He married Gerda, whom you might describe inelegantly as a first-class chump. That was all very nice and safe, but as anyone could have told him the day came when being married to a chump irritated him. He had various affairsânone of them important. Gerda, of course, never knew about them. But I think, myself, that for fifteen years there has been something wrong with Johnâsomething connected with Veronica. He never really got over her. And then, last Saturday, he met her again.â

After a long pause, Poirot recited dreamily:

âHe went out with her that night to see her home and returned to The Hollow at 3 a.m.â

âHow do you know?â

âA housemaid had the toothache.â

Henrietta said irrelevantly, âLucy has far too many servants.â

âBut you yourself knew that, Mademoiselle.â

âYes.â

âHow did you know?â

Again there was an infinitesimal pause. Then Henrietta replied slowly:

âI was looking out of my window and saw him come back to the house.â

âThe toothache, Mademoiselle?â

She smiled at him.

âQuite another kind of ache, M. Poirot.â

She got up and moved towards the door, and Poirot said:

âI will walk back with you, Mademoiselle.â

They crossed the lane and went through the gate into the chestnut plantation.

Henrietta said:

âWe need not go past the pool. We can go up to the left and along the top path to the flower walk.â

A track led steeply uphill towards the woods. After a while they came to a broader path at right angles across the hillside above the chestnut trees. Presently they came to a bench and Henrietta sat down, Poirot beside her. The woods were above and behind them, and below were the closely planted chestnut groves. Just in front of the seat a curving path led downwards, to where just a glimmer of blue water could be seen.

Poirot watched Henrietta without speaking. Her face had relaxed, the tension had gone. It looked rounder and younger. He realized what she must have looked like as a young girl.

He said very gently at last:

âOf what are you thinking, Mademoiselle?â

âOf Ainswick.â

âWhat is Ainswick?â

âAinswick? Itâs a place.â Almost dreamily, she described Ainswick to him. The white, graceful house, the big magnolia growing up it, the whole set in an amphitheatre of wooded hills.

âIt was your home?â

âNot really. I lived in Ireland. It was where we came, all of us, for holidays. Edward and Midge and myself. It was Lucyâs home actually. It belonged to her father. After his death it came to Edward.â

âNot to Sir Henry? But it is he who has the title.â

âOh, thatâs a KCB,â she explained. âHenry was only a distant cousin.â

âAnd after Edward Angkatell, to whom does it go, this Ainswick?â

âHow odd, Iâve never really thought. If Edward doesnât marryââ She paused. A shadow passed over her face. Hercule Poirot wondered exactly what thought was passing through her mind.

âI suppose,â said Henrietta slowly, âit will go to David. So thatâs whyââ

âWhy what?â

âWhy Lucy asked him hereâ¦David and Ainswick?â She shook her head. âThey donât fit somehow.â

Poirot pointed to the path in front of them.

âIt is by that path, Mademoiselle, that you went down to the swimming pool yesterday?â

She gave a quick shiver.

âNo, by the one nearer the house. It was Edward who came this way.â She turned on him suddenly. âMust we talk about it any more? I hate the swimming pool. I even hate The Hollow.â

Poirot murmured:

âI hate the dreadful hollow behind the little wood;

Its lips in the field above are dabbled with blood-red heath,

The red-ribbâd ledges drip with a silent horror of blood

And Echo there, whatever is askâd her, answers âDeath.ââ

Henrietta turned an astonished face on him.

âTennyson,â said Hercule Poirot, nodding his head proudly. âThe poetry of your Lord Tennyson.â

Henrietta was repeating:

âAnd Echo there, whatever is askâd herâ¦â She went on, almost to herself, âBut of courseâI seeâthatâs what it isâEcho!â

âHow do you mean, Echo?â

âThis placeâThe Hollow itself! I almost saw it beforeâon Saturday when Edward and I walked up to the ridge. An echo of Ainswick. And thatâs what we are, we Angkatells. Echoes! Weâre not realânot real as John was real.â She turned to Poirot. âI wish you had known him, M. Poirot. Weâre all shadows compared to John. John was really alive.â

âI knew that even when he was dying, Mademoiselle.â

âI know. One felt itâ¦And John is dead, and we, the echoes, are aliveâ¦Itâs like, you know, a very bad joke.â

The youth had gone from her face again. Her lips were twisted, bitter with sudden pain.

When Poirot spoke, asking a question, she did not, for a moment, take in what he was saying.

âI am sorry. What did you say, M. Poirot?â

âI was asking whether your aunt, Lady Angkatell, liked Dr. Christow?â

âLucy? She is a cousin, by the way, not an aunt. Yes, she liked him very much.â

âAnd yourâalso a cousin?âMr. Edward Angkatellâdid he like Dr. Christow?â

Her voice was, he thought, a little constrained, as she replied:

âNot particularlyâbut then he hardly knew him.â

âAnd yourâyet another cousin? Mr. David Angkatell?â

Henrietta smiled.

âDavid, I think, hates all of us. He spends his time immured in the library reading the EncyclopÃ¦dia Britannica.â

âAh, a serious temperament.â

âI am sorry for David. He has had a difficult home life. His mother was unbalancedâan invalid. Now his only way of protecting himself is to try to feel superior to everyone. Itâs all right as long as it works, but now and then it breaks down and the vulnerable David peeps through.â

âDid he feel himself superior to Dr. Christow?â

âHe tried toâbut I donât think it came off. I suspect that John Christow was just the kind of man that David would like to be. He disliked John in consequence.â

Poirot nodded his head thoughtfully.

âYesâself-assurance, confidence, virilityâall the intensive male qualities. It is interestingâvery interesting.â

Henrietta did not answer.

Through the chestnuts, down by the pool, Hercule Poirot saw a man stooping, searching for something, or so it seemed.

He murmured: âI wonderââ

âI beg your pardon?â

Poirot said: âThat is one of Inspector Grangeâs men. He seems to be looking for something.â

âClues, I suppose. Donât policemen look for clues? Cigarette ash, footprints, burnt matches.â

Her voice held a kind of bitter mockery. Poirot answered seriously.

âYes, they look for these thingsâand sometimes they find them. But the real clues, Miss Savernake, in a case like this, usually lie in the personal relationships of the people concerned.â

âI donât think I understand you.â

âLittle things,â said Poirot, his head thrown back, his eyes half-closed. âNot cigarette ash, or a rubber heel markâbut a gesture, a look, an unexpected actionâ¦.â

Henrietta turned her head sharply to look at him. He felt her eyes, but he did not turn his head. She said:

âAre you thinking ofâanything in particular?â

âI was thinking of how you stepped forward and took the revolver out of Mrs. Christowâs hand then dropped it in the pool.â

He felt the slight start she gave. But her voice was quite normal and calm.

âGerda, M. Poirot, is rather a clumsy person. In the shock of the moment, and if the revolver had had another cartridge in it, she might have fired it andâand hurt someone.â

âBut it was rather clumsy of you, was it not, to drop it in the pool?â

âWell, I had had a shock too.â She paused. âWhat are you suggesting, M. Poirot?â

Poirot sat up, turned his head, and spoke in a brisk, matter-of-fact way.

âIf there were fingerprints on that revolver, that is to say, fingerprints made before Mrs. Christow handled it, it would be interesting to know whose they wereâand that we shall never know now.â

Henrietta said quietly but steadily:

âMeaning that you think they were mine. You are suggesting that I shot John and then left the revolver beside him so that Gerda could come along and pick it up and be left holding the baby. That is what you are suggesting, isnât it? But surely, if I did that, you will give me credit for enough intelligence to have wiped off my own fingerprints first!â

âBut surely you are intelligent enough to see, Mademoiselle, that if you had done so and if the revolver had had no fingerprints on it but Mrs. Christowâs, that would have been very remarkable! For you were all shooting with that revolver the day before. Gerda Christow would hardly have wiped the revolver clean of fingerprints before using itâwhy should she?â

Henrietta said slowly:

âSo you think I killed John?â

âWhen Dr. Christow was dying, he said: âHenrietta.ââ

âAnd you think that that was an accusation? It was not.â

âWhat was it then?â

Henrietta stretched out her foot and traced a pattern with the toe. She said in a low voice:

âArenât you forgettingâwhat I told you not very long ago? I meanâthe terms we were on?â

âAh, yesâhe was your loverâand so, as he is dying, he says: âHenrietta.â That is very touching.â

She turned blazing eyes upon him.

âMust you sneer?â

âI am not sneering. But I do not like being lied toâand that, I think, is what you are trying to do.â

Henrietta said quietly:

âI have told you that I am not very truthfulâbut when John said: âHenriettaâ he was not accusing me of having murdered him. Canât you understand that people of my kind, who make things, are quite incapable of taking life? I donât kill people, M. Poirot. I couldnât kill anyone. Thatâs the plain stark truth. You suspect me simply because my name was murmured by a dying man who hardly knew what he was saying.â

âDr. Christow knew perfectly what he was saying. His voice was as alive and conscious as that of a doctor doing a vital operation who says sharply and urgently: âNurse, the forceps, please.ââ

âButââ She seemed at a loss, taken aback. Hercule Poirot went on rapidly:

âAnd it is not just on account of what Dr. Christow said when he was dying. I do not believe for one moment that you are capable of premeditated murderâthat, no. But you might have fired that shot in a sudden moment of fierce resentmentâand if soâif so, Mademoiselle, you have the creative imagination and ability to cover your tracks.â

Henrietta got up. She stood for a moment, pale and shaken, looking at him. She said with a sudden, rueful smile:

âAnd I thought you liked me.â

Hercule Poirot sighed. He said sadly:

âThat is what is so unfortunate for me. I do.â

Nineteen

I

When Henrietta had left him, Poirot sat on until he saw below him Inspector Grange walk past the pool with a resolute, easy stride and take the path on past the pavilion.

The inspector was walking in a purposeful way.

He must be going, therefore, either to Resthaven or to Dovecotes. Poirot wondered which.

He got up and retraced his steps along the way he had come. If Inspector Grange was coming to see him, he was interested to hear what the inspector had to say.

But when he got back to Resthaven there was no sign of a visitor. Poirot looked thoughtfully up the lane in the direction of Dovecotes. Veronica Cray had not, he knew, gone back to London.

He found his curiosity rising about Veronica Cray. The pale, shining fox furs, the heaped boxes of matches, that sudden imperfectly explained invasion on the Saturday night, and finally Henrietta Savernakeâs revelations about John Christow and Veronica.

It was, he thought, an interesting pattern. Yes, that was how he saw it: a pattern.

A design of intermingled emotions and the clash of personalities. A strange involved design, with dark threads of hate and desire running through it.

Had Gerda Christow shot her husband? Or was it not quite so simple as that?

He thought of his conversation with Henrietta and decided that it was not so simple.

Henrietta had jumped to the conclusion that he suspected her of the murder, but actually he had not gone nearly as far as that in his mind. No further indeed than the belief that Henrietta knew something. Knew something or was concealing somethingâwhich?

He shook his head, dissatisfied.

The scene by the pool. A set scene. A stage scene.

Staged by whom? Staged for whom?

The answer to the second question was, he strongly suspected, Hercule Poirot. He had thought so at the time. But he had thought then that it was an impertinenceâa joke.

It was still an impertinenceâbut not a joke.

And the answer to the first question?

He shook his head. He did not know. He had not the least idea.

But he half-closed his eyes and conjured them upâall of themâseeing them clearly in his mindâs eye. Sir Henry, upright, responsible, trusted administrator of Empire. Lady Angkatell, shadowy, elusive, unexpectedly and bewilderingly charming, with that deadly power of inconsequent suggestion. Henrietta Savernake, who had loved John Christow better than she loved herself. The gentle and negative Edward Angkatell. The dark, positive girl called Midge Hardcastle. The dazed, bewildered face of Gerda Christow clasping a revolver in her hand. The offended adolescent personality of David Angkatell.

There they all were, caught and held in the meshes of the law. Bound together for a little while in the relentless aftermath of sudden and violent death. Each of them had their own tragedy and meaning, their own story.

And somewhere in that interplay of characters and emotions lay the truth.

To Hercule Poirot there was only one thing more fascinating than the study of human beings, and that was the pursuit of truth.

He meant to know the truth of John Christowâs death.

II

âBut of course, Inspector,â said Veronica. âIâm only too anxious to help you.â

âThank you, Miss Cray.â

Veronica Cray was not, somehow, at all what the inspector had imagined.

He had been prepared for glamour, for artificiality, even possibly for heroics. He would not have been at all surprised if she had put on an act of some kind.

In fact, she was, he shrewdly suspected, putting on an act. But it was not the kind of act he had expected.

There was no overdone feminine charmâglamour was not stressed.

Instead he felt that he was sitting opposite to an exceedingly good-looking and expensively dressed woman who was also a good businesswoman. Veronica Cray, he thought, was no fool.

âWe just want a clear statement, Miss Cray. You came over to The Hollow on Saturday evening?â

âYes, Iâd run out of matches. One forgets how important these things are in the country.â

âYou went all the way to The Hollow? Why not to your next-door neighbour, M. Poirot?â

She smiledâa superb, confident camera smile.

âI didnât know who my next-door neighbour wasâotherwise I should have. I just thought he was some little foreigner and I thought, you know, he might become a boreâliving so near.â

âYes,â thought Grange, âquite plausible.â Sheâd worked that one out ready for the occasion.

âYou got your matches,â he said. âAnd you recognized an old friend in Dr. Christow, I understand?â

She nodded.

âPoor John. Yes, I hadnât seen him for fifteen years.â

âReally?â There was polite disbelief in the inspectorâs tone.

âReally.â Her tone was firmly assertive.

âYou were pleased to see him?â

âVery pleased. Itâs always delightful, donât you think, Inspector, to come across an old friend?â

âIt can be on some occasions.â

Veronica Cray went on without waiting for further questioning:

âJohn saw me home. Youâll want to know if he said anything that could have a bearing on the tragedy, and Iâve been thinking over our conversation very carefullyâbut really there wasnât a pointer of any kind.â

âWhat did you talk about, Miss Cray?â

âOld days. âDo you remember this, that and the other?ââ She smiled pensively. âWe had known each other in the South of France. John had really changed very littleâolder, of course, and more assured. I gather he was quite well-known in his profession. He didnât talk about his personal life at all. I just got the impression that his married life wasnât perhaps frightfully happyâbut it was only the vaguest impression. I suppose his wife, poor thing, was one of those dim, jealous womenâprobably always making a fuss about his better-looking lady patients.â

âNo,â said Grange. âShe doesnât really seem to have been that way.â

Veronica said quickly:

âYou meanâit was all underneath? Yesâyes, I can see that that would be far more dangerous.â

âI see you think Mrs. Christow shot him, Miss Cray?â

âI oughtnât to have said that. One mustnât commentâis that itâbefore a trial? Iâm extremely sorry, Inspector. It was just that my maid told me sheâd been found actually standing over the body with the revolver still in her hand. You know how in these quiet country places everything gets so exaggerated and servants do pass things on.â

âServants can be very useful sometimes, Miss Cray.â

âYes, I suppose you get a lot of your information that way?â

Grange went on stolidly:

âItâs a question, of course, of who had a motiveââ

He paused. Veronica said with a faint, rueful smile:

âAnd a wife is always the first suspect? How cynical! But thereâs usually whatâs called âthe other woman.â I suppose she might be considered to have a motive too?â

âYou think there was another woman in Dr. Christowâs life?â

âWellâyes, I did rather imagine there might be. One just gets an impression, you know.â

âImpressions can be very helpful sometimes,â said Grange.

âI rather imaginedâfrom what he saidâthat that sculptress woman was, well, a very close friend. But I expect you know all about that already?â

âWe have to look into all these things, of course.â

Inspector Grangeâs voice was strictly noncommittal, but he saw, without appearing to see, a quick, spiteful flash of satisfaction in those large blue eyes.

He said, making the question very official:

âDr. Christow saw you home, you say. What time was it when you said good night to him?â

âDo you know, I really canât remember! We talked for some time, I do know that. It must have been quite late.â

âHe came in?â

âYes, I gave him a drink.â

âI see. I imagined your conversation might have taken place in theâerâpavilion by the swimming pool.â

He saw her eyelids flicker. There was hardly a momentâs hesitation before she said:

âYou really are a detective, arenât you? Yes, we sat there and smoked and talked for some time. How did you know?â

Her face bore the pleased, eager expression of a child asking to be shown a clever trick.

âYou left your furs behind there, Miss Cray.â He added just without emphasis: âAnd the matches.â

âYes, of course I did.â

âDr. Christow returned to The Hollow at 3 a.m.,â announced the inspector, again without emphasis.

âWas it really as late as that?â Veronica sounded quite amazed.

âYes, it was, Miss Cray.â

âOf course, we had so much to talk overânot having seen each other for so many years.â

âAre you sure it was quite so long since you had seen Dr. Christow?â

âIâve just told you I hadnât seen him for fifteen years.â

âAre you quite sure youâre not making a mistake? Iâve got the impression you might have been seeing quite a lot of him.â

âWhat on earth makes you think that?â

âWell, this note for one thing.â Inspector Grange took out a letter from his pocket, glanced down at it, cleared his throat and read:

Please come over this morning. I must see you.

Veronica.

âYe-es.â She smiled. âIt is a little peremptory, perhaps. Iâm afraid Hollywood makes oneâwell, rather arrogant.â

âDr. Christow came over to your house the following morning in answer to that summons. You had a quarrel. Would you care to tell me, Miss Cray, what that quarrel was about?â

The inspector had unmasked his batteries. He was quick to seize the flash of anger, the ill-tempered tightening of the lips. She snapped out:

âWe didnât quarrel.â

âOh, yes, you did, Miss Cray. Your last words were: âI think I hate you more than I believed I could hate anyone.ââ

She was silent now. He could feel her thinkingâthinking quickly and warily. Some women might have rushed into speech. But Veronica Cray was too clever for that.

She shrugged her shoulders and said lightly:

âI see. More servantsâ tales. My little maid has rather a lively imagination. There are different ways of saying things, you know. I can assure you that I wasnât being melodramatic. It was really a mildly flirtatious remark. We had been sparring together.â

âThe words were not intended to be taken seriously?â

âCertainly not. And I can assure you, Inspector, that it was fifteen years since I had last seen John Christow. You can verify that for yourself.â

She was poised again, detached, sure of herself.

Grange did not argue or pursue the subject. He got up.

âThatâs all for the moment, Miss Cray,â he said pleasantly.

He went out of Dovecotes and down the lane, and turned in at the gate of Resthaven.

III

Hercule Poirot stared at the inspector in the utmost surprise. He repeated incredulously:

âThe revolver that Gerda Christow was holding and which was subsequently dropped into the pool was not the revolver that fired the fatal shot? But that is extraordinary.â

âExactly, M. Poirot. Put bluntly, it just doesnât make sense.â

Poirot murmured softly:

âNo, it does not make sense. But all the same, Inspector, it has got to make sense, eh?â

The inspector sighed heavily: âThatâs just it, M. Poirot. Weâve got to find some way that it does make senseâbut at the moment I canât see it. The truth is that we shanât get much further until weâve found the gun that was used. It came from Sir Henryâs collection all rightâat least, thereâs one missingâand that means that the whole thing is still tied up with The Hollow.â

âYes,â murmured Poirot. âIt is still tied up with The Hollow.â

âIt seemed a simple, straightforward business,â went on the inspector. âWell, it isnât so simple or so straightforward.â

âNo,â said Poirot, âit is not simple.â

âWeâve got to admit the possibility that the thing was a frame-upâthatâs to say that it was all set to implicate Gerda Christow. But if that was so, why not leave the right revolver lying by the body for her to pick up?â

âShe might not have picked it up.â

âThatâs true, but even if she didnât, so long as nobody elseâs fingerprints were on the gunâthatâs to say if it was wiped after useâshe would probably have been suspected all right. And thatâs what the murderer wanted, wasnât it?â

âWas it?â

Grange stared.

âWell, if youâd done a murder, youâd want to plant it good and quick on someone else, wouldnât you? That would be a murdererâs normal reaction.â

âYe-es,â said Poirot. âBut then perhaps we have here a rather unusual type of murderer. It is possible that that is the solution of our problem.â

âWhat is the solution?â

Poirot said thoughtfully:

âAn unusual type of murderer.â

Inspector Grange stared at him curiously. He said:

âBut thenâwhat was the murdererâs idea? What was he or she getting at?â

Poirot spread out his hands with a sigh.

âI have no ideaâI have no idea at all. But it seems to meâdimlyââ

âYes?â

âThat the murderer is someone who wanted to kill John Christow but who did not want to implicate Gerda Christow.â

âHâh! Actually, we suspected her right away.â

âAh, yes, but it was only a matter of time before the facts about the gun came to light, and that was bound to give a new angle. In the interval the murderer has had timeââ Poirot came to a full stop.

âTime to do what?â

âAh, mom ami, there you have me. Again I have to say I do not know.â

Inspector Grange took a turn or two up and down the room. Then he stopped and came to a stand in front of Poirot.

âIâve come to you this afternoon, M. Poirot, for two reasons. One is because I knowâitâs pretty well known in the Forceâthat youâre a man of wide experience whoâs done some very tricky work on this type of problem. Thatâs reason number one. But thereâs another reason. You were there. You were an eyewitness. You saw what happened.â

Poirot nodded.

âYes, I saw what happenedâbut the eyes, Inspector Grange, are very unreliable witnesses.â

âWhat do you mean, M. Poirot?â

âThe eyes see, sometimes, what they are meant to see.â

âYou think that it was planned out beforehand?â

âI suspect it. It was exactly, you understand, like a stage scene. What I saw was clear enough. A man who had just been shot and the woman who had shot him holding in her hand the gun she had just used. That is what I saw, and already we know that in one particular the picture is wrong. That gun had not been used to shoot John Christow.â

âHm!â The inspector pulled his drooping moustache firmly downwards. âWhat you are getting at is that some of the other particulars of the picture may be wrong too?â

Poirot nodded. He said:

âThere were three other people presentâthree people who had apparently just arrived on the scene. But that may not be true either. The pool is surrounded by a thick grove of young chestnuts. From the pool five paths lead away, one to the house, one up to the woods, one up to the flower walk, one down from the pool to the farm and one to the lane here.

âOf those three people, each one came along a different path, Edward Angkatell from the woods above, Lady Angkatell up from the farm, and Henrietta Savernake from the flower border above the house. Those three arrived upon the scene of the crime almost simultaneously, and a few minutes after Gerda Christow.

âBut one of those three, Inspector, could have been at the pool before Gerda Christow arrived, could have shot John Christow, and could have retreated up or down one of the paths and then, turning around, could have arrived at the same time as the others.â

Inspector Grange said:

âYes, itâs possible.â

âAnd another possibility, not envisaged at the time. Someone could have come along the path from the lane, could have shot John Christow, and could have gone back the same way, unseen.â

Grange said: âYouâre dead right. There are two other possible suspects besides Gerda Christow. Weâve got the same motiveâjealousy. Itâs definitely a crime passionel. There were two other women mixed up with John Christow.â

He paused and said:

âChristow went over to see Veronica Cray that morning. They had a row. She told him that sheâd make him sorry for what heâd done, and she said she hated him more than she believed she could hate anyone.â

âInteresting,â murmured Poirot.

âSheâs straight from Hollywoodâand by what I read in the papers they do a bit of shooting each other out there sometimes. She could have come along to get her furs, which sheâd left in the pavilion the night before. They could have metâthe whole thing could have flared upâshe fired at himâand then, hearing someone coming, she could have dodged back the way she came.â

He paused a moment and added irritably:

âAnd now we come to the part where it all goes haywire. That damned gun! Unless,â his eyes brightened, âshe shot him with her own gun and dropped one that sheâd pinched from Sir Henryâs study so as to throw suspicion on the crowd at The Hollow. She mightnât know about our being able to identify the gun used from the marks on the rifling.â

âHow many people do know that, I wonder?â

âI put the point to Sir Henry. He said he thought quite a lot of people would knowâon account of all the detective stories that are written. Quoted a new one, The Clue of the Dripping Fountain, which he said John Christow himself had been reading on Saturday and which emphasized that particular point.â

âBut Veronica Cray would have had to have got the gun somehow from Sir Henryâs study.â

âYes, it would mean premeditation.â The inspector took another tug at his moustache, then he looked at Poirot. âBut youâve hinted yourself at another possibility, M. Poirot. Thereâs Miss Savernake. And hereâs where your eyewitness stuff, or rather I should say, earwitness stuff, comes in again. Dr. Christow said: âHenriettaâ when he was dying. You heard himâthey all heard him, though Mr. Angkatell doesnât seem to have caught what he said.â

âEdward Angkatell did not hear? That is interesting.â

âBut the others did. Miss Savernake herself says he tried to speak to her. Lady Angkatell says he opened his eyes, saw Miss Savernake, and said: âHenrietta.â She doesnât, I think, attach any importance to it.â

Poirot smiled. âNoâshe would not attach importance to it.â

âNow, M. Poirot, what about you? You were thereâyou sawâyou heard. Was Dr. Christow trying to tell you all that it was Henrietta who had shot him? In short, was that word an accusation?â

Poirot said slowly:

âI did not think so at the time.â

âBut now, M. Poirot? What do you think now?â

Poirot sighed. Then he said slowly:

âIt may have been so. I cannot say more than that. It is an impression only for which you are asking me, and when the moment is past there is a temptation to read into things a meaning which was not there at the time.â

Grange said hastily:

âOf course, this is all off the record. What M. Poirot thought isnât evidenceâI know that. Itâs only a pointer Iâm trying to get.â

âOh, I understand you very wellâand an impression from an eyewitness can be a very useful thing. But I am humiliated to have to say that my impressions are valueless. I was under the misconception, induced by the visual evidence, that Mrs. Christow had just shot her husband; so that when Dr. Christow opened his eyes and said âHenriettaâ I never thought of it as being an accusation. It is tempting now, looking back, to read into that scene something that was not there.â

âI know what you mean,â said Grange. âBut it seems to me that since âHenriettaâ was the last word Christow spoke, it must have meant one of two things. It was either an accusation of murder or else it wasâwell, purely emotional. Sheâs the woman heâs in love with and heâs dying. Now, bearing everything in mind, which of the two did it sound like to you?â

Poirot sighed, stirred, closed his eyes, opened them again, stretched out his hands in acute vexation. He said:

âHis voice was urgentâthat is all I can sayâurgent. It seemed to me neither accusing nor emotionalâbut urgent, yes! And of one thing I am sure. He was in full possession of his faculties. He spokeâyes, he spoke like a doctorâa doctor who has, say, a sudden surgical emergency on his handsâa patient who is bleeding to death, perhaps.â Poirot shrugged his shoulders. âThat is the best I can do for you.â

âMedical, eh?â said the inspector. âWell, yes, that is a third way of looking at it. He was shot, he suspected he was dying, he wanted something done for him quickly. And if, as Lady Angkatell says, Miss Savernake was the first person he saw when his eyes opened, then he would appeal to her. Itâs not very satisfactory, though.â

âNothing about this case is satisfactory,â said Poirot with some bitterness.

A murder scene, set and staged to deceive Hercule Poirotâand which had deceived him! No, it was not satisfactory.

Inspector Grange was looking out of the window.

âHallo,â he said, âhereâs Clark, my sergeant. Looks as though heâs got something. Heâs been working on the servantsâthe friendly touch. Heâs a nice looking chap, got a way with women.â

Sergeant Clark came in a little breathlessly. He was clearly pleased with himself, though subduing the fact under a respectful official manner.

âThought Iâd better come and report, sir, since I knew where youâd gone.â

He hesitated, shooting a doubtful glance at Poirot, whose exotic foreign appearance did not commend itself to his sense of official reticence.

âOut with it, my lad,â said Grange. âNever mind M. Poirot here. Heâs forgotten more about this game than youâll know for many years to come.â

âYes, sir. Itâs this way, sir. I got something out of the kitchen maidââ

Grange interrupted. He turned to Poirot triumphantly.

âWhat did I tell you? Thereâs always hope where thereâs a kitchen maid. Heaven help us when domestic staffs are so reduced that nobody keeps a kitchen maid any more. Kitchen maids talk, kitchen maids babble. Theyâre so kept down and in their place by the cook and the upper servants that itâs only human nature to talk about what they know to someone who wants to hear it. Go on, Clark.â

âThis is what the girl says, sir. That on Sunday afternoon she saw Gudgeon, the butler, walking across the hall with a revolver in his hand.â

âGudgeon?â

âYes, sir.â Clark referred to a notebook. âThese are her own words. âI donât know what to do, but I think I ought to say what I saw that day. I saw Mr. Gudgeon, he was standing in the hall with a revolver in his hand. Mr. Gudgeon looked very peculiar indeed.â

âI donât suppose,â said Clark, breaking off, âthat the part about looking peculiar means anything. She probably put that in out of her head. But I thought you ought to know about it at once, sir.â

Inspector Grange rose, with the satisfaction of a man who sees a task ahead of him which he is well-fitted to perform.

âGudgeon?â he said. âIâll have a word with Mr. Gudgeon right away.â

Twenty

Sitting once more in Sir Henryâs study, Inspector Grange stared at the impassive face of the man in front of him.

So far, the honours lay with Gudgeon.

âI am very sorry, sir,â he repeated. âI suppose I ought to have mentioned the occurrence, but it had slipped my memory.â

He looked apologetically from the inspector to Sir Henry.

âIt was about 5:30 if I remember rightly, sir. I was crossing the hall to see if there were any letters for the post when I noticed a revolver lying on the hall table. I presumed it was from the masterâs collection, so I picked it up and brought it in here. There was a gap on the shelf by the mantelpiece where it had come from, so I replaced it where it belonged.â

âPoint it out to me,â said Grange.

Gudgeon rose and went to the shelf in question, the inspector close behind him.

âIt was this one, sir.â Gudgeonâs finger indicated a small Mauser pistol at the end of the row.

It was a .25âquite a small weapon. It was certainly not the gun that had killed John Christow.

Grange, with his eyes on Gudgeonâs face, said:

âThatâs an automatic pistol, not a revolver.â

Gudgeon coughed.

âIndeed, sir? Iâm afraid that I am not at all well-up in firearms. I may have used the term revolver rather loosely, sir.â

âBut you are quite sure that that is the gun you found in the hall and brought in here?â

âOh, yes, sir, there can be no possible doubt about that.â

Grange stopped him as he was about to stretch out a hand.

âDonât touch it, please. I must examine it for fingerprints and to see if it is loaded.â

âI donât think it is loaded, sir. None of Sir Henryâs collection is kept loaded. And, as for fingerprints, I polished it over with my handkerchief before replacing it, sir, so there will only be my fingerprints on it.â

âWhy did you do that?â asked Grange sharply.

But Gudgeonâs apologetic smile did not waver.

âI fancied it might be dusty, sir.â

The door opened and Lady Angkatell came in. She smiled at the inspector.

âHow nice to see you, Inspector Grange! What is all this about a revolver and Gudgeon? That child in the kitchen is in floods of tears. Mrs. Medway has been bullying herâbut of course the girl was quite right to say what she saw if she thought she ought to do so. I always find right and wrong so bewildering myselfâeasy, you know, if right is unpleasant and wrong is agreeable, because then one knows where one isâbut confusing when it is the other way aboutâand I think, donât you, Inspector, that everyone must do what they think right themselves. What have you been telling them about that pistol, Gudgeon?â

Gudgeon said with respectful emphasis:

âThe pistol was in the hall, my lady, on the centre table. I have no idea where it came from. I brought it in here and put it away in its proper place. That is what I have just told the inspector and he quite understands.â

Lady Angkatell shook her head. She said gently:

âYou really shouldnât have said that, Gudgeon. Iâll talk to the inspector myself.â

Gudgeon made a slight movement, and Lady Angkatell said very charmingly:

âI do appreciate your motives, Gudgeon. I know how you always try to save us trouble and annoyance.â She added in gentle dismissal: âThat will be all now.â

Gudgeon hesitated, threw a fleeting glance towards Sir Henry and then at the inspector, then bowed and moved towards the door.

Grange made a motion as though to stop him, but for some reason he was not able to define to himself, he let his arm fall again. Gudgeon went out and closed the door.

Lady Angkatell dropped into a chair and smiled at the two men. She said conversationally:

âYou know, I really do think that was very charming of Gudgeon. Quite feudal, if you know what I mean. Yes, feudal is the right word.â

Grange said stiffly:

âAm I to understand, Lady Angkatell, that you yourself have some further knowledge about the matter?â

âOf course. Gudgeon didnât find it in the hall at all. He found it when he took the eggs out.â

âThe eggs?â Inspector Grange stared at her.

âOut of the basket,â said Lady Angkatell.

She seemed to think that everything was now quite clear. Sir Henry said gently:

âYou must tell us a little more, my dear. Inspector Grange and I are still at sea.â

âOh.â Lady Angkatell set herself to be explicit. âThe pistol, you see, was in the basket, under the eggs.â

âWhat basket and what eggs, Lady Angkatell?â

âThe basket I took down to the farm. The pistol was in it, and then I put the eggs in on top of the pistol and forgot all about it. And when we found poor John Christow dead by the pool, it was such a shock I let go of the basket and Gudgeon just caught it in time (because of the eggs, I mean. If Iâd dropped it they would have been broken). And he brought it back to the house. And later I asked him about writing the date on the eggsâa thing I always doâotherwise one eats the fresher eggs sometimes before the older onesâand he said all that had been attended toâand now that I remember, he was rather emphatic about it. And that is what I mean by being feudal. He found the pistol and put it back in hereâI suppose really because there were police in the house. Servants are always so worried by police, I find. Very nice and loyalâbut also quite stupid, because of course, Inspector, itâs the truth you want to hear, isnât it?â

And Lady Angkatell finished up by giving the inspector a beaming smile.

âThe truth is what I mean to get,â said Grange rather grimly.

Lady Angkatell sighed.

âIt all seems such a fuss, doesnât it?â she said. âI mean, all this hounding people down. I donât suppose whoever it was who shot John Christow really meant to shoot himânot seriously, I mean. If it was Gerda, Iâm sure she didnât. In fact, Iâm really surprised that she didnât missâitâs the sort of thing that one would expect of Gerda. And sheâs really a very nice kind creature. And if you go and put her in prison and hang her, what on earth is going to happen to the children? If she did shoot John, sheâs probably dreadfully sorry about it now. Itâs bad enough for children to have a father whoâs been murderedâbut it will make it infinitely worse for them to have their mother hanged for it. Sometimes I donât think you policemen think of these things.â

âWe are not contemplating arresting anyone at present, Lady Angkatell.â

âWell, thatâs sensible at any rate. But I have thought all along, Inspector Grange, that you were a very sensible sort of man.â

Again that charming, almost dazzling smile.

Inspector Grange blinked a little. He could not help it, but he came firmly to the point at issue.

âAs you said just now, Lady Angkatell, itâs the truth I want to get at. You took the pistol from hereâwhich gun was it, by the way?â

Lady Angkatell nodded her head towards the shelf by the mantelpiece. âThe second from the end. The Mauser .25.â Something in the crisp, technical way she spoke jarred on Grange. He had not, somehow, expected Lady Angkatell, whom up to now he had labelled in his own mind as âvagueâ and âjust a bit batty,â to describe a firearm with such technical precision.

âYou took the pistol from here and put it in your basket. Why?â

âI knew youâd ask me that,â said Lady Angkatell. Her tone, unexpectedly, was almost triumphant. âAnd of course there must be some reason. Donât you think so, Henry?â She turned to her husband. âDonât you think I must have had a reason for taking a pistol out that morning?â

âI should certainly have thought so, my dear,â said Sir Henry stiffly.

âOne does things,â said Lady Angkatell, gazing thoughtfully in front of her, âand then one doesnât remember why one has done them. But I think, you know, Inspector, that there always is a reason if one can only get at it. I must have had some idea in my head when I put the Mauser into my egg basket.â She appealed to him. âWhat do you think it can have been?â

Grange stared at her. She displayed no embarrassmentâjust a childlike eagerness. It beat him. He had never yet met anyone like Lucy Angkatell, and just for the moment he didnât know what to do about it.

âMy wife,â said Sir Henry, âis extremely absentminded, Inspector.â

âSo it seems, sir,â said Grange. He did not say it very nicely.

âWhy do you think I took that pistol?â Lady Angkatell asked him confidentially.

âI have no idea, Lady Angkatell.â

âI came in here,â mused Lady Angkatell. âI had been talking to Simmons about the pillowcasesâand I remember dimly crossing over to the fireplaceâand thinking we must get a new pokerâthe curate, not the rectorââ

Inspector Grange stared. He felt his head going round.

âAnd I remember picking up the Mauserâit was a nice handy little gun, Iâve always liked itâand dropping it into the basketâIâd just got the basket from the flower room. But there were so many things in my headâSimmons, you know, and the bindweed in the Michaelmas daisiesâand hoping Mrs. Medway would make a really rich Nigger in his Shirtââ

âA nigger in his shirt?â Inspector Grange had to break in.

âChocolate, you know, and eggsâand then covered with whipped cream. Just the sort of sweet a foreigner would like for lunch.â

Inspector Grange spoke fiercely and brusquely, feeling like a man who brushes away fine spidersâ webs which are impairing his vision.

âDid you load the pistol?â

He had hoped to startle herâperhaps even to frighten her a little, but Lady Angkatell only considered the question with a kind of desperate thoughtfulness.

âNow did I? Thatâs so stupid. I canât remember. But I should think I must have, donât you, Inspector? I mean, whatâs the good of a pistol without ammunition? I wish I could remember exactly what was in my head at the time.â

âMy dear Lucy,â said Sir Henry. âWhat goes on or does not go on in your head has been the despair of everyone who knows you well for years.â

She flashed him a very sweet smile.

âI am trying to remember, Henry dear. One does such curious things. I picked up the telephone receiver the other morning and found myself looking down at it quite bewildered. I couldnât imagine what I wanted with it.â

âPresumably you were going to ring someone up,â said the inspector coldly.

âNo, funnily enough, I wasnât. I remembered afterwardsâIâd been wondering why Mrs. Mears, the gardenerâs wife, held her baby in such an odd way, and I picked up the telephone receiver to try, you know, just how one would hold a baby, and of course I realized that it had looked odd because Mrs. Mears was left-handed and had its head the other way round.â

She looked triumphantly from one to the other of the two men.

âWell,â thought the inspector, âI suppose itâs possible that there are people like this.â

But he did not feel very sure about it.

The whole thing, he realized, might be a tissue of lies. The kitchen maid, for instance, had distinctly stated that it was a revolver Gudgeon had been holding. Still, you couldnât set much store by that. The girl knew nothing of firearms. She had heard a revolver talked about in connection with the crime, and revolver or pistol would be all one to her.

Both Gudgeon and Lady Angkatell had specified the Mauser pistolâbut there was nothing to prove their statement. It might actually have been the missing revolver that Gudgeon had been handling and he might have returned it, not to the study, but to Lady Angkatell herself. The servants all seemed absolutely besotted about the damned woman.

Supposing it was actually she who had shot John Christow? (But why should she? He couldnât see why.) Would they still back her up and tell lies for her? He had an uncomfortable feeling that that was just what they would do.

And now this fantastic story of hers about not being able to rememberâsurely she could think up something better than that. And looking so natural about itânot in the least embarrassed or apprehensive. Damn it all, she gave you the impression that she was speaking the literal truth.

He got up.

âWhen you remember a little more, perhaps youâll tell me, Lady Angkatell,â he said dryly.

She answered: âOf course I will, Inspector. Things come to one quite suddenly sometimes.â

Grange went out of the study. In the hall he put a finger round the inside of a collar and drew a deep breath.

He felt all tangled up in the thistledown. What he needed was his oldest and foulest pipe, a pint of ale and a good steak and chips. Something plain and objective.

Twenty-one

In the study Lady Angkatell flitted about touching things here and there with a vague forefinger. Sir Henry sat back in his chair watching her. He said at last:

âWhy did you take the pistol, Lucy?â

Lady Angkatell came back and sank down gracefully into a chair.

âIâm not really quite sure, Henry. I suppose I had some vague ideas of an accident.â

âAccident?â

âYes. All those roots of trees, you know,â said Lady Angkatell vaguely, âsticking outâso easy, just to trip over one. One might have had a few shots at the target and left one shot in the magazineâcareless, of courseâbut then people are careless. Iâve always thought, you know, that accident would be the simplest way to do a thing of that kind. One would be dreadfully sorry, of course, and blame oneselfâ¦.â

Her voice died away. Her husband sat very still without taking his eyes off her face. He spoke again in the same quiet, careful voice.

âWho was to have hadâthe accident?â

Lucy turned her head a little, looking at him in surprise.

âJohn Christow, of course.â

âGood God, Lucyââ He broke off.

She said earnestly:

âOh, Henry, Iâve been so dreadfully worried. About Ainswick.â

âI see. Itâs Ainswick. Youâve always cared too much about Ainswick, Lucy. Sometimes I think itâs the only thing you do care for.â

âEdward and David are the lastâthe last of the Angkatells. And David wonât do, Henry. Heâll never marryâbecause of his mother and all that. Heâll get the place when Edward dies, and he wonât marry, and you and I will be dead long before heâs even middle-aged. Heâll be the last of the Angkatells and the whole thing will die out.â

âDoes it matter so much, Lucy?â

âOf course it matters! Ainswick!â

âYou should have been a boy, Lucy.â

But he smiled a littleâfor he could not imagine Lucy being anything but feminine.

âIt all depends on Edwardâs marryingâand Edwardâs so obstinateâthat long head of his, like my fatherâs. I hoped heâd get over Henrietta and marry some nice girlâbut I see now that thatâs hopeless. Then I thought that Henriettaâs affair with John would run the usual course. Johnâs affairs were never, I imagine, very permanent. But I saw him looking at her the other evening. He really cared about her. If only John were out of the way I felt that Henrietta would marry Edward. Sheâs not the kind of person to cherish a memory and live in the past. So, you see, it all came to thatâget rid of John Christow.â

âLucy. You didnâtâWhat did you do, Lucy?â

Lady Angkatell got up again. She took two dead flowers out of a vase.

âDarling,â she said. âYou donât imagine for a moment, do you, that I shot John Christow? I did have that silly idea about an accident. But then, you know, I remembered that weâd asked John Christow hereâitâs not as though he proposed himself. One canât ask someone to be your guest and then arrange accidents. Even Arabs are most particular about hospitality. So donât worry, will you, Henry?â

She stood looking at him with a brilliant, affectionate smile. He said heavily:

âI always worry about you, Lucy.â

âThereâs no need, darling. And you see, everything has actually turned out all right. John has been got rid of without our doing anything about it. It reminds me,â said Lady Angkatell reminiscently, âof that man in Bombay who was so frightfully rude to me. He was run over by a tram three days later.â

She unbolted the french windows and went out into the garden.

Sir Henry sat still, watching her tall, slender figure wander down the path. He looked old and tired, and his face was the face of a man who lives at close quarters with fear.

In the kitchen a tearful Doris Emmott was wilting under the stern reproof of Mr. Gudgeon. Mrs. Medway and Miss Simmons acted as a kind of Greek chorus.

âPutting yourself forward and jumping to conclusions in a way only an inexperienced girl would do.â

âThatâs right,â said Mrs. Medway.

âIf you see me with a pistol in my hand, the proper thing to do is to come to me and say: âMr. Gudgeon, will you be so kind as to give me an explanation?ââ

âOr you could have come to me,â put in Mrs. Medway. âIâm always willing to tell a young girl what doesnât know the world what she ought to think.â

âWhat you should not have done,â said Gudgeon severely, âis to go babbling off to a policemanâand only a sergeant at that! Never get mixed up with the police more than you can help. Itâs painful enough having them in the house at all.â

âInexpressibly painful,â murmured Miss Simmons.

âSuch a thing never happened to me before.â

âWe all know,â went on Gudgeon, âwhat her ladyship is like. Nothing her ladyship does would ever surprise meâbut the police donât know her ladyship the way we do, and itâs not to be thought of that her ladyship should be worried with silly questions and suspicions just because she wanders about with firearms. Itâs the sort of thing she would do, but the police have the kind of mind that just sees murder and nasty things like that. Her ladyship is the kind of absentminded lady who wouldnât hurt a fly, but thereâs no denying that she puts things in funny places. I shall never forget,â added Gudgeon with feeling, âwhen she brought back a live lobster and put it in the card tray in the hall. Thought I was seeing things!â

âThat must have been before my time,â said Simmons with curiosity.

Mrs. Medway checked these revelations with a glance at the erring Doris.

âSome other time,â she said. âNow then, Doris, weâve only been speaking to you for your own good. Itâs common to be mixed up with the police, and donât you forget it. You can get on with the vegetables now, and be more careful with the runner beans than you were last night.â

Doris sniffed.

âYes, Mrs. Medway,â she said, and shuffled over to the sink.

Mrs. Medway said forebodingly:

âI donât feel as Iâm going to have a light hand with my pastry. That nasty inquest tomorrow. Gives me a turn every time I think of it. A thing like thatâhappening to us.â

Twenty-two

The latch of the gate clicked and Poirot looked out of the window in time to see the visitor who was coming up the path to the front door. He knew at once who she was. He wondered very much what brought Veronica Cray to see him.

She brought a delicious faint scent into the room with her, a scent that Poirot recognized. She wore tweeds and brogues as Henrietta had doneâbut she was, he decided, very different from Henrietta.

âM. Poirot.â Her tone was delightful, a little thrilled. âIâve only just discovered who my neighbour is. And Iâve always wanted to know you so much.â

He took her outstretched hands, bowed over them.

âEnchanted, Madame.â

She accepted the homage smilingly, refused his offer of tea, coffee or cocktail.

âNo, Iâve just come to talk to you. To talk seriously. Iâm worried.â

âYou are worried? I am sorry to hear that.â

Veronica sat down and sighed.

âItâs about John Christowâs death. The inquestâs tomorrow. You know that?â

âYes, yes, I know.â

âAnd the whole thing has really been so extraordinaryââ

She broke off.

âMost people really wouldnât believe it. But you would, I think, because you know something about human nature.â

âI know a little about human nature,â admitted Poirot.

âInspector Grange came to see me. Heâd got it into his head that Iâd quarrelled with Johnâwhich is true in a way though not in the way he meant. I told him that I hadnât seen John for fifteen yearsâand he simply didnât believe me. But itâs true, M. Poirot.â

Poirot said: âSince it is true, it can easily be proved, so why worry?â

She returned his smile in the friendliest fashion.

âThe real truth is that I simply havenât dared to tell the inspector what actually happened on Saturday evening. Itâs so absolutely fantastic that he certainly wouldnât believe it. But I felt I must tell someone. Thatâs why I have come to you.â

Poirot said quietly: âI am flattered.â

That fact, he noted, she took for granted. She was a woman, he thought, who was very sure of the effect she was producing. So sure that she might, occasionally, make a mistake.

âJohn and I were engaged to be married fifteen years ago. He was very much in love with meâso much so that it rather alarmed me sometimes. He wanted me to give up actingâto give up having any mind or life of my own. He was so possessive and masterful that I felt I couldnât go through with it, and I broke off the engagement. Iâm afraid he took that very hard.â

Poirot clicked a discreet and sympathetic tongue.

âI didnât see him again until last Saturday night. He walked home with me. I told the inspector that we talked about old timesâthatâs true in a way. But there was far more than that.â

âYes?â

âJohn went madâquite mad. He wanted to leave his wife and children, he wanted me to get a divorce from my husband and marry him. He said heâd never forgotten meâthat the moment he saw me time stood still.â

She closed her eyes, she swallowed. Under her makeup her face was very pale.

She opened her eyes again and smiled almost timidly at Poirot.

âCan you believe that aâa feeling like that is possible?â she asked.

âI think it is possible, yes,â said Poirot.

âNever to forgetâto go on waitingâplanningâhoping. To determine with all oneâs heart and mind to get what one wants in the end. There are men like that, M. Poirot.â

âYesâand women.â

She gave him a hard stare.

âIâm talking about menâabout John Christow. Well, thatâs how it was. I protested at first, laughed, refused to take him seriously. Then I told him he was mad. It was quite late when he went back to the house. Weâd argued and argued. He was stillâjust as determined.â

She swallowed again.

âThatâs why I sent him a note the next morning. I couldnât leave things like that. I had to make him realize that what he wanted wasâimpossible.â

âIt was impossible?â

âOf course it was impossible! He came over. He wouldnât listen to what I had to say. He was just as insistent. I told him that it was no good, that I didnât love him, that I hated himâ¦â She paused, breathing hard. âI had to be brutal about it. So we parted in angerâ¦And nowâheâs dead.â

He saw her hands creep together, saw the twisted fingers and the knuckles stand out. They were large, rather cruel hands.

The strong emotion that she was feeling communicated itself to him. It was not sorrow, not griefâno, it was anger. The anger, he thought, of a baffled egoist.

âWell, M. Poirot?â Her voice was controlled and smooth again. âWhat am I to do? Tell the story, or keep it to myself? Itâs what happenedâbut it takes a bit of believing.â

Poirot looked at her, a long, considering gaze.

He did not think that Veronica Cray was telling the truth, and yet there was an undeniable undercurrent of sincerity. It happened, he thought, but it did not happen like that.

And suddenly he got it. It was a true story, inverted. It was she who had been unable to forget John Christow. It was she who had been baffled and repulsed. And now, unable to bear in silence the furious anger of a tigress deprived of what she considered her legitimate prey, she had invented a version of the truth that should satisfy her wounded pride and feed a little the aching hunger for a man who had gone beyond the reach of her clutching hands. Impossible to admit that she, Veronica Cray, could not have what she wanted! So she had changed it all round.

Poirot drew a deep breath and spoke.

âIf all this had any bearing on John Christowâs death, you would have to speak out, but if it has notâand I cannot see why it should haveâthen I think you are quite justified in keeping it to yourself.â

He wondered if she was disappointed. He had a fancy that in her present mood she would like to hurl her story into the printed page of a newspaper. She had come to himâwhy? To try out her story? To test his reactions? Or to use himâto induce him to pass the story on?

If his mild response disappointed her, she did not show it. She got up and gave him one of those long, well-manicured hands.

âThank you, M. Poirot. What you say seems eminently sensible. Iâm so glad I came to you. IâI felt I wanted somebody to know.â

âI shall respect your confidence, Madame.â

When she had gone, he opened the windows a little. Scents affected him. He did not like Veronicaâs scent. It was expensive but cloying, overpowering like her personality.

He wondered, as he flapped the curtains, whether Veronica Cray had killed John Christow.

She would have been willing to kill himâhe believed that. She would have enjoyed pressing the triggerâwould have enjoyed seeing him stagger and fall.

But behind that vindictive anger was something cold and shrewd, something that appraised chances, a cool, calculating intelligence. However much Veronica Cray wished to kill John Christow, he doubted whether she would have taken the risk.

Twenty-three

The inquest was over. It had been the merest formality of an affair, and though warned of this beforehand, yet nearly everyone had a resentful sense of anticlimax.

Adjourned for a fortnight at the request of the police.

Gerda had driven down with Mrs. Patterson from London in a hired Daimler. She had on a black dress and an unbecoming hat, and looked nervous and bewildered.

Preparatory to stepping back into the Daimler, she paused as Lady Angkatell came up to her.

âHow are you, Gerda dear? Not sleeping too badly, I hope. I think it went off as well as we could hope for, donât you? So sorry we havenât got you with us at The Hollow, but I quite understand how distressing that would be.â

Mrs. Patterson said in her bright voice, glancing reproachfully at her sister for not introducing her properly:

âThis was Miss Collinsâs ideaâto drive straight down and back. Expensive, of course, but we thought it was worth it.â

âOh, I do so agree with you.â

Mrs. Patterson lowered her voice.

âI am taking Gerda and the children straight down to Bexhill. What she needs is rest and quiet. The reporters! Youâve no idea! Simply swarming round Harley Street.â

A young man snapped off a camera, and Elsie Patterson pushed her sister into the car and they drove off.

The others had a momentary view of Gerdaâs face beneath the unbecoming hat brim. It was vacant, lostâshe looked for the moment like a half-witted child.

Midge Hardcastle muttered under her breath: âPoor devil.â

Edward said irritably:

âWhat did everybody see in Christow? That wretched woman looks completely heartbroken.â

âShe was absolutely wrapped up in him,â said Midge.

âBut why? He was a selfish sort of fellow, good company in a way, butââ He broke off. Then he asked: âWhat did you think of him, Midge?â

âI?â Midge reflected. She said at last, rather surprised at her own words: âI think I respected him.â

âRespected him? For what?â

âWell, he knew his job.â

âYouâre thinking of him as a doctor?â

âYes.â

There was no time for more.

Henrietta was driving Midge back to London in her car. Edward was returning to lunch at The Hollow and going up by the afternoon train with David. He said vaguely to Midge: âYou must come out and lunch one day,â and Midge said that that would be very nice but that she couldnât take more than an hour off. Edward gave her his charming smile and said:

âOh, itâs a special occasion. Iâm sure theyâll understand.â

Then he moved towards Henrietta. âIâll ring you up, Henrietta.â

âYes, do, Edward. But I may be out a good deal.â

âOut?â

She gave him a quick, mocking smile.

âDrowning my sorrow. You donât expect me to sit at home and mope, do you?â

He said slowly: âI donât understand you nowadays, Henrietta. You are quite different.â

Her face softened. She said unexpectedly: âDarling Edward,â and gave his arm a quick squeeze.

Then she turned to Lucy Angkatell. âI can come back if I want to, canât I, Lucy?â

Lady Angkatell said: âOf course, darling. And anyway there will be the inquest again in a fortnight.â

Henrietta went to where she had parked the car in the market square. Her suitcases and Midgeâs were already inside.

They got in and drove off.

The car climbed the long hill and came out on the road over the ridge. Below them the brown and golden leaves shivered a little in the chill of a grey autumn day.

Midge said suddenly: âIâm glad to get awayâeven from Lucy. Darling as she is, she gives me the creeps sometimes.â

Henrietta was looking intently into the small driving mirror.

She said rather inattentively:

âLucy has to give the coloratura touchâeven to murder.â

âYou know, Iâd never thought about murder before.â

âWhy should you? It isnât a thing one thinks about. Itâs a six-letter word in a crossword, or a pleasant entertainment between the covers of a book. But the real thingââ

She paused. Midge finished:

âIs real. That is what startles one.â

Henrietta said:

âIt neednât be startling to you. You are outside it. Perhaps the only one of us who is.â

Midge said:

âWeâre all outside it now. Weâve got away.â

Henrietta murmured: âHave we?â

She was looking in the driving mirror again. Suddenly she put her foot down on the accelerator. The car responded. She glanced at the speedometer. They were doing over fifty. Presently the needle reached sixty.

Midge looked sideways at Henriettaâs profile. It was not like Henrietta to drive recklessly. She liked speed, but the winding road hardly justified the pace they were going. There was a grim smile hovering round Henriettaâs mouth.

She said: âLook over your shoulder, Midge. See that car way back there?â

âYes?â

âItâs a Ventnor 10.â

âIs it?â Midge was not particularly interested.

âTheyâre useful little cars, low petrol consumption, keep the road well, but theyâre not fast.â

âNo?â

Curious, thought Midge, how fascinated Henrietta always was by cars and their performance.

âAs I say, theyâre not fastâbut that car, Midge, has managed to keep its distance although weâve been going over sixty.â

Midge turned a startled face to her.

âDo you mean thatââ

Henrietta nodded. âThe police, I believe, have special engines in very ordinary-looking cars.â

Midge said:

âYou mean theyâre still keeping an eye on us all?â

âIt seems rather obvious.â

Midge shivered.

âHenrietta, can you understand the meaning of this second gun business?â

âNo, it lets Gerda out. But beyond that it just doesnât seem to add up to anything.â

âBut, if it was one of Henryâs gunsââ

âWe donât know that it was. It hasnât been found yet, remember.â

âNo, thatâs true. It could be someone outside altogether. Do you know who Iâd like to think killed John, Henrietta? That woman.â

âVeronica Cray?â

âYes.â

Henrietta said nothing. She drove on with her eyes fixed sternly on the road ahead of her.

âDonât you think itâs possible?â persisted Midge.

âPossible, yes,â said Henrietta slowly.

âThen you donât thinkââ

âItâs no good thinking a thing because you want to think it. Itâs the perfect solutionâletting all of us out!â

âUs? Butââ

âWeâre in itâall of us. Even you, Midge darlingâthough theyâd be hard put to it to find a motive for your shooting John. Of course Iâd like it to be Veronica. Nothing would please me better than to see her giving a lovely performance, as Lucy would put it, in the dock!â

Midge shot a quick look at her.

âTell me, Henrietta, does it all make you feel vindictive?â

âYou meanââHenrietta paused a momentââbecause I loved John?â

âYes.â

As she spoke, Midge realized with a slight sense of shock that this was the first time the bald fact had been put into words. It had been accepted by them all, by Lucy and Henry, by Midge, by Edward even, that Henrietta loved John Christow, but nobody had ever so much as hinted at the fact in words before.

There was a pause whilst Henrietta seemed to be thinking. Then she said in a thoughtful voice:

âI canât explain to you what I feel. Perhaps I donât know myself.â

They were driving now over Albert Bridge.

Henrietta said:

âYouâd better come to the studio, Midge. Weâll have tea, and Iâll drive you to your digs afterwards.â

Here in London the short afternoon light was already fading. They drew up at the studio door and Henrietta put her key into the door. She went in and switched on the light.

âItâs chilly,â she said. âWeâd better light the gas fire. Oh, botherâI meant to get some matches on the way.â

âWonât a lighter do?â

âMineâs no good, and anyway itâs difficult to light a gas fire with one. Make yourself at home. Thereâs an old blind man stands on the corner. I usually get my matches off him. I shanât be a minute or two.â

Left alone in the studio, Midge wandered round looking at Henriettaâs work. It gave her an eerie feeling to be sharing the empty studio with these creations of wood and bronze.

There was a bronze head with high cheekbones and a tin hat, possibly a Red Army soldier, and there was an airy structure of twisted ribbonlike aluminium which intrigued her a good deal. There was a vast static frog in pinkish granite, and at the end of the studio she came to an almost life-sized wooden figure.

She was staring at it when Henriettaâs key turned in the door and Henrietta herself came in slightly breathless.

Midge turned.

âWhatâs this, Henrietta? Itâs rather frightening.â

âThat? Thatâs The Worshipper. Itâs going to the International Group.â

Midge repeated, staring at it:

âItâs frightening.â

Kneeling to light the gas fire, Henrietta said over her shoulder:

âItâs interesting your saying that. Why do you find it frightening?â

âI thinkâbecause it hasnât any face.â

âHow right you are, Midge.â

âItâs very good, Henrietta.â

Henrietta said lightly:

âItâs a nice bit of pearwood.â

She rose from her knees. She tossed her big satchel bag and her furs on to the divan, and threw down a couple of boxes of matches on the table.

Midge was struck by the expression on her faceâit had a sudden quite inexplicable exultation.

âNow for tea,â said Henrietta, and in her voice was the same warm jubilation that Midge had already glimpsed in her face.

It struck an almost jarring noteâbut Midge forgot it in a train of thought aroused by the sight of the two boxes of matches.

âYou remember those matches Veronica Cray took away with her?â

âWhen Lucy insisted on foisting a whole half-dozen on her? Yes.â

âDid anyone ever find out whether she had matches in her cottage all the time?â

âI expect the police did. Theyâre very thorough.â

A faintly triumphant smile was curving Henriettaâs lips. Midge felt puzzled and almost repelled.

She thought: âCan Henrietta really have cared for John? Can she? Surely not.â

And a faint desolate chill struck through her as she reflected:

âEdward will not have to wait very longâ¦.â

Ungenerous of her not to let that thought bring warmth. She wanted Edward to be happy, didnât she? It wasnât as though she could have Edward herself. To Edward she would be always âlittle Midge.â Never more than that. Never a woman to be loved.

Edward, unfortunately, was the faithful kind. Well, the faithful kind usually got what they wanted in the end.

Edward and Henrietta at Ainswickâ¦that was the proper ending to the story. Edward and Henrietta living happy ever afterwards.

She could see it all very clearly.

âCheer up, Midge,â said Henrietta. âYou mustnât let murder get you down. Shall we go out later and have a spot of dinner together?â

But Midge said quickly that she must get back to her rooms. She had things to doâletters to write. In fact, sheâd better go as soon as sheâd finished her cup of tea.

âAll right. Iâll drive you there.â

âI could get a taxi.â

âNonsense. Letâs use the car, as itâs there.â

They went out into damp evening air. As they drove past the end of the Mews Henrietta pointed out a car drawn in to the side.

âA Ventnor 10. Our shadow. Youâll see. Heâll follow us.â

âHow beastly it all is!â

âDo you think so? I donât really mind.â

Henrietta dropped Midge at her rooms and came back to the Mews and put her car away in the garage.

Then she let herself into the studio once more.

For some minutes she stood abstractedly drumming with her fingers on the mantelpiece. Then she sighed and murmured to herself:

âWellâto work. Better not waste time.â

She threw off her tweeds and got into her overall.

An hour and a half later she drew back and studied what she had done. There were dabs of clay on her cheek and her hair was dishevelled, but she nodded approval at the model on the stand.

It was the rough similitude of a horse. The clay had been slapped on in great irregular lumps. It was the kind of horse that would have given the colonel of a cavalry regiment apoplexy, so unlike was it to any flesh and blood horse that had ever been foaled. It would also have distressed Henriettaâs Irish hunting forebears. Nevertheless it was a horseâa horse conceived in the abstract.

Henrietta wondered what Inspector Grange would think of it if he ever saw it, and her mouth widened a little in amusement as she pictured his face.

Twenty-four

Edward Angkatell stood hesitantly in the swirl of foot traffic in Shaftesbury Avenue. He was nerving himself to enter the establishment which bore the gold-lettered sign: âMadame Alfrege.â

Some obscure instinct had prevented him from merely ringing up and asking Midge to come out and lunch. That fragment of telephone conversation at The Hollow had disturbed himâmore, had shocked him. There had been in Midgeâs voice a submission, a subservience that had outraged all his feelings.

For Midge, the free, the cheerful, the outspoken, to have to adopt that attitude. To have to submit, as she clearly was submitting, to rudeness and insolence on the other end of the wire. It was all wrongâthe whole thing was wrong! And then, when he had shown his concern, she had met him point-blank with the unpalatable truth that one had to keep oneâs job, that jobs werenât easy to get, and that the holding down of jobs entailed more unpleasantness than the mere performing of a stipulated task.

Up till then Edward had vaguely accepted the fact that a great many young women had âjobsâ nowadays. If he had thought about it at all, he had thought that on the whole they had jobs because they liked jobsâthat it flattered their sense of independence and gave them an interest of their own in life.

The fact that a working day of nine to six, with an hour off for lunch, cut a girl off from most of the pleasures and relaxations of a leisured class had simply not occurred to Edward. That Midge, unless she sacrificed her lunch hour, could not drop into a picture gallery, that she could not go to an afternoon concert, drive out of town on a fine summerâs day, lunch in a leisurely way at a distant restaurant, but had instead to relegate her excursions into the country to Saturday afternoons and Sundays, and to snatch her lunch in a crowded Lyons or a snack bar, was a new and unwelcome discovery. He was very fond of Midge. Little Midgeâthat was how he thought of her. Arriving shy and wide-eyed at Ainswick for the holidays, tongue-tied at first, then opening up into enthusiasm and affection.

Edwardâs tendency to live exclusively in the past, and to accept the present dubiously as something yet untested, had delayed his recognition of Midge as a wage-earning adult.

It was on that evening at The Hollow when he had come in cold and shivering from that strange, upsetting clash with Henrietta, and when Midge had knelt to build up the fire, that he had been first aware of a Midge who was not an affectionate child but a woman. It had been an upsetting visionâhe had felt for a moment that he had lost somethingâsomething that was a precious part of Ainswick. And he had said impulsively, speaking out of that suddenly aroused feeling, âI wish I saw more of you, little Midgeâ¦.â

Standing outside in the moonlight, speaking to a Henrietta who was no longer startingly the familiar Henrietta he had loved for so longâhe had known sudden panic. And he had come in to a further disturbance of the set pattern which was his life. Little Midge was also a part of Ainswickâand this was no longer little Midge, but a courageous and sad-eyed adult whom he did not know.

Ever since then he had been troubled in his mind, and had indulged in a good deal of self-reproach for the unthinking way in which he had never bothered about Midgeâs happiness or comfort. The idea of her uncongenial job at Madame Alfregeâs had worried him more and more, and he had determined at last to see for himself just what this dress shop of hers was like.

Edward peered suspiciously into the show window at a little black dress with a narrow gold belt, some rakish-looking, skimpy jumper suits, and an evening gown of rather tawdry coloured lace.

Edward knew nothing about womenâs clothes except by instinct, but had a shrewd idea that all these exhibits were somehow of a meretricious order. No, he thought, this place was not worthy of her. SomeoneâLady Angkatell, perhapsâmust do something about it.

Overcoming his shyness with an effort, Edward straightened his slightly stooping shoulders and walked in.

He was instantly paralysed with embarrassment. Two platinum blonde little minxes with shrill voices were examining dresses in a showcase, with a dark saleswoman in attendance. At the back of the shop a small woman with a thick nose, henna red hair and a disagreeable voice was arguing with a stout and bewildered customer over some alterations to an evening gown. From an adjacent cubicle a womanâs fretful voice was raised.

âFrightfulâperfectly frightfulâcanât you bring me anything decent to try?â

In response he heard the soft murmur of Midgeâs voiceâa deferential, persuasive voice.

âThis wine model is really very smart. And I think it would suit you. If youâd just slip it onââ

âIâm not going to waste my time trying on things that I can see are no good. Do take a little trouble. Iâve told you I donât want reds. If youâd listen to what you are toldââ

The colour surged up into Edwardâs neck. He hoped Midge would throw the dress in the odious womanâs face. Instead she murmured:

âIâll have another look. You wouldnât care for green I suppose, Madam? Or this peach?â

âDreadfulâperfectly dreadful! No, I wonât see anything more. Sheer waste of timeââ

But now Madame Alfrege, detaching herself from the stout customer, had come down to Edward and was looking at him inquiringly.

He pulled himself together.

âIsâcould I speakâis Miss Hardcastle here?â

Madame Alfregeâs eyebrows went up, but she took in the Savile Row cut of Edwardâs clothes, and she produced a smile whose graciousness was rather more unpleasant than her bad temper would have been.

From inside the cubicle the fretful voice rose sharply.

âDo be careful! How clumsy you are. Youâve torn my hairnet.â

And Midge, her voice unsteady:

âIâm very sorry, Madam.â

âStupid clumsiness.â (The voice appeared muffled.) âNo, Iâll do it myself. My belt, please.â

âMiss Hardcastle will be free in a minute,â said Madame Alfrege. Her smile was now a leer.

A sandy-haired, bad-tempered-looking woman emerged from the cubicle carrying several parcels and went out into the street. Midge, in a severe black dress, opened the door for her. She looked pale and unhappy.

âIâve come to take you out to lunch,â said Edward without preamble.

Midge gave a harried glance up at the clock.

âI donât get off until quarter past one,â she began.

It was ten past one.

Madame Alfrege said graciously:

âYou can go off now if you like, Miss Hardcastle, as your friend has called for you.â

Midge murmured: âOh thank you, Madame Alfrege,â and to Edward: âIâll be ready in a minute,â and disappeared into the back of the shop.

Edward, who had winced under the impact of Madame Alfregeâs heavy emphasis on âfriend,â stood helplessly waiting.

Madame Alfrege was just about to enter into arch conversation with him when the door opened and an opulent-looking woman with a Pekinese came in, and Madame Alfregeâs business instincts took her forward to the newcomer.

Midge reappeared with her coat on, and taking her by the elbow, Edward steered her out of the shop into the street.

âMy God,â he said, âis that the sort of thing you have to put up with? I heard that damned woman talking to you behind the curtain. How can you stick it, Midge? Why didnât you throw the damned frocks at her head?â

âIâd soon lose my job if I did things like that.â

âBut donât you want to fling things at a woman of that kind?â

Midge drew a deep breath.

âOf course I do. And there are times, especially at the end of a hot week during the summer sales, when I am afraid that one day I shall let go and just tell everyone exactly where they get offâinstead of âYes, Madam,â âNo, MadamâââIâll see if we have anything else, Madam.ââ

âMidge, dear little Midge, you canât put up with all this!â

Midge laughed a little shakily.

âDonât be upset, Edward. Why on earth did you have to come here? Why not ring up?â

âI wanted to see for myself. Iâve been worried.â He paused and then broke out, âWhy, Lucy wouldnât talk to a scullery maid the way that woman talked to you. Itâs all wrong that you should have to put up with insolence and rudeness. Good God, Midge, Iâd like to take you right out of it all down to Ainswick. Iâd like to hail a taxi, bundle you into it, and take you down to Ainswick now by the 2:15.â

Midge stopped. Her assumed nonchalance fell from her. She had had a long tiring morning with trying customers, and Madame at her most bullying. She turned on Edward with a sudden flare of resentment.

âWell, then, why donât you? There are plenty of taxis!â

He stared at her, taken aback by her sudden fury. She went on, her anger flaming up:

âWhy do you have to come along and say these things? You donât mean them. Do you think it makes it any easier after Iâve had the hell of a morning to be reminded that there are places like Ainswick? Do you think Iâm grateful to you for standing there and babbling about how much youâd like to take me out of it all? All very sweet and insincere. You donât really mean a word of it. Donât you know that Iâd sell my soul to catch the 2:15 to Ainswick and get away from everything? I canât bear even to think of Ainswick, do you understand? You mean well, Edward, but youâre cruel! Saying thingsâjust saying thingsâ¦.â

They faced each other, seriously incommoding the lunchtime crowd in Shaftesbury Avenue. Yet they were conscious of nothing but each other. Edward was staring at her like a man suddenly aroused from sleep.

He said: âAll right then, damn it. Youâre coming to Ainswick by the 2:15!â

He raised his stick and hailed a passing taxi. It drew into the kerb. Edward opened the door, and Midge, slightly dazed, got in. Edward said: âPaddington Stationâ to the driver and followed her in.

They sat in silence. Midgeâs lips were set together. Her eyes were defiant and mutinous. Edward stared straight ahead of him.

As they waited for the traffic lights in Oxford Street, Midge said disagreeably:

âI seem to have called your bluff.â

Edward said shortly:

âIt wasnât bluff.â

The taxi started forward again with a jerk.

It was not until the taxi turned left in Edgware Road into Cambridge Terrace that Edward suddenly regained his normal attitude to life.

He said: âWe canât catch the 2:15,â and tapping on the glass he said to the driver: âGo to the Berkeley.â

Midge said coldly: âWhy canât we catch the 2:15? Itâs only twenty-five past one now.â

Edward smiled at her.

âYou havenât got any luggage, little Midge. No nightgowns or toothbrushes or country shoes. Thereâs a 4:15, you know. Weâll have some lunch now and talk things over.â

Midge sighed.

âThatâs so like you, Edward. To remember the practical side. Impulse doesnât carry you very far, does it? Oh, well, it was a nice dream while it lasted.â

She slipped her hand into his and gave him her old smile.

âIâm sorry I stood on the pavement and abused you like a fish-wife,â she said. âBut you know, Edward, you were irritating.â

âYes,â he said. âI must have been.â

They went into the Berkeley happily side by side. They got a table by the window and Edward ordered an excellent lunch.

As they finished their chicken, Midge sighed and said: âI ought to hurry back to the shop. My timeâs up.â

âYouâre going to take decent time over your lunch today, even if I have to go back and buy half the clothes in the shop!â

âDear Edward, you are really rather sweet.â

They ate CrÃªpes Suzette, and then the waiter brought them coffee. Edward stirred his sugar in with his spoon.

He said gently:

âYou really do love Ainswick, donât you?â

âMust we talk about Ainswick? Iâve survived not catching the 2:15âand I quite realize that there isnât any question of the 4:15âbut donât rub it in.â

Edward smiled. âNo, Iâm not proposing that we catch the 4:15. But I am suggesting that you come to Ainswick, Midge. Iâm suggesting that you come there for goodâthat is, if you can put up with me.â

She stared at him over the rim of her coffee cupâput it down with a hand that she managed to keep steady.

âWhat do you really mean, Edward?â

âIâm suggesting that you should marry me, Midge. I donât suppose that Iâm a very romantic proposition. Iâm a dull dog, I know that, and not much good at anything. I just read books and potter around. But although Iâm not a very exciting person, weâve known each other a long time and I think that Ainswick itself wouldâwell, would compensate. I think youâd be happy at Ainswick, Midge. Will you come?â

Midge swallowed once or twice, then she said:

âBut I thoughtâHenriettaââ and stopped.

Edward said, his voice level and unemotional:

âYes, Iâve asked Henrietta to marry me three times. Each time she has refused. Henrietta knows what she doesnât want.â

There was a silence, and then Edward said:

âWell, Midge dear, what about it?â

Midge looked up at him. There was a catch in her voice. She said:

âIt seems so extraordinaryâto be offered heaven on a plate as it were, at the Berkeley!â

His face lighted up. He laid his hand over hers for a brief moment.

âHeaven on a plate,â he said. âSo you feel like that about Ainswick. Oh, Midge, Iâm glad.â

They sat there happily. Edward paid the bill and added an enormous tip. The people in the restaurant were thinning out. Midge said with an effort:

âWeâll have to go. I suppose Iâd better go back to Madame Alfrege. After all, sheâs counting on me. I canât just walk out.â

âNo, I suppose youâll have to go back and resign or hand in your notice or whatever you call it. Youâre not to go on working there, though. I wonât have it. But first I thought weâd better go to one of those shops in Bond Street where they sell rings.â

âRings?â

âItâs usual, isnât it?â

Midge laughed.

Â 

In the dimmed lighting of the jewellerâs shop, Midge and Edward bent over trays of sparkling engagement rings, whilst a discreet salesman watched them benignantly.

Edward said, pushing away a velvet-covered tray:

âNot emeralds.â

Henrietta in green tweedsâHenrietta in an evening dress like Chinese jadeâ¦.

No, not emeralds.

Midge pushed away the tiny stabbing pain at her heart.

âChoose for me,â she said to Edward.

He bent over the tray before them. He picked out a ring with a single diamond. Not a very large stone, but a stone of beautiful colour and fire.

âIâd like this.â

Midge nodded. She loved this display of Edwardâs unerring and fastidious taste. She slipped it on her finger as Edward and the shopman drew aside.

Edward wrote out a cheque for three hundred and forty-two pounds and came back to Midge smiling.

He said: âLetâs go and be rude to Madame Alfrege.â

Twenty-five

âBut, darling, I am so delighted!â

Lady Angkatell stretched out a fragile hand to Edward and touched Midge softly with the other.

âYou did quite right, Edward, to make her leave that horrid shop and bring her right down here. Sheâll stay here, of course, and be married from here. St. Georgeâs, you know, three miles by the road, though only a mile through the woods, but then one doesnât go to a wedding through woods. And I suppose it will have to be the vicarâpoor man, he has such dreadful colds in the head every autumn. The curate, now, has one of those high Anglican voices, and the whole thing would be far more impressiveâand more religious, too, if you know what I mean. It is so hard to keep oneâs mind reverent when somebody is saying things through their noses.â

It was, Midge decided, a very Lucyish reception. It made her want to both laugh and cry.

âIâd love to be married from here, Lucy,â she said.

âThen thatâs settled, darling. Off-white satin, I think, and an ivory prayer bookânot a bouquet. Bridesmaids?â

âNo. I donât want a fuss. Just a very quiet wedding.â

âI know what you mean, darling, and I think perhaps you are right. With an autumn wedding itâs nearly always chrysanthemumsâsuch an uninspiring flower, I always think. And unless one takes a lot of time to choose them carefully bridesmaids never match properly, and thereâs nearly always one terribly plain one who ruins the whole effectâbut one has to have her because sheâs usually the bridegroomâs sister. But of courseââ Lady Angkatell beamed, âEdward hasnât got any sisters.â

âThat seems to be one point in my favour,â said Edward, smiling.

âBut children are really the worst at weddings,â went on Lady Angkatell, happily pursuing her own train of thought. âEveryone says: âHow sweet!â but, my dear, the anxiety! They step on the train, or else they howl for Nannie, and quite often theyâre sick. I always wonder how a girl can go up the aisle in a proper frame of mind, while sheâs so uncertain about what is happening behind her.â

âThere neednât be anything behind me,â said Midge cheerfully. âNot even a train. I can be married in a coat and skirt.â

âOh, no, Midge, thatâs so like a widow. No, off-white satin and not from Madame Alfregeâs.â

âCertainly not from Madame Alfregeâs,â said Edward.

âI shall take you to Mireille,â said Lady Angkatell.

âMy dear Lucy, I canât possibly afford Mireille.â

âNonsense, Midge. Henry and I are going to give you your trousseau. And Henry, of course, will give you away. I do hope the band of his trousers wonât be too tight. Itâs nearly two years since he last went to a wedding. And I shall wearââ

Lady Angkatell paused and closed her eyes.

âYes, Lucy?â

âHydrangea blue,â announced Lady Angkatell in a rapt voice. âI suppose, Edward, you will have one of your own friends for best man, otherwise, of course, there is David. I cannot help feeling it would be frightfully good for David. It would give him poise, you know, and he would feel we all liked him. That, I am sure, is very important with David. It must be disheartening, you know, to feel you are clever and intellectual and yet nobody likes you any the better for it! But of course it would be rather a risk. He would probably lose the ring, or drop it at the last minute. I expect it would worry Edward too much. But it would be nice in a way to keep it to the same people weâve had here for the murder.â

Lady Angkatell uttered the last few words in the most conversational of tones.

âLady Angkatell has been entertaining a few friends for a murder this autumn,â Midge could not help saying.

âYes,â said Lucy meditatively. âI suppose it did sound like that. A party for the shooting. You know, when you come to think of it, thatâs just what it has been!â

Midge gave a faint shiver and said:

âWell, at any rate, itâs over now.â

âItâs not exactly overâthe inquest was only adjourned. And that nice Inspector Grange has got men all over the place simply crashing through the chestnut woods and startling all the pheasants, and springing up like jacks in the box in the most unlikely places.â

âWhat are they looking for?â asked Edward. âThe revolver that Christow was shot with?â

âI imagine that must be it. They even came to the house with a search warrant. The inspector was most apologetic about it, quite shy, but of course I told him we should be delighted. It was really most interesting. They looked absolutely everywhere. I followed them round, you know, and I suggested one or two places which even they hadnât thought of. But they didnât find anything. It was most disappointing. Poor Inspector Grange, he is growing quite thin and he pulls and pulls at that moustache of his. His wife ought to give him specially nourishing meals with all this worry he is havingâbut I have a vague idea that she must be one of those women who care more about having the linoleum really well polished than in cooking a tasty little meal. Which reminds me, I must go and see Mrs. Medway. Funny how servants cannot bear the police. Her cheese soufflÃ© last night was quite uneatable. SoufflÃ©s and pastry always show if one is off balance. If it werenât for Gudgeon keeping them all together I really believe half the servants would leave. Why donât you two go and have a nice walk and help the police look for the revolver?â

Hercule Poirot sat on the bench overlooking the chestnut groves above the pool. He had no sense of trespassing since Lady Angkatell had very sweetly begged him to wander where he would at any time. It was Lady Angkatellâs sweetness which Hercule Poirot was considering at this moment.

From time to time he heard the cracking of twigs in the woods above or caught sight of a figure moving through the chestnut groves below him.

Presently Henrietta came along the path from the direction of the lane. She stopped for a moment when she saw Poirot, then she came and sat down by him.

âGood morning, M. Poirot. I have just been to call upon you. But you were out. You look very Olympian. Are you presiding over the hunt? The inspector seems very active. What are they looking for, the revolver?â

âYes, Miss Savernake.â

âWill they find it, do you think?â

âI think so. Quite soon now, I should say.â

She looked at him inquiringly.

âHave you an idea, then, where it is?â

âNo. But I think it will be found soon. It is time for it to be found.â

âYou do say odd things, M. Poirot!â

âOdd things happen here. You have come back very soon from London, Mademoiselle.â

Her face hardened. She gave a short, bitter laugh.

âThe murderer returns to the scene of the crime? That is the old superstition, isnât it? So you do think that Iâdid it! You donât believe me when I tell you that I wouldnâtâthat I couldnât kill anybody?â

Poirot did not answer at once. At last he said thoughtfully:

âIt has seemed to me from the beginning that either this crime was very simpleâso simple that it was difficult to believe its simplicity (and simplicity, Mademoiselle, can be strangely baffling) or else it was extremely complex. That is to say, we were contending against a mind capable of intricate and ingenious inventions, so that every time we seemed to be heading for the truth, we were actually being led on a trail that twisted away from the truth and led us to a point whichâended in nothingness. This apparent futility, this continual barrenness, is not realâit is artificial, it is planned. A very subtle and ingenious mind is plotting against us the whole timeâand succeeding.â

âWell?â said Henrietta. âWhat has that to do with me?â

âThe mind that is plotting against us is a creative mind, Mademoiselle.â

âI seeâthatâs where I come in?â

She was silent, her lips set together bitterly. From her jacket pocket she had taken a pencil and now she was idly drawing the outline of a fantastic tree on the white painted wood of the bench, frowning as she did so.

Poirot watched her. Something stirred in his mindâstanding in Lady Angkatellâs drawing room on the afternoon of the crime, looking down at a pile of bridge markers, standing by a painted iron table in the pavilion the next morning, and a question that he had put to Gudgeon.

He said:

âThat is what you drew on your bridge markerâa tree.â

âYes.â Henrietta seemed suddenly aware of what she was doing. âYgdrasil, M. Poirot.â She laughed.

âWhy do you call it Ygdrasil?â

She explained the origin of Ygdrasil.

âAnd so, when you âdoodleâ (that is the word, is it not?) it is always Ygdrasil you draw?â

âYes. Doodling is a funny thing, isnât it?â

âHere on the seatâon the bridge marker on Saturday eveningâin the pavilion on Sunday morningâ¦.â

The hand that held the pencil stiffened and stopped. She said in a tone of careless amusement:

âIn the pavilion?â

âYes, on the round iron table there.â

âOh, that must have been onâon Saturday afternoon.â

âIt was not on Saturday afternoon. When Gudgeon brought the glasses out to the pavilion about twelve oâclock on Sunday morning, there was nothing drawn on the table. I asked him and he is quite definite about that.â

âThen it must have beenââshe hesitated for just a momentââof course, on Sunday afternoon.â

But still smiling pleasantly, Hercule Poirot shook his head.

âI think not. Grangeâs men were at the pool all Sunday afternoon, photographing the body, getting the revolver out of the water. They did not leave until dusk. They would have seen anyone go into the pavilion.â

Henrietta said slowly:

âI remember now. I went along there quite late in the eveningâafter dinner.â

Poirotâs voice came sharply:

âPeople do not âdoodleâ in the dark, Miss Savernake. Are you telling me that you went into the pavilion at night and stood by a table and drew a tree without being able to see what you were drawing?â

Henrietta said calmly: âI am telling you the truth. Naturally you donât believe it. You have your own ideas. What is your idea, by the way?â

âI am suggesting that you were in the pavilion on Sunday morning after twelve oâclock when Gudgeon brought the glasses out. That you stood by that table watching someone, or waiting for someone, and unconsciously took out a pencil and drew Ygdrasil without being fully aware of what you were doing.â

âI was not in the pavilion on Sunday morning. I sat out on the terrace for a while, then I got the gardening basket and went up to the dahlia border and cut off heads and tied up some of the Michaelmas daisies that were untidy. Then just on one oâclock I went along to the pool. Iâve been through it all with Inspector Grange. I never came near the pool until one oâclock, just after John had been shot.â

âThat,â said Hercule Poirot, âis your story. But Ygdrasil, Mademoiselle, testifies against you.â

âI was in the pavilion and I shot John, thatâs what you mean?â

âYou were there and you shot Dr. Christow, or you were there and you saw who shot Dr. Christowâor someone else was there who knew about Ygdrasil and deliberately drew it on the table to put suspicion on you.â

Henrietta got up. She turned on him with her chin lifted.

âYou still think that I shot John Christow. You think that you can prove I shot him. Well, I will tell you this. You will never prove it. Never!â

âYou think that you are cleverer than I am?â

âYou will never prove it,â said Henrietta, and, turning, she walked away down the winding path that led to the swimming pool.

Twenty-six

Grange came in to Resthaven to drink a cup of tea with Hercule Poirot. The tea was exactly what he had had apprehensions it might beâextremely weak and China tea at that.

âThese foreigners,â thought Grange, âdonât know how to make tea. You canât teach âem.â But he did not mind much. He was in a condition of pessimism when one more thing that was unsatisfactory actually afforded him a kind of grim satisfaction.

He said: âThe adjourned inquestâs the day after tomorrow and where have we got? Nowhere at all. What the hell, that gun must be somewhere! Itâs this damned countryâmiles of woods. It would take an army to search them properly. Talk of a needle in a haystack. It may be anywhere. The fact is, weâve got to face up to itâwe may never find that gun.â

âYou will find it,â said Poirot confidently.

âWell, it wonât be for want of trying!â

âYou will find it, sooner or later. And I should say sooner. Another cup of tea?â

âI donât mind if I doâno, no hot water.â

âIs it not too strong?â

âOh, no, itâs not too strong.â The inspector was conscious of understatement.

Gloomily he sipped at the pale, straw-coloured beverage.

âThis case is making a monkey of me, M. Poirotâa monkey of me! I canât get the hang of these people. They seem helpfulâbut everything they tell you seems to lead you away on a wild-goose chase.â

âAway?â said Poirot. A startled look came into his eyes. âYes, I see. Awayâ¦.â

The inspector was now developing his grievance.

âTake the gun now. Christow was shotâaccording to the medical evidenceâonly a minute or two before your arrival. Lady Angkatell had that egg basket, Miss Savernake had a gardening basket full of dead flower heads, and Edward Angkatell was wearing a loose shooting coat with large pockets stuffed with cartridges. Any one of them could have carried the revolver away with them. It wasnât hidden anywhere near the poolâmy men have raked the place, so thatâs definitely out.â

Poirot nodded. Grange went on:

âGerda Christow was framedâbut who by? Thatâs where every clue I follow seems to vanish into thin air.â

âTheir stories of how they spent the morning are satisfactory?â

âThe stories are all right. Miss Savernake was gardening. Lady Angkatell was collecting eggs. Edward Angkatell and Sir Henry were shooting and separated at the end of the morningâSir Henry coming back to the house and Edward Angkatell coming down here through the woods. The young fellow was up in his bedroom reading. (Funny place to read on a nice day, but heâs the indoor, bookish kind.) Miss Hardcastle took a book down to the orchard. All sounds very natural and likely, and thereâs no means of checking up on it. Gudgeon took a tray of glasses out to the pavilion about twelve oâclock. He canât say where any of the house party were or what they were doing. In a way, you know, thereâs something against almost all of them.â

âReally?â

âOf course the most obvious person is Veronica Cray. She had quarrelled with Christow, she hated his guts, sheâs quite likely to have shot himâbut I canât find the least iota of proof that she did shoot him. No evidence as to her having had any opportunity to pinch the revolvers from Sir Henryâs collection. No one who saw her going to or from the pool that day. And the missing revolver definitely isnât in her possession now.â

âAh, you have made sure of that?â

âWhat do you think? The evidence would have justified a search warrant but there was no need. She was quite gracious about it. Itâs not anywhere in that tin-pot bungalow. After the inquest was adjourned we made a show of letting up on Miss Cray and Miss Savernake, and weâve had a tail on them to see where they went and what theyâd do. Weâve had a man on at the film studios watching Veronicaâno sign of her trying to ditch the gun there.â

âAnd Henrietta Savernake?â

âNothing there either. She went straight back to Chelsea and weâve kept an eye on her ever since. The revolver isnât in her studio or in her possession. She was quite pleasant about the searchâseemed amused. Some of her fancy stuff gave our man quite a turn. He said it beat him why people wanted to do that kind of thingâstatues all lumps and swellings, bits of brass and aluminum twisted into fancy shapes, horses that you wouldnât know were horses.â

Poirot stirred a little.

âHorses, you say?â

âWell, a horse. If youâd call it a horse! If people want to model a horse, why donât they go and look at a horse!â

âA horse,â repeated Poirot.

Grange turned his head.

âWhat is there about that that interests you so, M. Poirot? I donât get it.â

âAssociationâa point of the psychology.â

âWord association? Horse and cart? Rocking horse? Clothes horse. No, I donât get it. Anyway, after a day or two, Miss Savernake packs up and comes down here again. You know that?â

âYes, I have talked with her and I have seen her walking in the woods.â

âRestless, yes. Well, she was having an affair with the doctor all right, and his saying: âHenriettaâ as he died is pretty near to an accusation. But itâs not quite near enough, M. Poirot.â

âNo,â said Poirot thoughtfully, âit is not near enough.â

Grange said heavily:

âThereâs something in the atmosphere hereâit gets you all tangled up! Itâs as though they all knew something. Lady Angkatell nowâsheâs never been able to put out a decent reason why she took out a gun with her that day. Itâs a crazy thing to doâsometimes I think she is crazy.â

Poirot shook his head very gently.

âNo,â he said, âshe is not crazy.â

âThen thereâs Edward Angkatell. I thought I was getting something on him. Lady Angkatell saidâno, hintedâthat heâd been in love with Miss Savernake for years. Well, that gives him a motive. And now I find itâs the other girlâMiss Hardcastleâthat heâs engaged to. So bang goes the case against him.â

Poirot gave a sympathetic murmur.

âThen thereâs the young fellow,â pursued the inspector. âLady Angkatell let slip something about him. His mother, it seems, died in an asylumâpersecution maniaâthought everybody was conspiring to kill her. Well, you can see what that might mean. If the boy had inherited that particular strain of insanity, he might have got ideas into his head about Dr. Christowâmight have fancied the doctor was planning to certify him. Not that Christow was that kind of doctor. Nervous affections of the alimentary canal and diseases of the superâsuper something. That was Christowâs line. But if the boy was a bit touched, he might imagine Christow was here to keep him under observation. Heâs got an extraordinary manner, that young fellow, nervous as a cat.â

Grange sat unhappily for a moment or two.

âYou see what I mean? All vague suspicions, leading nowhere.â

Poirot stirred again. He murmured softly:

âAwayânot towards. From, not to. Nowhere instead of somewhereâ¦ Yes, of course, that must be it.â

Grange stared at him. He said:

âTheyâre queer, all these Angkatells. Iâd swear, sometimes, that they know all about it.â

Poirot said quietly:

âThey do.â

âYou mean, they know, all of them, who did it?â the inspector asked incredulously.

Poirot nodded.

âYes, they know. I have thought so for some time. I am quite sure now.â

âI see.â The inspectorâs face was grim. âAnd theyâre hiding it up between them? Well, Iâll beat them yet. Iâm going to find that gun.â

It was, Poirot reflected, quite the inspectorâs theme song.

Grange went on with rancour:

âIâd give anything to get even with them.â

âWithââ

âAll of them! Muddling me up! Suggesting things! Hinting! Helping my menâhelping them! All gossamer and spidersâ webs, nothing tangible. What I want is a good solid fact!â

Hercule Poirot had been staring out of the window for some moments. His eye had been attracted by an irregularity in the symmetry of his domain.

He said now:

âYou want a solid fact? Eh bien, unless I am much mistaken, there is a solid fact in the hedge by my gate.â

They went down the garden path. Grange went down on his knees, coaxed the twigs apart till he disclosed more fully the thing that had been thrust between them. He drew a deep sigh as something black and steel was revealed.

He said: âItâs a revolver all right.â

Just for a moment his eye rested doubtfully on Poirot.

âNo, no, my friend,â said Poirot. âI did not shoot Dr. Christow and I did not put the revolver in my own hedge.â

âOf course you didnât, M. Poirot! Sorry! Well, weâve got it. Looks like the one missing from Sir Henryâs study. We can verify that as soon as we get the number. Then weâll see if it was the gun that shot Christow. Easy does it now.â

With infinite care and the use of a silk handkerchief he eased the gun out of the hedge.

âTo give us a break, we want fingerprints. Iâve a feeling, you know, that our luckâs changed at last.â

âLet me know.â

âOf course I will, M. Poirot. Iâll ring you up.â

Poirot received two telephone calls. The first came through that same evening. The inspector was jubilant.

âThat you, M. Poirot? Well, hereâs the dope. Itâs the gun all right. The gun missing from Sir Henryâs collection and the gun that shot John Christow! Thatâs definite. And there are a good set of prints on it. Thumb, first finger, part of middle finger. Didnât I tell you our luck had changed?â

âYou have identified the fingerprints?â

âNot yet. Theyâre certainly not Mrs. Christowâs. We took hers. They look more like a manâs than a womanâs for size. Tomorrow Iâm going along to The Hollow to speak my little piece and get a sample from everyone. And then, M. Poirot, we shall know where we are!â

âI hope so, I am sure,â said Poirot politely.

The second telephone call came through on the following day and the voice that spoke was no longer jubilant. In tones of unmitigated gloom, Grange said:

âWant to hear the latest? Those fingerprints arenât the prints of anybody connected with the case! No, sir! Theyâre not Edward Angkatellâs, nor Davidâs, nor Sir Henryâs! Theyâre not Gerda Christowâs, nor the Savernakeâs, nor our Veronicaâs, nor her ladyshipâs, nor the little dark girlâs! Theyâre not even the kitchen maidâsâlet alone any of the other servantsâ!â

Poirot made consoling noises. The sad voice of Inspector Grange went on:

âSo it looks as though, after all, it was an outside job. Someone, that is to say, who had a down on Dr. Christow and who we donât know anything about. Someone invisible and inaudible who pinched the guns from the study, and who went away after the shooting by the path to the lane. Someone who put the gun in your hedge and then vanished into thin air!â

âWould you like my fingerprints, my friend?â

âI donât mind if I do! It strikes me, M. Poirot, that you were on the spot, and that taking it all round youâre far and away the most suspicious character in the case!â

Twenty-seven

I

The coroner cleared his throat and looked expectantly at the foreman of the jury.

The latter looked down at the piece of paper he held in his hand. His Adamâs apple wagged up and down excitedly. He read out in a careful voice:

âWe find that the deceased came to his death by wilful murder by some person or persons unknown.â

Poirot nodded his head quietly in his corner by the wall. There could be no other possible verdict.

Outside the Angkatells stopped a moment to talk to Gerda and her sister. Gerda was wearing the same black clothes. Her face had the same dazed, unhappy expression. This time there was no Daimler. The train service, Elsie Patterson explained, was really very good. A fast train to Waterloo and they could easily catch the 1:20 to Bexhill.

Lady Angkatell, clasping Gerdaâs hand, murmured:

âYou must keep in touch with us, my dear. A little lunch, perhaps, one day in London? I expect you come up to do shopping occasionally.â

âIâI donât know,â said Gerda.

Elsie Patterson said:

âWe must hurry, dear, our train,â and Gerda turned away with an expression of relief.

Midge said:

âPoor Gerda. The only thing Johnâs death has done for her is to set her free from your terrifying hospitality, Lucy.â

âHow unkind you are, Midge. Nobody could say I didnât try.â

âYou are much worse when you try, Lucy.â

âWell, itâs very nice to think itâs all over, isnât it?â said Lady Angkatell, beaming at them. âExcept, of course, for poor Inspector Grange. I do feel so sorry for him. Would it cheer him up, do you think, if we asked him back to lunch? As a friend, I mean.â

âI should let well alone, Lucy,â said Sir Henry.

âPerhaps you are right,â said Lady Angkatell meditatively. âAnd anyway it isnât the right kind of lunch today. Partridges au Chouxâand that delicious SoufflÃ© Surprise that Mrs. Medway makes so well. Not at all Inspector Grangeâs kind of lunch. A really good steak, a little underdone, and a good old-fashioned apple tart with no nonsense about itâor perhaps apple dumplingsâthatâs what I should order for Inspector Grange.â

âYour instincts about food are always very sound, Lucy. I think we had better get home to those partridges. They sound delicious.â

âWell, I thought we ought to have some celebration. Itâs wonderful, isnât it, how everything always seems to turn out for the best?â

âYe-es.â

âI know what youâre thinking, Henry, but donât worry. I shall attend to it this afternoon.â

âWhat are you up to now, Lucy?â

Lady Angkatell smiled at him.

âItâs quite all right, darling. Just tucking in a loose end.â

Sir Henry looked at her doubtfully.

When they reached The Hollow, Gudgeon came out to open the door of the car.

âEverything went off very satisfactorily, Gudgeon,â said Lady Angkatell. âPlease tell Mrs. Medway and the others. I know how unpleasant it has been for you all, and I should like to tell you now how much Sir Henry and I have appreciated the loyalty you have all shown.â

âWe have been deeply concerned for you, my lady,â said Gudgeon.

âVery sweet of Gudgeon,â said Lucy as she went into the drawing room, âbut really quite wasted. I have really almost enjoyed it allâso different, you know, from what one is accustomed to. Donât you feel, David, that an experience like this has broadened your mind? It must be so different from Cambridge.â

âI am at Oxford,â said David coldly.

Lady Angkatell said vaguely: âThe dear Boat Race. So English, donât you think?â and went towards the telephone.

She picked up the receiver and, holding it in her hand, she went on:

âI do hope, David, that you will come and stay with us again. Itâs so difficult, isnât it, to get to know people when there is a murder? And quite impossible to have any really intellectual conversation.â

âThank you,â said David. âBut when I come down I am going to Athensâto the British School.â

Lady Angkatell turned to her husband.

âWhoâs got the Embassy now? Oh, of course. Hope-Remmington. No, I donât think David would like them. Those girls of theirs are so terribly hearty. They play hockey and cricket and the funny game where you catch the thing in a net.â

She broke off, looking down at the telephone receiver.

âNow, what am I doing with this thing?â

âPerhaps you were going to ring someone up,â said Edward.

âI donât think so.â She replaced it. âDo you like telephones, David?â

It was the sort of question, David reflected irritably, that she would ask; one to which there could be no intelligent answer. He replied coldly that he supposed they were useful.

âYou mean,â said Lady Angkatell, âlike mincing machines? Or elastic bands? All the same, one wouldnâtââ

She broke off as Gudgeon appeared in the doorway to announce lunch.

âBut you like partridges,â said Lady Angkatell to David anxiously.

David admitted that he liked partridges.

âSometimes I think Lucy really is a bit touched,â said Midge as she and Edward strolled away from the house and up towards the woods.

The partridges and the SoufflÃ© Surprise had been excellent, and with the inquest over a weight had lifted from the atmosphere.

Edward said thoughtfully:

âI always think Lucy has a brilliant mind that expresses itself like a missing word competition. To mix metaphorsâthe hammer jumps from nail to nail and never fails to hit each one squarely on the head.â

âAll the same,â Midge said soberly, âLucy frightens me sometimes.â She added, with a tiny shiver: âThis place has frightened me lately.â

âThe Hollow?â

Edward turned an astonished face to her.

âIt always reminds me a little of Ainswick,â he said. âItâs not, of course, the real thingââ

Midge interrupted:

âThatâs just it, Edward. Iâm frightened of things that arenât the real thing. You donât know, you see, whatâs behind them. Itâs likeâoh, itâs like a mask.â

âYou mustnât be fanciful, little Midge.â

It was the old tone, the indulgent tone he had used years ago. She had liked it then, but now it disturbed her. She struggled to make her meaning clearâto show him that behind what he called fancy, was some shape of dimly apprehended reality.

âI got away from it in London, but now that Iâm back here it all comes over me again. I feel that everyone knows who killed John Christow. That the only person who doesnât knowâis me.â

Edward said irritably:

âMust we think and talk about John Christow? Heâs dead. Dead and gone.â

Midge murmured:

âHe is dead and gone, lady,

He is dead and gone.

At his head a grass green turf,

At his heels a stone.â

She put her hand on Edwardâs arm. âWho did kill him, Edward? We thought it was Gerdaâbut it wasnât Gerda. Then who was it? Tell me what you think? Was it someone weâve never heard of?â

He said irritably:

âAll this speculation seems to me quite unprofitable. If the police canât find out, or canât get sufficient evidence, then the whole thing will have to be allowed to dropâand we shall be rid of it.â

âYesâbut itâs the not knowing.â

âWhy should we want to know? What has John Christow to do with us?â

With us, she thought, with Edward and me? Nothing! Comforting thoughtâshe and Edward, linked, a dual entity. And yetâand yetâJohn Christow, for all that he had been laid in his grave and the words of the burial service read over him, was not buried deep enough. He is dead and gone, ladyâBut John Christow was not dead and goneâfor all that Edward wished him to be. John Christow was still here at The Hollow.

Edward said: âWhere are we going?â

Something in his tone surprised her. She said:

âLetâs walk up on to the top of the ridge. Shall we?â

âIf you like.â

For some reason he was unwilling. She wondered why. It was usually his favourite walk. He and Henrietta used nearly alwaysâHer thought snapped and broke off. He and Henrietta! She said: âHave you been this way yet this autumn?â

He said stiffly:

âHenrietta and I walked up here that first afternoon.â They went on in silence.

They came at last to the top and sat on the fallen tree.

Midge thought: âHe and Henrietta sat here, perhaps.â

She turned the ring on her finger round and round. The diamond flashed coldly at her. (âNot emeralds,â he had said.)

She said with a slight effort:

âIt will be lovely to be at Ainswick again for Christmas.â

He did not seem to hear her. He had gone far away.

She thought: âHe is thinking of Henrietta and of John Christow.â

Sitting here he had said something to Henrietta or she had said something to him. Henrietta might know what she didnât want, but he belonged to Henrietta still. He always would, Midge thought, belong to Henriettaâ¦.

Pain swooped down upon her. The happy bubble world in which she had lived for the last week quivered and broke.

She thought: âI canât live like thatâwith Henrietta always there in his mind. I canât face it. I canât bear it.â

The wind sighed through the treesâthe leaves were falling fast nowâthere was hardly any golden left, only brown.

She said: âEdward!â

The urgency of her voice aroused him. He turned his head.

âYes?â

âIâm sorry, Edward.â Her lips were trembling but she forced her voice to be quiet and self-controlled. âIâve got to tell you. Itâs no use. I canât marry you. It wouldnât work, Edward.â

He said: âBut, Midgeâsurely Ainswickââ

She interrupted:

âI canât marry you just for Ainswick, Edward. Youâyou must see that.â

He sighed then, a long gentle sigh. It was like an echo of the dead leaves slipping gently off the branches of the trees.

âI see what you mean,â he said. âYes, I suppose you are right.â

âIt was dear of you to ask me, dear and sweet. But it wouldnât do, Edward. It wouldnât work.â

She had had a faint hope, perhaps, that he would argue with her, that he would try to persuade her, but he seemed, quite simply, to feel just as she did about it. Here, with the ghost of Henrietta close beside him, he too, apparently, saw that it couldnât work.

âNo,â he said, echoing her words, âit wouldnât work.â

She slipped the ring off her finger and held it out to him.

She would always love Edward and Edward would always love Henrietta and life was just plain unadulterated hell.

She said with a little catch in her voice:

âItâs a lovely ring, Edward.â

âI wish youâd keep it, Midge. Iâd like you to have it.â

She shook her head.

âI couldnât do that.â

He said with a faint, humorous twist of the lips:

âI shanât give it to anyone else, you know.â

It was all quite friendly. He didnât knowâhe would never knowâjust what she was feeling. Heaven on a plateâand the plate was broken and heaven had slipped between her fingers or had, perhaps, never been there.

II

That afternoon, Poirot received his third visitor.

He had been visited by Henrietta Savernake and Veronica Cray. This time it was Lady Angkatell. She came floating up the path with her usual appearance of insubstantiality.

He opened the door and she stood smiling at him.

âI have come to see you,â she announced.

So might a fairy confer a favour on a mere mortal.

âI am enchanted, Madame.â

He led the way into the sitting room. She sat down on the sofa and once more she smiled.

Hercule Poirot thought: âShe is oldâher hair is greyâthere are lines in her face. Yet she has magicâshe will always have magicâ¦.â

Lady Angkatell said softly:

âI want you to do something for me.â

âYes, Lady Angkatell?â

âTo begin with, I must talk to youâabout John Christow.â

âAbout Dr. Christow?â

âYes. It seems to me that the only thing to do is to put a full stop to the whole thing. You understand what I mean, donât you?â

âI am not sure that I do know what you mean, Lady Angkatell.â

She gave him her lovely dazzling smile again and she put one long white hand on his sleeve.

âDear M. Poirot, you know perfectly. The police will have to hunt about for the owner of those fingerprints and they wonât find him, and theyâll have, in the end, to let the whole thing drop. But Iâm afraid, you know, that you wonât let it drop.â

âNo, I shall not let it drop,â said Hercule Poirot.

âThat is just what I thought. And that is why I came. Itâs the truth you want, isnât it?â

âCertainly I want the truth.â

âI see I havenât explained myself very well. Iâm trying to find out just why you wonât let things drop. It isnât because of your prestigeâor because you want to hang a murderer (such an unpleasant kind of death, Iâve always thoughtâso mediÃ¦val). Itâs just, I think, that you want to know. You do see what I mean, donât you? If you were to know the truthâif you were to be told the truth, I thinkâI think perhaps that might satisfy you? Would it satisfy you, M. Poirot?â

âYou are offering to tell me the truth, Lady Angkatell?â

She nodded.

âYou yourself know the truth, then?â

Her eyes opened very wide.

âOh, yes, Iâve known for a long time. Iâd like to tell you. And then we could agree thatâwell, that it was all over and done with.â

She smiled at him.

âIs it a bargain, M. Poirot?â

It was quite an effort for Hercule Poirot to say:

âNo, Madame, it is not a bargain.â

He wantedâhe wanted, very badly, to let the whole thing drop, simply because Lady Angkatell asked him to do so.

Lady Angkatell sat very still for a moment. Then she raised her eyebrows.

âI wonder,â she said. âI wonder if you really know what you are doing.â

Twenty-eight

Midge, lying dry-eyed and awake in the darkness, turned restlessly on her pillows. She heard a door unlatch, a footstep in the corridor outside passing her door. It was Edwardâs door and Edwardâs step. She switched on the lamp by her bed and looked at the clock that stood by the lamp on the table. It was ten minutes to three.

Edward passing her door and going down the stairs at this hour in the morning. It was odd.

They had all gone to bed early, at half past ten. She herself had not slept, had lain there with burning eyelids and with a dry, aching misery racking her feverishly.

She had heard the clock strike downstairsâhad heard owls hoot outside her bedroom window. Had felt that depression that reaches its nadir at 2 a.m. Had thought to herself: âI canât bear itâI canât bear it. Tomorrow comingâanother day. Day after day to be got through.â

Banished by her own act from Ainswickâfrom all the loveliness and dearness of Ainswick which might have been her very own possession.

But better banishment, better loneliness, better a drab and uninteresting life, than life with Edward and Henriettaâs ghost. Until that day in the wood she had not known her own capacity for bitter jealousy.

And after all, Edward had never told her that he loved her. Affection, kindliness, he had never pretended to more than that. She had accepted the limitation, and not until she had realized what it would mean to live at close quarters with an Edward whose mind and heart had Henrietta as a permanent guest, did she know that for her Edwardâs affection was not enough.

Edward walking past her door, down the front stairs. It was oddâvery odd. Where was he going?

Uneasiness grew upon her. It was all part and parcel of the uneasiness that The Hollow gave her nowadays. What was Edward doing downstairs in the small hours of the morning? Had he gone out?

Inactivity at last became too much for her. She got up, slipped on her dressing gown, and, taking a torch, she opened her door and came out into the passage.

It was quite dark, no light had been switched on. Midge turned to the left and came to the head of the staircase. Below all was dark too. She ran down the stairs and after a momentâs hesitation switched on the light in the hall. Everything was silent. The front door was closed and locked. She tried the side door but that, too, was locked.

Edward, then, had not gone out. Where could he be?

And suddenly she raised her head and sniffed.

A whiff, a very faint whiff of gas.

The baize door to the kitchen quarters was just ajar. She went through itâa faint light was shining from the open kitchen door. The smell of gas was much stronger.

Midge ran along the passage and into the kitchen. Edward was lying on the floor with his head inside the gas oven, which was turned full on.

Midge was a quick, practical girl. Her first act was to swing open the shutters. She could not unlatch the window, and, winding a glass cloth round her arm, she smashed it. Then, holding her breath, she stooped down and tugged and pulled Edward out of the gas oven and switched off the taps.

He was unconscious and breathing queerly, but she knew that he could not have been unconscious long. He could only just have gone under. The wind sweeping through from the window to the open door was fast dispelling the gas fumes. Midge dragged Edward to a spot near the window where the air would have full play. She sat down and gathered him into her strong young arms.

She said his name, first softly, then with increasing desperation. âEdward, Edward, Edwardâ¦.â

He stirred, groaned, opened his eyes and looked up at her. He said very faintly: âGas oven,â and his eyes went round to the gas stove.

âI know, darling, but whyâwhy?â

He was shivering now, his hands were cold and lifeless. He said: âMidge?â There was a kind of wondering surprise and pleasure in his voice.

She said: âI heard you pass my door. I didnât knowâ¦I came down.â

He sighed, a very long sigh as though from very far away. âBest way out,â he said. And then, inexplicably until she remembered Lucyâs conversation on the night of the tragedy, âNews of the World.â

âBut, Edward, why, why?â

He looked up at her, and the blank, cold darkness of his stare frightened her.

âBecause I know Iâve never been any good. Always a failure. Always ineffectual. Itâs men like Christow who do things. They get there and women admire them. Iâm nothingâIâm not even quite alive. I inherited Ainswick and Iâve enough to live onâotherwise Iâd have gone under. No good at a careerânever much good as a writer. Henrietta didnât want me. No one wanted me. That dayâat the BerkeleyâI thoughtâbut it was the same story. You couldnât care either, Midge. Even for Ainswick you couldnât put up with me. So I thought better get out altogether.â

Her words came with a rush. âDarling, darling, you donât understand. It was because of Henriettaâbecause I thought you still loved Henrietta so much.â

âHenrietta?â He murmured it vaguely, as though speaking of someone infinitely remote. âYes, I loved her very much.â

And from even farther away she heard him murmur:

âItâs so cold.â

âEdwardâmy darling.â

Her arms closed round him firmly. He smiled at her, murmuring:

âYouâre so warm, Midgeâyouâre so warm.â

Yes, she thought, that was what despair was. A cold thingâa thing of infinite coldness and loneliness. Sheâd never understood until now that despair was a cold thing. She had thought of it as something hot and passionate, something violent, a hot-blooded desperation. But that was not so. This was despairâthis utter outer darkness of coldness and loneliness. And the sin of despair, that priests talked of, was a cold sin, the sin of cutting oneself off from all warm and living human contacts.

Edward said again: âYouâre so warm, Midge.â And suddenly with a glad, proud confidence she thought: âBut thatâs what he wantsâthatâs what I can give him!â They were all cold, the Angkatells. Even Henrietta had something in her of the will-oâ-the-wisp, of the elusive fairy coldness in the Angkatell blood. Let Edward love Henrietta as an intangible and unpossessable dream. It was warmth, permanence, stability that was his real need. It was daily companionship and love and laughter at Ainswick.

She thought: âWhat Edward needs is someone to light a fire on his heartâand I am the person to do that.â

Edward looked up. He saw Midgeâs face bending over him, the warm colouring of the skin, the generous mouth, the steady eyes and the dark hair that lay back from her forehead like two wings.

He saw Henrietta always as a projection from the past. In the grown woman he sought and wanted only to see the seventeen-year-old girl he had first loved. But now, looking up at Midge, he had a queer sense of seeing a continuous Midge. He saw the school-girl with her winged hair springing back into two pigtails, he saw its dark waves framing her face now, and he saw exactly how those wings would look when the hair was not dark any longer but grey.

âMidge,â he thought, âis real. The only real thing I have ever knownâ¦â He felt the warmth of her, and the strengthâdark, positive, alive, real! âMidge,â he thought, âis the rock on which I can build my life.â

He said: âDarling Midge, I love you so, never leave me again.â

She bent down to him and he felt the warmth of her lips on his, felt her love enveloping him, shielding him, and happiness flowered in that cold desert where he had lived alone so long.

Suddenly Midge said with a shaky laugh:

âLook, Edward, a blackbeetle has come out to look at us. Isnât he a nice blackbeetle? I never thought I could like a blackbeetle so much!â

She added dreamily: âHow odd life is. Here we are sitting on the floor in a kitchen that still smells of gas all amongst the black-beetles, and feeling that itâs heaven.â

He murmured dreamily: âI could stay here forever.â

âWeâd better go and get some sleep. Itâs four oâclock. How on earth are we to explain that broken window to Lucy?â Fortunately, Midge reflected, Lucy was an extraordinarily easy person to explain things to!

Taking a leaf out of Lucyâs own book, Midge went into her room at six oâclock. She made a bald statement of fact.

âEdward went down and put his head in the gas oven in the night,â she said. âFortunately I heard him, and went down after him. I broke the window because I couldnât get it open quickly.â

Lucy, Midge had to admit, was wonderful.

She smiled sweetly with no sign of surprise.

âDear Midge,â she said, âyou are always so practical. Iâm sure you will always be the greatest comfort to Edward.â

After Midge had gone, Lady Angkatell lay thinking. Then she got up and went into her husbandâs room, which for once was unlocked.

âHenry.â

âMy dear Lucy! Itâs not cockcrow yet.â

âNo, but listen, Henry, this is really important. We must have electricity installed to cook by and get rid of that gas stove.â

âWhy, itâs quite satisfactory, isnât it?â

âOh, yes, dear. But itâs the sort of thing that gives people ideas, and everybody mightnât be as practical as dear Midge.â

She flitted elusively away. Sir Henry turned over with a grunt. Presently he awoke with a start just as he was dozing off. âDid I dream it,â he murmured, âor did Lucy come in and start talking about gas stoves?â

Outside in the passage, Lady Angkatell went into the bathroom and put a kettle on the gas ring. Sometimes, she knew, people liked an early cup of tea. Fired with self-approval, she returned to bed and lay back on her pillows, pleased with life and with herself.

Edward and Midge at Ainswickâthe inquest over. She would go and talk to M. Poirot again. A nice little manâ¦.

Suddenly another idea flashed into her head. She sat upright in bed. âI wonder now,â she speculated, âif she has thought of that.â

She got out of bed and drifted along the passage to Henriettaâs room, beginning her remarks as usual long before she was within earshot.

ââand it suddenly came to me, dear, that you might have overlooked that.â

Henrietta murmured sleepily: âFor heavenâs sake, Lucy, the birds arenât up yet!â

âOh, I know, dear, it is rather early, but it seems to have been a very disturbed nightâEdward and the gas stove and Midge and the kitchen windowâand thinking of what to say to M. Poirot and everythingââ

âIâm sorry, Lucy, but everything you say sounds like complete gibberish. Canât it wait?â

âIt was only the holster, dear. I thought, you know, that you might not have thought about the holster.â

âHolster?â Henrietta sat up in bed. She was suddenly wide awake. âWhatâs this about a holster?â

âThat revolver of Henryâs was in a holster, you know. And the holster hasnât been found. And of course nobody may think of itâbut on the other hand somebody mightââ

Henrietta swung herself out of bed. She said:

âOne always forgets somethingâthatâs what they say! And itâs true!â

Lady Angkatell went back to her room.

She got into bed and quickly went fast asleep.

The kettle on the gas ring boiled and went on boiling.

Twenty-nine

Gerda rolled over to the side of the bed and sat up.

Her head felt a little better now but she was still glad that she hadnât gone with the others on the picnic. It was peaceful and almost comforting to be alone in the house for a bit.

Elsie, of course, had been very kindâvery kindâespecially at first. To begin with, Gerda had been urged to stay in bed for breakfast, trays had been brought up to her. Everybody urged her to sit in the most comfortable armchair, to put her feet up, not to do anything at all strenuous.

They were all so sorry for her about John. She had stayed cowering gratefully in that protective dim haze. She hadnât wanted to think, or to feel, or to remember.

But now, every day, she felt it coming nearerâsheâd have to start living again, to decide what to do, where to live. Already Elsie was showing a shade of impatience in her manner. âOh, Gerda, donât be so slow!â

It was all the same as it had beenâlong ago, before John came and took her away. They all thought her slow and stupid. There was nobody to say, as John had said: âIâll look after you.â

Her head ached and Gerda thought: âIâll make myself some tea.â

She went down to the kitchen and put the kettle on. It was nearly boiling when she heard a ring at the front door.

The maids had been given the day out. Gerda went to the door and opened it. She was astonished to see Henriettaâs rakish-looking car drawn up to the kerb and Henrietta herself standing on the doorstep.

âWhy, Henrietta!â she exclaimed. She fell back a step or two. âCome in. Iâm afraid my sister and the children are out butââ

Henrietta cut her short. âGood, Iâm glad. I wanted to get you alone. Listen, Gerda, what did you do with the holster?â

Gerda stopped. Her eyes looked suddenly vacant and uncomprehending. She said: âHolster?â

Then she opened a door on the right of the hall.

âYouâd better come in here. Iâm afraid itâs rather dusty. You see, we havenât had much time this morning.â

Henrietta interrupted again urgently.

She said: âListen, Gerda, youâve got to tell me. Apart from the holster everythingâs all rightâabsolutely watertight. Thereâs nothing to connect you with the business. I found the revolver where youâd shoved it into that thicket by the pool. I hid it in a place where you couldnât possibly have put itâand there are fingerprints on it which theyâll never identify. So thereâs only the holster. I must know what you did with that?â

She paused, praying desperately that Gerda would react quickly.

She had no idea why she had this vital sense of urgency, but it was there. Her car had not been followedâshe had made sure of that. She had started on the London road, had filled up at a garage and had mentioned that she was on her way to London. Then, a little farther on, she had swung across country until she had reached a main road leading south to the coast.

Gerda was still staring at her. The trouble with Gerda, thought Henrietta, was that she was so slow.

âIf youâve still got it, Gerda, you must give it to me. Iâll get rid of it somehow. Itâs the only possible thing, you see, that can connect you now with Johnâs death. Have you got it?â

There was a pause and then Gerda slowly nodded her head.

âDidnât you know it was madness to keep it?â Henrietta could hardly conceal her impatience.

âI forgot about it. It was up in my room.â

She added: âWhen the police came up to Harley Street I cut it in pieces and put it in the bag with my leather work.â

Henrietta said: âThat was clever of you.â

Gerda said: âIâm not quite so stupid as everybody thinks.â She put her hand up to her throat. She said: âJohnâJohn!â Her voice broke.

Henrietta said: âI know, my dear, I know.â

Gerda said: âBut you canât knowâ¦John wasnâtâhe wasnâtââ She stood there, dumb and strangely pathetic. She raised her eyes suddenly to Henriettaâs face. âIt was all a lieâeverything! All the things I thought he was. I saw his face when he followed that woman out that evening. Veronica Cray. I knew heâd cared for her, of course, years ago before he married me, but I thought it was all over.â

Henrietta said gently:

âBut it was all over.â

Gerda shook her head.

âNo. She came there and pretended that she hadnât seen John for yearsâbut I saw Johnâs face. He went out with her. I went up to bed. I lay there trying to readâI tried to read that detective story that John was reading. And John didnât come. And at last I went outâ¦.â

Her eyes seemed to be turning inwards, seeing the scene.

âIt was moonlight. I went along the path to the swimming pool. There was a light in the pavilion. They were thereâJohn and that woman.â

Henrietta made a faint sound.

Gerdaâs face had changed. It had none of its usual slightly vacant amiability. It was remorseless, implacable.

âIâd trusted John. Iâd believed in himâas though he were God. I thought he was the noblest man in the world. I thought he was everything that was fine and noble. And it was all a lie! I was left with nothing at all. IâIâd worshipped John!â

Henrietta was gazing at her fascinated. For here, before her eyes, was what she had guessed at and brought to life, carving it out of wood. Here was The Worshipper. Blind devotion thrown back on itself, disillusioned, dangerous.

Gerda said: âI couldnât bear it! I had to kill him! I had toâyou do see that, Henrietta?â

She said it quite conversationally, in an almost friendly tone.

âAnd I knew I must be careful because the police are very clever. But then Iâm not really as stupid as people think! If youâre very slow and just stare, people think you donât take things inâand sometimes, underneath, youâre laughing at them! I knew I could kill John and nobody would know because Iâd read in that detective story about the police being able to tell which gun a bullet has been fired from. Sir Henry had shown me how to load and fire a revolver that afternoon. Iâd take two revolvers. Iâd shoot John with one and then hide it, and let people find me holding the other, and first theyâd think Iâd shot him and then theyâd find he couldnât have been killed with that revolver and so theyâd say I hadnât done it after all!â

She nodded her head triumphantly.

âBut I forgot about the leather thing. It was in the drawer in my bedroom. What do you call it, a holster? Surely the police wonât bother about that now!â

âThey might,â said Henrietta. âYouâd better give it to me, and Iâll take it away with me. Once itâs out of your hands, youâre quite safe.â

She sat down. She felt suddenly unutterably weary.

Gerda said: âYou donât look well. I was just making tea.â

She went out of the room. Presently she came back with a tray. On it was a teapot, milk jug and two cups. The milk jug had slopped over because it was over-full. Gerda put the tray down and poured out a cup of tea and handed it to Henrietta.

âOh, dear,â she said, dismayed, âI donât believe the kettle can have been boiling.â

âItâs quite all right,â said Henrietta. âGo and get that holster, Gerda.â

Gerda hesitated and then went out of the room. Henrietta leant forward and put her arms on the table and her head down on them. She was so tired, so dreadfully tired. But now it was nearly done. Gerda would be safe, as John had wanted her to be safe.

She sat up, pushed the hair off her forehead and drew the teacup towards her. Then at a sound in the doorway she looked up. Gerda had been quite quick for once.

But it was Hercule Poirot who stood in the doorway.

âThe front door was open,â he remarked as he advanced to the table, âso I took the liberty of walking in.â

âYou!â said Henrietta. âHow did you get here?â

âWhen you left The Hollow so suddenly, naturally I knew where you would go. I hired a very fast car and came straight here.â

âI see.â Henrietta sighed. âYou would.â

âYou should not drink that tea,â said Poirot, taking the cup from her and replacing it on the tray. âTea that has not been made with boiling water is not good to drink.â

âDoes a little thing like boiling water really matter?â

Poirot said gently: âEverything matters.â

There was a sound behind him and Gerda came into the room. She had a workbag in her hands. Her eyes went from Poirotâs face to Henriettaâs.

Henrietta said quickly:

âIâm afraid, Gerda, Iâm rather a suspicious character. M. Poirot seems to have been shadowing me. He thinks that I killed Johnâbut he canât prove it.â

She spoke slowly and deliberately. So long as Gerda did not give herself away.

Gerda said vaguely: âIâm so sorry. Will you have some tea, M. Poirot?â

âNo, thank you, Madame.â

Gerda sat down behind the tray. She began to talk in her apologetic, conversational way.

âIâm so sorry that everybody is out. My sister and the children have all gone for a picnic. I didnât feel very well, so they left me behind.â

âI am sorry, Madame.â

Gerda lifted a teacup and drank.

âIt is all so very worrying. Everything is so worrying. You see, John always arranged everything and now John is goneâ¦â Her voice tailed off. âNow John is gone.â

Her gaze, piteous, bewildered, went from one to the other.

âI donât know what to do without John. John looked after me. He took care of me. Now he is gone, everything is gone. And the childrenâthey ask me questions and I canât answer them properly. I donât know what to say to Terry. He keeps saying: âWhy was Father killed?â Some day, of course, he will find out why. Terry always has to know. What puzzles me is that he always asks why, not who!â

Gerda leaned back in her chair. Her lips were very blue.

She said stiffly:

âI feelânot very wellâif JohnâJohnââ

Poirot came round the table to her and eased her sideways down in the chair. Her head dropped forward. He bent and lifted her eyelid. Then he straightened up.

âAn easy and comparatively painless death.â

Henrietta stared at him.

âHeart? No.â Her mind leaped forward. âSomething in the tea. Something she put there herself. She chose that way out?â

Poirot shook his head gently.

âOh, no, it was meant for you. It was in your teacup.â

âFor me?â Henriettaâs voice was incredulous. âBut I was trying to help her.â

âThat did not matter. Have you not seen a dog caught in a trapâit sets its teeth into anyone who touches it. She saw only that you knew her secret and so you, too, must die.â

Henrietta said slowly:

âAnd you made me put the cup back on the trayâyou meantâyou meant herââ

Poirot interrupted her quietly:

âNo, no, Mademoiselle. I did not know that there was anything in your teacup. I only knew that there might be. And when the cup was on the tray it was an even chance if she drank from that or the otherâif you call it chance. I say myself that an end such as this is merciful. For herâand for two innocent children.â

He said gently to Henrietta: âYou are very tired, are you not?â

She nodded. She asked him: âWhen did you guess?â

âI do not know exactly. The scene was set; I felt that from the first. But I did not realize for a long time that it was set by Gerda Christowâthat her attitude was stagey because she was, actually, acting a part. I was puzzled by the simplicity and at the same time the complexity. I recognized fairly soon that it was your ingenuity that I was fighting against, and that you were being aided and abetted by your relations as soon as they understood what you wanted done!â He paused and added: âWhy did you want it done?â

âBecause John asked me to! Thatâs what he meant when he said âHenrietta.â It was all there in that one word. He was asking me to protect Gerda. You see, he loved Gerda. I think he loved Gerda much better than he ever knew he did. Better than Veronica Cray. Better than me. Gerda belonged to him, and John liked things that belonged to him. He knew that if anyone could protect Gerda from the consequences of what sheâd done, I could. And he knew that I would do anything he wanted, because I loved him.â

âAnd you started at once,â said Poirot grimly.

âYes, the first thing I could think of was to get the revolver away from her and drop it in the pool. That would obscure the fingerprint business. When I discovered later that he had been shot with a different gun, I went out to look for it, and naturally found it at once because I knew just the sort of place Gerda would have put it. I was only a minute or two ahead of Inspector Grangeâs men.â

She paused and then went on: âI kept it with me in that satchel bag of mine until I could take it up to London. Then I hid it in the studio until I could bring it back, and put it where the police would not find it.â

âThe clay horse,â murmured Poirot.

âHow did you know? Yes, I put it in a sponge bag and wired the armature round it, and then slapped up the clay model round it. After all, the police couldnât very well destroy an artistâs masterpiece, could they? What made you know where it was?â

âThe fact that you chose to model a horse. The horse of Troy was the unconscious association in your mind. But the fingerprintsâhow did you manage the fingerprints?â

âAn old blind man who sells matches in the street. He didnât know what it was I asked him to hold for a moment while I got some money out!â

Poirot looked at her for a moment.

âCâest formidable!â he murmured. âYou are one of the best antagonists, Mademoiselle, that I have ever had.â

âItâs been dreadfully tiring always trying to keep one move ahead of you!â

âI know. I began to realize the truth as soon as I saw that the pattern was always designed not to implicate any one person but to implicate everyoneâother than Gerda Christow. Every indication always pointed away from her. You deliberately planted Ygdrasil to catch my attention and bring yourself under suspicion. Lady Angkatell, who knew perfectly what you were doing, amused herself by leading poor Inspector Grange in one direction after another. David, Edward, herself.

âYes, there is only one thing to do if you want to clear a person from suspicion who is actually guilty. You must suggest guilt elsewhere but never localize it. That is why every clue looked promising and then petered out and ended in nothing.â

Henrietta looked at the figure huddled pathetically in the chair. She said: âPoor Gerda.â

âIs that what you have felt all along?â

âI think so. Gerda loved John terribly, but she didnât want to love him for what he was. She built up a pedestal for him and attributed every splendid and noble and unselfish characteristic to him. And if you cast down an idol, thereâs nothing left.â She paused and then went on: âBut John was something much finer than an idol on a pedestal. He was a real, living, vital human being. He was generous and warm and alive, and he was a great doctorâyes, a great doctor. And heâs dead, and the world has lost a very great man. And I have lost the only man I shall ever love.â

Poirot put his hand gently on her shoulder. He said:

âBut you are one of those who can live with a sword in their heartsâwho can go on and smileââ

Henrietta looked up at him. Her lips twisted into a bitter smile.

âThatâs a little melodramatic, isnât it?â

âIt is because I am a foreigner and I like to use fine words.â

Henrietta said suddenly:

âYou have been very kind to me.â

âThat is because I have admired you always very much.â

âM. Poirot, what are we going to do? About Gerda, I mean.â

Poirot drew the raffia workbag towards him. He turned out its contents, scraps of brown suÃ¨de and other coloured leathers. There were some pieces of thick shiny brown leather. Poirot fitted them together.

âThe holster. I take this. And poor Madame Christow, she was overwrought, her husbandâs death was too much for her. It will be brought in that she took her life whilst of unsound mindââ

Henrietta said slowly:

âAnd no one will ever know what really happened?â

âI think one person will know. Dr. Christowâs son. I think that one day he will come to me and ask me for the truth.â

âBut you wonât tell him,â cried Henrietta.

âYes. I shall tell him.â

âOh, no!â

âYou do not understand. To you it is unbearable that anyone should be hurt. But to some minds there is something more unbearable stillânot to know. You heard the poor woman just a little while ago say: âTerry always has to know.â To the scientific mind, truth comes first. Truth, however bitter, can be accepted, and woven into a design for living.â

Henrietta got up.

âDo you want me here, or had I better go?â

âIt would be better if you went, I think.â

She nodded. Then she said, more to herself than to him:

âWhere shall I go? What shall I doâwithout John?â

âYou are speaking like Gerda Christow. You will know where to go and what to do.â

âShall I? Iâm so tired, M. Poirot, so tired.â

He said gently:

âGo, my child. Your place is with the living. I will stay here with the dead.â

Thirty

As she drove towards London, the two phrases echoed through Henriettaâs mind. âWhat shall I do? Where shall I go?â

For the last few weeks she had been strung up, excited, never relaxing for a moment. She had had a task to performâa task laid on her by John. But now that was overâshe had failedâor succeeded? One could look at it either way. But however one looked at it, the task was over. And she experienced the terrible weariness of the reaction.

Her mind went back to the words she had spoken to Edward that night on the terraceâthe night of Johnâs deathâthe night when she had gone along to the pool and into the pavilion and had deliberately, by the light of a match, drawn Ygdrasil upon the iron table. Purposeful, planningânot yet able to sit down and mournâmourn for her dead. âI should like,â she had said to Edward, âto grieve for John.â

But she had not dared to relax thenânot dared to let sorrow take command over her.

But now she could grieve. Now she had all the time there was.

She said under her breath: âJohnâ¦John.â

Bitterness and black rebellion broke over her.

She thought: âI wish Iâd drunk that cup of tea.â

Driving the car soothed her, gave her strength for the moment. But soon she would be in London. Soon she would put the car in the garage and go along to the empty studio. Empty since John would never sit there again bullying her, being angry with her, loving her more than he wanted to love her, telling her eagerly about Ridgewayâs Diseaseâabout his triumphs and despairs, about Mrs. Crabtree and St. Christopherâs.

And suddenly, with a lifting of the dark pall that lay over her mind, she thought:

âOf course. Thatâs where I will go. To St. Christopherâs.â

Lying in her narrow hospital bed, old Mrs. Crabtree peered up at her visitor out of rheumy, twinkling eyes.

She was exactly as John had described her, and Henrietta felt a sudden warmth, a lifting of the spirit. This was realâthis would last! Here, for a little space, she had found John again.

âThe pore doctor. Orful, ainât it?â Mrs. Crabtree was saying. There was relish in her voice as well as regret, for Mrs. Crabtree loved life; and sudden deaths, particularly murders or deaths in childbed, were the richest parts of the tapestry of life. âGetting âimself bumped off like that! Turned my stomach right over, it did, when I âeard. I read all about it in the papers. Sister let me âave all she could get âold of. Reely nice about it, she was. There was pictures and everythink. That swimming pool and all. âIs wife leaving the inquest, pore thing, and that Lady Angkatell what the swimming pool belonged to. Lots of pictures. Real mystery the âole thing, werenât it?â

Henrietta was not repelled by her ghoulish enjoyment. She liked it because she knew that John himself would have liked it. If he had to die he would much prefer old Mrs. Crabtree to get a kick out of it, than to sniff and shed tears.

âAll I âope is that they catch âooever done it and âang âim,â continued Mrs. Crabtree vindictively. âThey donât âave âangings in public like they used to onceâmoreâs the pity. Iâve always thought Iâd like to go to an âanging. And Iâd go double quick, if you understand me, to see âooever killed the doctor âanged! Real wicked, âe must âave been. Why, the doctor was one in a thousand. Ever so clever, âe was! And a nice way with âim! Got you laughing whether you wanted to or not. The things âe used to say sometimes! Iâd âave done anythink for the doctor, I would!â

âYes,â said Henrietta, âhe was a very clever man. He was a great man.â

âThink the world of âim in the âorspital, they do! All them nurses. And âis patients! Always felt you were going to get well when âeâd been along.â

âSo you are going to get well,â said Henrietta.

The little shrewd eyes clouded for a moment.

âIâm not so sure about that, ducks. Iâve got that mealy-mouthed young fellow with the spectacles now. Quite different to Dr. Christow. Never a laugh! âE was a one, Dr. Christow wasâalways up to his jokes! Given me some norful times, âe âas, with this treatment of âis. âI carnât stand anymore of in, Doctor,â Iâd say to him, and âYes, you can, Mrs. Crabtree,â âeâd say to me. âYouâre tough, you are. You can take it. Going to make medical âistory, you and I are.â And heâd jolly you along like. Do anything for the doctor, I would âave! Expected a lot of you, âe did, but you felt you couldnât let him down, if you know what I mean.â

âI know,â said Henrietta.

The little sharp eyes peered at her.

âExcuse me, dearie, youâre not the doctorâs wife by any chance?â

âNo,â said Henrietta, âIâm just a friend.â

âI see,â said Mrs. Crabtree.

Henrietta thought that she did see.

âWhat made you come along if you donât mind me asking?â

âThe doctor used to talk to me a lot about youâand about his new treatment. I wanted to see how you were.â

âIâm slipping backâthatâs what Iâm doing.â

Henrietta cried:

âBut you mustnât slip back! Youâve got to get well.â

Mrs. Crabtree grinned.

âI donât want to peg out, donât you think it!â

âWell, fight then! Dr. Christow said you were a fighter.â

âDid âe now?â Mrs. Crabtree lay still a minute, then she said slowly:

âOoever shot âim itâs a wicked shame! There arenât many of âis sort.â

We shall not see his like again. The words passed through Henriettaâs mind. Mrs. Crabtree was regarding her keenly.

âKeep your pecker up, dearie,â she said. She added: ââE âad a nice funeral, I âope.â

âHe had a lovely funeral,â said Henrietta obligingly.

âAr! I wish I could of gorn to it!â

Mrs. Crabtree sighed.

âBe going to me own funeral next, I expect.â

âNo,â cried Henrietta. âYou mustnât let go. You said just now that Dr. Christow told you that you and he were going to make medical history. Well, youâve got to carry on by yourself. The treatmentâs just the same. Youâve got to have the guts for twoâyouâve got to make medical history by yourselfâfor him.â

Mrs. Crabtree looked at her for a moment or two.

âSounds a bit grand! Iâll do my best, ducks. Carnât say more than that.â

Henrietta got up and took her hand.

âGood-bye. Iâll come and see you again if I may.â

âYes, do. Itâll do me good to talk about the doctor a bit.â The bawdy twinkle came into her eye again. âProper man in every kind of way, Dr. Christow.â

âYes,â said Henrietta. âHe was.â

The old woman said:

âDonât fret, ducksâwhatâs gornâs gorn. You canât âave it back.â

Mrs. Crabtree and Hercule Poirot, Henrietta thought, expressed the same idea in different language.

She drove back to Chelsea, put away the car in the garage and walked slowly to the studio.

âNow,â she thought, âit has come. The moment I have been dreadingâthe moment when I am alone.

âNow I can put it off no longer. Now grief is here with me.â

What had she said to Edward? âI should like to grieve for John.â

She dropped down on a chair and pushed back the hair from her face.

Aloneâemptyâdestitute. This awful emptiness.

The tears pricked at her eyes, flowed slowly down her cheeks.

Grief, she thought, grief for John. Oh, JohnâJohn.

Remembering, rememberingâhis voice, sharp with pain:

âIf I were dead, the first thing youâd do, with the tears streaming down your face, would be to start modelling some damnâ mourning woman or some figure of grief.â

She stirred uneasily. Why had that thought come into her head?

GriefâGriefâ¦A veiled figureâits outline barely perceptibleâits head cowled.

Alabaster.

She could see the lines of itâtall, elongated, its sorrow hidden, revealed only by the long, mournful lines of the drapery.

Sorrow, emerging from clear, transparent alabaster.

âIf I were deadâ¦.â

And suddenly bitterness came over her full tide!

She thought: âThatâs what I am! John was right. I cannot loveâI cannot mournânot with the whole of me.

âItâs Midge, itâs people like Midge who are the salt of the earth.â

Midge and Edward at Ainswick.

That was realityâstrengthâwarmth.

âBut I,â she thought, âam not a whole person. I belong not to myself, but to something outside me. I cannot grieve for my dead. Instead I must take my grief and make it into a figure of alabasterâ¦.â

Exhibit No. 58. âGrief.â Alabaster. Miss Henrietta Savernakeâ¦.

She said under her breath:

âJohn, forgive me, forgive me, for what I canât help doing.â

Â 

The
Agatha Christie
Collection

THE HERCULE POIROT MYSTERIES

Match your wits with the famous Belgian detective.

The Mysterious Affair at Styles

The Murder on the Links

Poirot Investigates

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

The Big Four

The Mystery of the Blue Train

Peril at End House

Lord Edgware Dies

Murder on the Orient Express

Three Act Tragedy

Death in the Clouds

The A.B.C. Murders

Murder in Mesopotamia

Cards on the Table

Murder in the Mews

Dumb Witness

Death on the Nile

Appointment with Death

Hercule Poirotâ€™s Christmas

Sad Cypress

One, Two, Buckle My Shoe

Evil Under the Sun

Five Little Pigs

The Hollow

The Labors of Hercules

Taken at the Flood

The Underdog and Other Stories

Mrs. McGintyâ€™s Dead

After the Funeral

Hickory Dickory Dock

Dead Manâ€™s Folly

Cat Among the Pigeons

The Clocks

Third Girl

Halloweâ€™en Party

Elephants Can Remember

Curtain: Poirotâ€™s Last Case

Explore more at www.AgathaChristie.com

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The
Agatha Christie
Collection

THE MISS MARPLE MYSTERIES

Join the legendary spinster sleuth from St. Mary Mead in solving murders far and wide.

The Murder at the Vicarag

The Body in the Library

The Moving Finger

A Murder Is Announced

They Do It with Mirrors

A Pocket Full of Rye

4:50 From Paddington

The Mirror Crackâ€™d from Side to Side

A Caribbean Mystery

At Bertramâ€™s Hotel

Nemesis

Sleeping Murder

Miss Marple: The Complete Short Stories

THE TOMMY AND TUPPENCE MYSTERIES

Jump on board with the entertaining crime-solving
couple from Young Adventurers Ltd.

The Secret Adversary

Partners in Crime

N or M?

By the Pricking of My Thumbs

Postern of Fate

Explore more at www.AgathaChristie.com

Â 

The
Agatha Christie
Collection

Donâ€™t miss a single one of Agatha Christieâ€™s
stand-alone novels and short-story collections.

The Man in the Brown Suit

The Secret of Chimneys

The Seven Dials Mystery

The Mysterious Mr. Quin

The Sittaford Mystery

Parker Pyne Investigates

Why Didnâ€™t They Ask Evans?

Murder Is Easy

The Regatta Mystery and Other Stories

And Then There Were None

Towards Zero

Death Comes as the End

Sparkling Cyanide

The Witness for the Prosecution and Other Stories

Crooked House

Three Blind Mice and Other Stories

They Came to Baghdad

Destination Unknown

Ordeal by Innocence

Double Sin and Other Stories

The Pale Horse

Star over Bethlehem: Poems and Holiday Stories

Endless Night

Passenger to Frankfurt

The Golden Ball and Other Stories

The Mousetrap and Other Plays

The Harlequin Tea Set

Explore more at www.AgathaChristie.com

About the Author

Agatha Christie is the most widely published author of all time and in any language, outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. Her books have sold more than a billion copies in English and another billion in a hundred foreign languages. She is the author of eighty crime novels and short-story collections, nineteen plays, two memoirs, and six novels written under the name Mary Westmacott.

She first tried her hand at detective fiction while working in a hospital dispensary during World War I, creating the now legendary Hercule Poirot with her debut novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles. With The Murder in the Vicarage, published in 1930, she introduced another beloved sleuth, Miss Jane Marple. Additional series characters include the husband-and-wife crime-fighting team of Tommy and Tuppence Beresford, private investigator Parker Pyne, and Scotland Yard detectives Superintendent Battle and Inspector Japp.

Many of Christieâ€™s novels and short stories were adapted into plays, films, and television series. The Mousetrap, her most famous play of all, opened in 1952 and is the longest-running play in history. Among her best-known film adaptations are Murder on the Orient Express (1974) and Death on the Nile (1978), with Albert Finney and Peter Ustinov playing Hercule Poirot, respectively. On the small screen Poirot has been most memorably portrayed by David Suchet, and Miss Marple by Joan Hickson and subsequently Geraldine McEwan and Julia McKenzie.

Christie was first married to Archibald Christie and then to archaeologist Sir Max Mallowan, whom she accompanied on expeditions to countries that would also serve as the settings for many of her novels. In 1971 she achieved one of Britainâ€™s highest honors when she was made a Dame of the British Empire. She died in 1976 at the age of eighty-five. Her one hundred and twentieth anniversary was celebrated around the world in 2010.

www.AgathaChristie.com

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THE AGATHA CHRISTIE COLLECTION

The Man in the Brown Suit

The Secret of Chimneys

The Seven Dials Mystery

The Mysterious Mr. Quin

The Sittaford Mystery

Parker Pyne Investigates

Why Didnâ€™t They Ask Evans?

Murder Is Easy

The Regatta Mystery and Other Stories

And Then There Were None

Towards Zero

Death Comes as the End

Sparkling Cyanide

The Witness for the Prosecution and
Other Stories

Crooked House

Three Blind Mice and Other Stories

They Came to Baghdad

Destination Unknown

Ordeal by Innocence

Double Sin and Other Stories

The Pale Horse

Star over Bethlehem: Poems and
Holiday Stories

Endless Night

Passenger to Frankfurt

The Golden Ball and Other Stories

The Mousetrap and Other Plays

The Harlequin Tea Set

The Hercule Poirot Mysteries

The Mysterious Affair at Styles

The Murder on the Links

Poirot Investigates

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd

The Big Four

The Mystery of the Blue Train

Peril at End House

Lord Edgware Dies

Murder on the Orient Express

Three Act Tragedy

Death in the Clouds

The A.B.C. Murders

Murder in Mesopotamia

Cards on the Table

Murder in the Mews

Dumb Witness

Death on the Nile

Appointment with Death

Hercule Poirotâ€™s Christmas

Sad Cypress

One, Two, Buckle My Shoe

Evil Under the Sun

Five Little Pigs

The Hollow

The Labors of Hercules

Taken at the Flood

The Underdog and Other Stories

Mrs. McGintyâ€™s Dead

After the Funeral

Hickory Dickory Dock

Dead Manâ€™s Folly

Cat Among the Pigeons

The Clocks

Third Girl

Halloweâ€™en Party

Elephants Can Remember

Curtain: Poirotâ€™s Last Case

The Miss Marple Mysteries

The Murder at the Vicarage

The Body in the Library

The Moving Finger

A Murder Is Announced

They Do It with Mirrors

A Pocket Full of Rye

4:50 from Paddington

The Mirror Crackâ€™d from Side to Side

A Caribbean Mystery

At Bertramâ€™s Hotel

Nemesis

Sleeping Murder

Miss Marple: The Complete
Short Stories

The Tommy and Tuppence Mysteries

The Secret Adversary

Partners in Crime

N or M?

By the Pricking of My Thumbs

Postern of Fate

Memoirs

An Autobiography

Come, Tell Me How You Live

Credits

Cover illustration and design by Faith Laurel

Copyright

This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the authorâ€™s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

This title was previously published as Murder After Hours.

AGATHA CHRISTIEÂ® POIROTÂ® THE HOLLOWâ„¢. Copyright Â© 1946 Agatha Christie Limited (a Chorion company). All rights reserved.

THE HOLLOW Â© 1946. Published by permission of G.P. Putnamâ€™s Sons, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

ISBN 978-0-06-207385-3

EPub Edition Â© AUGUST 2011 ISBN: 978-0-06-174686-4

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