For Larry and Dande
With apologies for using their swimming
pool as the scene of a murder
^C0^
pUBUO^
^N ^0^
Copyright, 1946 by Agatha Christie Mallowan.
All rights reserved.
Published in Large Print by arrangement with
The Putnam Publishing Group, Inc.
G. K. Hall Large Print Book Series.
Set in 18 pt. Plantin.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Christie, Agatha, 18901976
The hollow : a Hercule Poirot mystery / Agatha Christie. -- [Large
print ed.]
p. cm.--(G.K. Hall large print book series)
ISBN 0-8161-4555-5 (he). -- ISBN 0-8161-4556-3 (pb)
1. Large type books. I. Title.
[PR6005.H66H6 1991]
823'.912--dc20 9047244
Also available in Large Print
by Agatha Christie:
* The A.B.C. Murders
*The Body in the Library
*The Boomerang Clue
^Crooked House
*Evil Under the Sun
*Miss Marple: The Complete Short Stories
*Mr. Parker Pyne, Detective
*The Murder at the Vicarage
*A Murder is Announced
*The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
*The Patriotic Murders
*Peril at End House
*The Regatta Mystery and Other Stories
*The Secret Adversary
* Three Blind Mice and Other Stories
* Toward Zero
^Witness for the Prosecution and Other Stories
^Endless Night
*The Moving Finger
^Murder in Three Acts
^Ordeal by Innocence
* Thirteen at Dinner
*A Caribbean Mystery
*What Mrs. McGillicuddy Saw!
*They Came to Baghdad
^The Murder on the Links
^Double Sin and Other Stories
Easy to Kill
Elephants Can Remember
Sleeping Murder
The Golden Ball and Other Stories
Nemesis
Third Girl
The Mystery of the Blue Train
The Under Dog and Other Stories
Murder in Mesopotamia
^Available in hardcover and paperback
Chapter I
at 6:13 a.m. on a Friday morning Lucy
AngkatelFs 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 negligee
round her still graceful shoulders, and went
along the passage to Midge's 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 Midge's answers out
of her own fertile imagination.
The conversation was in full swing when
Lady Angkatell flung open Midge's door.
(t--And so, darling, you really must agree
that the weekend is going to present difficulties!"

"Eh? Hwah?" 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.
"Birds!" she observed, peering with
kindly pleasure through the pane. "So
sweet."
"What?"
"Well, at any rate, the weather isn't going
to present difficulties. It looks as though it
had set in fine. That's something. Because
if a lot of discordant personalities are boxed
up indoors, I'm 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 me--and one has to
have her, of course, because it would be so
rude to ask John without her, but it really
does make things difficult--and the worst
of it is that she is so nice--really 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 don't really think it
is at all fair."
"What are you talking about, Lucy?"
"The week-end, 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."
"Lucy," said Midge sternly, "do you
know what time it is?"
"Not exactly, darling. I never do, you
know."
"It's quarter past six."
"Yes, dear," said Lady Angkatell, with
no signs of contrition.
Midge gazed sternly at her. How maddening, how absolutely impossible Lucy
was! Really, thought Midge, I don't 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, A.D.Cs, 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: "Oh!
but I'm so sorry ..." and resentment immediately
vanished.
"Darling," said Lady Angkatell, "I'm so sorry. You should have told me!"
"I'm telling you now--but it's too late!
I'm thoroughly awake."
"What a shame. But you will help me, won't you?"
"About the week-end? Why? What's
wrong with it?"
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
unsubstantial as though a fairy had poised
itself there for a minute.
Lady Angkatell stretched out fluttering
white hands in a lovely, helpless gesture.
"All the wrong people coming--the
wrong people to be together, I mean--not in
themselves. They're all charming really."
"Who is coming?"
Midge pushed thick, wiry black hair back
from her square forehead with a sturdy
brown arm. Nothing unsubstantial or fairylike
about her.
"Well, John and Gerda. That's all right
by itself. I mean John is delightfulmost
attractive. And as for poor Gerdawell, I
mean, we must all be very kind. Very, very
kind."
Moved by an obscure instinct of defence,
Midge said:
"Oh, come now, she's not as bad as that."
"Oh, darling, she's pathetic. Those eyes.
And she never seems to understand a single
word one says."
"She doesn't," said Midge. "Not what
you saybut I dpn't 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."
"Just like a monkey," said Lady Angkatell
vaguely.
"But who else is coming beside the Christows?
Henrietta, I suppose?"
Lady Angkatell's face brightened.
"Yesand I really do feel that she will be
a tower of strength. She always is. Henrietta,
you know, is really kindkind 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
wordmaking, or quotations--or one of those
things, and we had all finished and were
reading them out when we suddenly discovered
that poor dear Gerda hadn't even begun.
She wasn't even sure what the game
was. It was dreadful, wasn't it. Midge?"
"Why anyone ever comes to stay with the
Angkatells, I don't know," said Midge.
"What with the brainwork, and the round
games, and your peculiar style of conversation, Lucy."
"Yes, darling, we must be trying--and it
must always be hateful for Gerda, and I often
think that if she had any spirit she would
stay away--but, however, there it was, and
the poor dear looked so bewildered and--
well--mortified, you know. And John
looked so dreadfully impatient. And I simply
couldn't think of how to make things all right
again--and it was then that I felt so grateful
to Henrietta. She turned right round to
Gerda and asked about the pullover she was
wearing--really a dreadful affair in faded
lettuce green--too depressing and jumble
sale, darling--and 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. It's a kind of
knack."
"She takes trouble," said Midge slowly.
"Yes, and she knows what to say."
"Ah," said Midge. "But it goes further
than saying. Do you know, Lucy, that Henrietta
actually knitted that pullover."
"Oh, my dear." Lady Angkatell looked
grave. "And wore it?"
"And wore it. Henrietta carries things
through."
"And was it very dreadful?"
"No. On Henrietta it looked very nice."
"Well, of course, it would. That's just the
difference between Henrietta and Gerda.
Everything Henrietta does she does well
and it turns out right. She's clever about
nearly everything, as well as in her own
line. I must say. Midge, that if anyone carries
us through this week-end, it will be
Henrietta. She will be nice to Gerda and
she will amuse Henry, and she'll keep John
in a good temper and I'm sure she'll be
most helpful with David--"
"David Angkatell?"
"Yes. He's just down from Oxford--or
perhaps Cambridge. Boys of that age are so
difficult--especially 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 Adam's apple as well. And they
either won't 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
doesn't just carve animals or children's 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 step ladder. It was
called Ascending Thought--or something
like that. It is the kind of thing that would
impress a boy like David ... I thought myself
it was just silly."
"Dear Lucy!"
"But some of Henrietta's things I think
are quite lovely. That Weeping Ash tree figure
for instance."
"Henrietta has a touch of real genius, I
think. And she is a very lovely and satisfying
person as well," said Midge.
Lady Angkatell got up and drifted over to
the window again. She played absentmindediy
with the blind cord.
"Why acorns, I wonder?" she murmured.
"Acorns?"
"On the blind cord. Like pineapples on
gates. I mean, there must be a reason. Because
it might just as easily be a fir cone or
a pear, but it's always an acorn. Mash, they
call it in crosswords--you know, for pigs.
So curious, I always think."
"Don't ramble off, Lucy. You came in
here to talk about the week-end and I can't
see why you are so anxious about it. If you
manage to keep off round games, and try to
be coherent when you're talking to Gerda, and put Henrietta on to tame the intellectual
David, where is the difficulty?"
"Well, for one thing, darling, Edward is
coming."
"Oh, Edward." Midge was silent for a
moment after saying the name.
Then she asked quietly:
"What on earth made you ask Edward for
this weekend?"
"I didn't. Midge. That's just it. He asked
himself. Wired to know if we could have
him. You know what Edward is. How sensitive.
If I'd wired back 'No,' he'd probably
never have asked himself again. He's like
that."
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 Lucy's insubstantial charm; gentle, diffident, ironic . . .
"Dear Edward," said Lucy, echoing the
thought in Midge's mind.
She went on impatiently:
"If 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 week-end without the Christows . . .
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?"
Again Midge nodded.
"And I can't 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 negative--"
"The ingredients of the pudding are not
promising," murmured Midge.
Lucy smiled at her.
"Sometimes," she said meditatively, "things arrange themselves quite simply.
I've asked the crime man to lunch on Sunday.
It will make a distraction, don't you
think so?"
"Crime man?"
"Like an egg," said Lady Angkatell. "He
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 don't remember much about it because
I never think it's very interesting who
killed who. I mean once they are dead it
doesn't seem to matter why, and to make a
fuss about it all seems so silly ..."
"But have you any crimes down here, Lucy?"
"Oh, no, darling. He's in one of those
funny new cottages--you 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.
There's an actress in the other, I believe.
They don't live in them all the time like we
do. Still," Lady Angkatell moved vaguely
across the room, "I daresay it pleases them.
Midge darling, it's sweet of you to have been
so helpful."
"I don't think I have been so very helpful."

"Oh, haven't you?" Lucy Angkatell
looked surprised. "Well, have a nice sleep
now and don't get up to breakfast, and when
you do get up, do be as rude as ever you
like."
"Rude?" Midge looked surprised. "Why?
Oh!" she laughed. "I see! Penetrating of
you, Lucy. Perhaps I'll take you at your
word."
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 knew--and
Midge wouldn't 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 husband's 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, looking 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 boiling . . .
"Another kettle gone, Mr. Gudgeon,"
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.
'There you are, Miss Simmons. Her ladyship
will never know."
"Does her ladyship often do this kind of
thing?" asked Simmons.
Gudgeon sighed.
"Her ladyship," he said, "is at once kindhearted
and very forgetful, if you know what
I mean. But in this house," he continued, "I see to it that everything possible is done
to spare her ladyship annoyance or worry."
Chapter II
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:
"And I do think. Miss Savernake, that I
was quite right! 'Really,' I said, 'if thafs the
line you're going to take!' Because I do
think. Miss Savernake, that a girl owes it to
herself to make a stand about these sort of
thingsif you know what I mean. 'I'm not
accustomed,' I said, 'to having things like
that said to me, and I can only say that you
must have a very nasty imagination!' One
does hate unpleasantness, but I do think I
was right to make a stand, don't you. Miss
Savernake?"
"Oh, absolutely," 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.
"'And if your wife says things of that
kind,' I said, 'well, I'm sure / can't help it!" I don't know how it is. Miss Savernake, but
it seems to be trouble wherever I go, and
I'm sure it's not my fault. I mean, men are
so susceptible, aren't they?" The model gave
a coquettish little giggle.
"Frightfully," said Henrietta, her eyes
half closed.
"Lovely," she was thinking. "Lovely that
plane just below the eyelid--and the other
plane coming up to meet it. That angle by
the jaw's wrong ... I must scrape off there
and build up again. It's tricky."
Aloud she said in her warm, sympathetic
voice:
"It must have been most difficult for you."
"I do think jealousy's so unfair. Miss Savernake,
and so narrow, if you know what I
mean. It's just envy, if I may say so, because
someone's better looking and younger than
they are."
Henrietta, working on the jaw, said absently, "Yes, of course."
She had learned the trick, years ago, of
shutting her mind into watertight compart-
ments. 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 ones--it 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: "Common, mean, spiteful little piece--but what eyes . . .
Lovely, lovely, lovely eyes ..."
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.
"Oh, damn," thought Henrietta with
sudden frenzy, "I'm ruining that eyebrow
arch! What the hell's the matter with it? I've
over-emphasized the bone--it's sharp, not
thick ..."
She stood back again, frowning from the
clay to the flesh and blood sitting on the
platform.
Doris Sanders went on:
" 'Well,' I said, (I really don't see why
your husband shouldn't give me a present if
he likes, and I don't think,' I said, "you ought
to make insinuations of that kind.' It was
ever such a nice bracelet. Miss Savernake, reely quite lovely--and, of course, I daresay
the poor fellow couldn't really afford it, but
I do think it was nice of him, and I certainly
wasn't going to give it back!"
"No, no," murmured Henrietta.
"And it's not as though there was anything
between us--anything nasty, I mean--there
was nothing of that kind."
"No," said Henrietta, "I'm sure there
wouldn't be."
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
coming . . . she was getting it ...
Now, in a few hours, she would be out of
her agony--the agony that had been growing
upon her for the last ten days.
Nausicaa--she had been haunted by
Nausicaa, she had got up with Nausicaa and
had breakfasted with Nausicaa and had 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 mind's eye--hovering there just not able
to be clearly seen. She had interviewed
models, hesitated over Greek types, felt profoundly
dissatisfied . . .
She wanted something--something to
give her the start--something 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 longing--to see--
There was a blind look in her own eyes as
she walked. She saw nothing of what was
around her. She was straining--straining the
whole time to make that face come nearer
. . . She felt sick, ill, miserable . . .
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 destination--she had seen--
yes 5 Nausicaa!
A foreshortened childish face, half parted
lips and eyes--lovely, 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 wanted--the agony of
baffled search was over.
"Excuse me for speaking to you. I'm a
professional sculptor and, to put it frankly, your head is just what I have been looking
for."
She was friendly, charming and compelling, as she knew how to be when she wanted
something.
Doris Sanders had been doubtful, alarmed, flattered.
"Well, I don't know, I'm sure. If it's just
the head. Of course, I've never done that sort
of thing!"
Suitable hesitations, delicate financial inquiry.

"Of course, I should insist on your accepting
the proper professional fee."
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 Henrietta's 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
spectacles--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 short-sighted 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.
"All right," she said, "I've finished. I
hope you're not too tired?"
"Oh, no, thank you. Miss Savernake. It's
been very interesting, I'm sure. Do you
mean it's really done--so soon?"
Henrietta laughed.
"Oh, no, it's not actually finished. I shall
have to work on it quite a bit. But it's finished
as far as you're concerned. I've got
what I wanted--built up the planes."
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 5 cheap prettiness.
She came to stand by Henrietta and look
at the clay model.
"Oh," she said doubtfully, disappointment
in her voice, "it's not very like me, is
it?"
Henrietta smiled.
"Oh, no, it's not a portrait."
There was, indeed, hardly a likeness at
all. It was the setting of the eyes--the line
of the cheekbone--that Henrietta had seen
as the essential keynote of her conception of
Nausicaa. This was not Doris Sanders; it was
a blind girl about whom a poem could be
made. The lips were parted as Doris's were
parted, but they were not Doris's lips. They
were lips that would speak another language
and would utter thoughts that were not Doris's
thoughts--
None of the features were clearly defined.
It was Nausicaa remembered, not seen . . .
"Well," said Miss Sanders doubtfully, "I
suppose it'll look better when you've got on
with it a bit ... And you reely don't want
me any more?"
"No, thank you," said Henrietta. ("And
thank God I don't!" said her inner mind.)
-i i
"You've been simply splendid. I'm very
grateful."
She got rid of Doris expertly and returned
to make herself some black coffee. She was
tired--she was horribly tired . . . But happy--happy
and at peace.
"Thank goodness," she thought, "now I
can be a human being again."
And at once her thoughts went to John . . .
John, she thought. Warmth crept into her
cheeks, a sudden quick lifting of the heart
made her spirits soar.
Tomorrow, she thought, I'm going to The
Hollow ... I shall see John . . .
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 again--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 didn't know what
you were looking for! Now, thank goodness, there would be only hard work--and who
minded hard work?
She put down the empty cup and got up
and strolled back to Nausicaa. She looked at
the face for some time, and slowly a little
frown crept between her brows.
It wasn't--it wasn't quite--
What was it that was wrong . . .
Blind eyes . . .
Blind eyes that were more beautiful than
any eyes that could see ... Blind eyes that
tore at your heart because they were blind
. . . Had she got that or hadn't she?
She'd got it, yes--but she'd got something
else as well. Something that she
hadn't meant or thought about . . . The
structure was all right--yes, surely. But
where did it come from--that faint insidious
suggestion . . .
The suggestion, somewhere, of a common
spiteful mind . . .
She hadn't 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 wouldn't, she knew she wouldn't, be able to get it out again . . .
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, how vulnerable
one is.
She walked, frowning, up to the end of
the studio. She stopped in front of her figure
of The Worshipper.
That was all right--a lovely bit of pearwood,
graining just right. She'd 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 time--it was for the
International Group. Yes, quite a worthy exhibit.

She'd got it all right, the humility, the
strength in the neck muscles, the bowed
shoulders, the slightly upraised face--a featureless
face, since worship drives out personality.

--Yes, submission, adoration--and that
final devotion that is beyond, not this side, idolatry.
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, "You can't exhibit
that!"
And she had said, as flatly, "I shall."
She went slowly back to Nausicaa. There
was nothing there, she thought, that she
couldn't 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
gone--all the essential planes were there. It
only needed patience.
Ahead of her were three happy days with
Lucy and Henry and Midge--and 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 she 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
oneself . . .
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 concentration . . . just letting
them drift gently past . . .
Outside in the Mews a car was being
revved up--somewhere there was hoarse
shouting and laughing. She took the sounds
into the stream of her semiconsciousness--
The car, she thought, was a tiger roaring
. . . yellow and black . . . striped like the
striped leaves--leaves and shadows--a hot
jungle . . . and then down the river--a wide
tropical river ... to the sea and the liner
starting . . . and hoarse voices calling goodbye--and
John beside her on the deck . . .
she and John starting--blue sea and down
into the dining saloon--smiling at him
across the table--like dinner at the Maison
Doree--poor John, so angry! . . . out into
the night air--and the car, the feeling of
sliding in the gears--effortless, smooth, racing
out of London ... up over Shovel Down
. . . the trees . . . tree worship . . . The Hollow
. . . Lucy . . . John . . . John . . .
Ridgeway's Disease . . . dear John . . .
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 Nausicaa--Doris Sanders!
A pang went through Henrietta. She was
pleading with herself, "I can get it right--I
can get it right ..."
"Stupid," she said to herself. "You know
quite well what you've got to do."
Because if she didn't do it now, at once
--tomorrow she wouldn't have the courage.
It was like destroying your flesh and blood.
It hurt--yes, 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 men-
1T
tal 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 . . .
Queer, thought Henrietta, how things can
seep into you without your knowing it ...
She hadn't been listening--not really
listening--and yet knowledge of Doris's
cheap, spiteful little mind had seeped into
her mind and had, unconsciously, influenced
her hands.
And now the thing that had been
Nausicaa-- Doris--was only--clay-- j ust
the raw material that would soon be fashioned into something else.
Henrietta thought dreamily. Is that, then, what death is? Is what we call personality
just the shaping of it--the impress of somebody's
thought? Whose thought? God's?
That was the idea, wasn't it, of Peer
Gynt? Back into the Button Moulder's ladle. Where am I, myself, the whole man, the true
man? Where am I with God's mark upon my
brow?
Did John feel like that? He had been so
tired the other night--so disheartened.
Ridgeway's Disease . . . Not one of those
books told you who Ridgeway was! Stupid,
she thought, she would like to know . . .
Ridgeway's Disease . . . John . . .
Chapter III
john christow sat in his consulting room
seeing his last patient but one for that morning.
His eyes, sympathetic and encouraging 5
watched her as she described--explained--
went 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 interested--so 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
proprietary--nicely put up in cellophane
and attractively coated in an unusual
shade of salmon pink. Very expensive, too, and difficult to get--not every chemist
stocked it. She'd probably have to go to that
little place in Wardour Street. That would
be all to the good--probably buck her up
no end for a month or two, then he'd 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 Crabtree
. . .
A boring morning. Profitable financially
--but nothing else. God, he was tired! Tired
of sickly women and their ailments. Palliation, alleviation--nothing to it but that.
Sometimes he wondered if it was worth it
. . . but always then he remembered St.
Christopher's, 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 live--though 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 live--she enjoyed life--just as he, John Christow, enjoyed
life! It wasn't the circumstances of life
they enjoyed, it was life itself--the zest of
existence. Curious--a thing one couldn't 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.
God, he thought again, I'm tired . . .
Only one more patient to see and then the
clear space of the week-end. His mind dwelt
on it gratefully. Golden leaves tinged with
red and brown, the soft moist smell of
Autumn--the road down through the
woods--the wood fires. Lucy, most unique
and delightful of creatures--with her curious, elusive, will-o'-the-wisp mind. He'd
rather have Henry and Lucy than any other
host and hostess in England. And The Hollow
was the most delightful house he knew.
On Sunday he'd walk through the woods
with Henrietta--up onto the crest of the hill
and along the ridge. Walking with Henrietta
he'd forget that there were any sick people
in the world. Thank goodness, he thought, there's never anything the matter with Henrietta.
And
then with a sudden quick twist of
humour, she'd never let on to me if there
was!
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
tired--so 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 submissive--so 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, thafs why you married
her, isn't it? What are you complaining about?
After that Summer at San Miguel.)
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 word--
it was anger, not irritation, that she
inspired)--what angered him there was
Henrietta's unswerving rectitude where he
was concerned. It was so at variance with
her attitude to the world in general. He had
said to her once:
"I think you are the greatest liar I know."
"Perhaps."
"You are always willing to say anything
to people if only it pleases them."
"That always seems to me more important."

"More important than speaking the
truth?"
"Much more."
"Then why, in God's name, can't you lie
a little more to me?"
"Do you want me to?"
"Yes."
"I'm sorry, John, but I can't."
"You must know so often what I want you
to say--"
Come now, he mustn't start thinking of
Henrietta. He'd 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 shouldn't 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 tired--he was so very tired. It
seemed to him that he had been tired for a
very long time. There was something he
wanted--wanted badly.
And there shot into his mind the thought:
I want to go home.
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 didn't.
But his medical curiosity was aroused.
What had he meant by that phrase that had
flashed out suddenly in his mind?
/ want to go home . . .
There must be something--some image
...
He half closed his eyes--there must be
some background.
And very clearly, before his mind's 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 startled--a little disturbed. He
hadn't thought of San Miguel for years. He
certainly didn't want to go back there. All
of that belonged to a past chapter in his life.
That was twelve--fourteen--fifteen years
ago. And he'd done the right thing! His judgment
had been absolutely right! He'd been
madly in love with Veronica but it wouldn't
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 hadn't been able to
grab him! He'd 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:
"If you really want to be a doctor you can
take a degree over there, I suppose, but it's
quite unnecessary. You've got enough to live
on, and / shall be making heaps of money."
And he had replied vehemently:
"But I'm keen on my profession. I'm going
to work with Radley."
His voice--a young, enthusiastic voice--
was quite awed.
Veronica sniffed.
"That funny snuffy old man?"
"That funny snuffy old man," John had
said angrily, "has done some of the most
valuable research work on Pratfs disease--"
She had interrupted: Who cared for
Pratt's disease? California, she said, was an
enchanting climate. And it was fun to see
the world. She added: "I shall hate it without
you. I want you, John--I need you."
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. He'd 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 be.
The door opened and his secretary. Beryl
Collier, came in.
"You've still got Mrs. Forrester to see."
He said shortly, "I know."
"I thought you might have forgotten."
She crossed the room and went out at the
farther door. Christow's eyes followed her
calm withdrawal. A plain girl. Beryl, but
damned efficient. He'd 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-abnegation--Beryl 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.
"No," she had been saying, "I don't really
think he is much more selfish than he was.
Perhaps rather more thoughtless and inconsiderate."

He had known that she was speaking of
him, and for quite twenty-four hours he had
been annoyed about it!
Although Gerda's indiscriminate enthusiasm
irritated him. Beryl's cool appraisal
irritated him too. In fact, he thought, nearly
everything irritates me.
Something wrong there. Overwork? Perhaps--
No, that was the excuse. This growing
impatience, this irritable tiredness, it had
some deeper significance. He thought. This
won't do. I can't go on this way. What's the
matter with me? If I could get away . . .
There it was again--the blind idea rushing
up to meet the formulated idea of escape.
I want to go home . . .
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: "You must
get very tired of these rich patients always
fancying themselves ill. It must be so satisfactory
to get to the Poor who come only
when there is something really the matter
with them!" 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, liniment
for her back, linctus for her cough, aperients, digestive mixtures! "Fourteen
years I've 'ad the brown medicine, doctor, and it's 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, doesn't it, doctor? I mean, I've
'ad me brown medicine for fourteen years
and if I don't 'ave me liquid paraffin and
them brown pills. ..."
He could hear the whining voice now--
excellent physique, sound as a bell--even all
the physic she took couldn't 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 be. ...
God, he was tired of the whole business. . . .
Blue sea, the faint, sweet smell of mimosa,
hot dust. . . .
Fifteen years ago. All that was over and done
with--yes, done with, thank Heaven! He'd
had the courage to break off the whole business--

"Courage?" said a little imp somewhere. "Is that what you call it?"
Well, he'd done the sensible thing, hadn't
he? It had been a wrench. Damn it all, it
had hurt like hell! But he'd gone through
with it, cut loose, come home, and married
Gerda.
He'd got a plain secretary and he'd married
a plain wife. That was what he wanted, wasn't it? He'd had enough of beauty, hadn't
he? He'd seen what someone like Veronica
could do with her beauty--seen the effect it
had had on every male within range. After
Veronica, he'd wanted safety. Safety and
peace and devotion and the quiet enduring
things of life. He'd wanted, in fact, Gerda!
He'd wanted someone who'd take her ideas
of life from him, who would accept his decisions
and who wouldn't have, for one moment, any ideas of her own.
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.
He'd 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 worth
while . . .
John Christow leant back in his chair. He
was free now--free to go upstairs to join
Gerda and the children--free from the
preoccupations of illness and suffering for a
whole weekend.
But he still felt that strange disinclination
to move, that new queer lassitude of the will.
He was tired--tired--tired. . . .
Chapter IV
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 cold--congealed, 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 delay--
John was so impatient. "But surely you
knew I was just coming ..." There would
be that tone of suppressed exasperation in
his voice that she knew and dreaded. Besides, it would get overcooked, dried up--
John 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:
"Boracic salts burn with a green flame, sodium salts are yellow."
Gerda looked distractedly across the table
at his square freckled face. She had no idea
what he was talking about.
"Did you know that. Mother?"
"Know what, dear?"
"About salts."
Gerda's eyes 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 something . . .
"It's one of the chemical tests," said Terence
in a dreamy voice. "Jolly interesting, /
think."
Zena, aged nine, with a pretty, vacuous
face, whimpered:
"I want my dinner. Can't we start, Mother?"
"In a minute, dear; we must wait for Father."

"We could start," said Terence. "Father
wouldn't mind. You know how fast he eats."
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 dish--but sometimes
she didn't--and 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 getting--a skin was
forming on the top of it--she must send it
back--but then if John were just coming--
and surely he would be coming now--
Her mind went round and round unhappily
. . . 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 Miguel . . . blue sea . . . smell of mimosa . . . a scarlet tritoma upright against green
leaves . . . the hot sun . . . the dust . . . that
desperation of love and suffering . . .
He thought. Oh, God, not that. Never
that again! That's over . . .
1 He wished suddenly that he had never
known Veronica, never married Gerda, never met Henrietta . . .
Mrs. Crabtree, he thought, was worth the
lot of them . . . That had been a bad afternoon
last week. He'd been so pleased with
the reactions. She could stand .005 by now.
And then had come that alarming rise in
toxicity and the D.L. reaction had been negative
instead of positive.
The old bean had lain there, blue, gasping
for breath--peering up at him with malicious, indomitable eyes.
"Making a bit of a guinea pig out of me, ain't you, dearie? Experimenting--that
kinder thing."
"We want to get you well," he had said, smiling down at her.
"Up to your tricks, yer mean!" She had
grinned suddenly. "I don't mind, bless yer.
You carry on, doctor! Someone's got to be
first, that's it, ain't it? 'Ad me 'air permed, I did, when I was a kid. It wasn't 'alf a
difficult business then! Looked like a nigger, I did. Couldn't get a comb through it. But
there--I enjoyed the fun. You can 'ave yer
fun with me. I can stand it."
"Feel pretty bad, don't you?" His hand
Ai-i
was on her pulse. Vitality passed from him
to the panting old woman on the bed.
"Orful, I feel. You're about right! 'Asn't
gone according to plan--that's it, isn't it?
Never you mind. Don't you lose 'eart. I can
stand a lot, I can!"
John Christow said appreciatively:
"You're fine. I wish all my patients were
like you."
"I wanter get well . . . that's why! I wanter
get well. . . Mum, she lived to be eightyeight--and
old grandma was ninety when
she popped off. We're long livers in our family, we are."
He had come away miserable, racked with
doubt and uncertainty. He'd 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 . . .
He'd been too cock-sure--he'd taken it
for granted that he'd circumvented all the
snags.
And it was then, on the steps of St. Christopher's, that a sudden desperate weariness
had overcome him--a hatred of all this long, slow, wearisome clinical work, and he'd
thought of Henrietta. Thought of her suddenly, not as herself, but of her beauty and
her freshness, her health and her radiant
vitality--and 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 didn't want to talk about the hospital.
He wanted to make love to Henrietta and
forget that the hospital and Mrs. Crabtree
and Ridgeway's 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 simplify--to explain.
I m "You see, you have to get a reaction--"
iff Henrietta said quickly:
^^^^^B Af\
"Yes, yes, the D.L. reaction has to be
positive. I understand that. Go on."
He said sharply, "How do you know about
the D.L. reaction?"
"I got a book--"
"What book? Whose?"
She motioned towards the small book table.
He snorted.
"Scobell? Scobell's no good. He's fundamentally
unsound. Look here, if you want
to read--don't--"
She interrupted him.
"I only want to understand some of the
terms you use--enough so as to understand
you without making you stop to explain
everything the whole time. Go on. I'm following
you all right."
"Well," he said doubtfully, "remember
Scobell's unsound." He went on talking. He
talked for two hours and a half. Reviewing
the set-backs, analyzing the possibilities, outlining possible theories. He was hardly
conscious of Henrietta's 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 right--the main theory
was correct--and there were ways, more
ways than one, of combating the toxic symptoms
. . .
And then, suddenly, he was tired out.
He'd got it all clear now. He'd get on to it
tomorrow morning. He'd ring up Neill, tell
him to combine the two solutions and try
that. Yes--try that. By God, he wasn't going
to be beaten!
"I'm tired," he said abruptly. "My God,
I'm tired."
And he had flung himself down and
slept--slept like the dead.
He had wakened to find Henrietta smiling
at him in the morning light and making tea
and he had smiled back at her.
"Not at all according to plan," he said.
"Does it matter?"
"No. No. You are rather a nice person, Henrietta." His eyes went to the bookcase. "If you're interested in this sort of thing, I'll
get you the proper stuff to read."
"I'm not interested in this sort of thing.
I'm interested in you, John."
"You can't read Scobell." He took up the
offending volume. "The man's a charlatan."
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 wasn't 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: "Let
me have a good look at this funny person
called John . . . Let me get a long way away
and look at him. ..."
It was, he thought, very much the same
as the way she screwed up her eyes to look
at her work--or a picture. It was--damn it
all--it was detached. He didn't want Henrietta
to be detached. He wanted Henrietta
to think only of him, never to let her mind
stray away from him.
("Just what you object to in Gerda, in
fact," said his private imp, bobbing up
again.)
The truth of it was that he was completely
illogical. He didn't know what he wanted.
(/ want to go home . . . What an absurd, what a ridiculous phrase. It didn't mean anything.)

In an hour or so at any rate he'd be driving
out of London--forgetting about sick people
with their faint, sour, "wrong" smell . . .
sniffing wood smoke and pines and soft wet
Autumn leaves. . . . The very motion of the
car would be soothing--that smooth, effortless
increase of speed . . .
But it wouldn't, 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 sit 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
gear--not even Henrietta. He'd turned her
over to Henrietta, thinking that Henrietta's
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.
"Isn't he a beauty, John? Doesn't he just
Purr along? (For Henrietta's cars were always
masculine.) He'll do Bale Hill in
third--not straining at all--quite effortlessly.
Listen to the even way he ticks over."
Until he had burst out suddenly and fu~ riously:
"Don't you think, Henrietta, you could
pay some attention to me and forget the
damned car for a minute or two!"
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
it--and hated it--at the same time.
The most furious quarrel he had had with
her had arisen over that.
Gerda had said to him one day:
"Henrietta has asked me to sit for her."
"What?" His astonishment had not, if he
came to think of it, been flattering. "You?"
"Yes, I'm going over to the studio tomorrow."
"What on earth does she want you for?"
No, he hadn't been very polite about it.
But luckily Gerda hadn't realized that fact.
She had looked pleased about it. He suspected
Henrietta of one of those insincere
kindnesses of hers--Gerda, perhaps, had i
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 thing--technically skilful
like all of Henrietta's work. It idealized
Gerda--and Gerda herself was clearly
pleased about it.
"I really think it's rather charming, John."
"Is that Henrietta's work? It means
nothing--nothing at all. I don't see how she
came to do a thing like that."
"It's different, of course, from her abstract
work--but I think it's good, John, I
really do."
He had said no more--after all, he didn't
want to spoil Gerda's pleasure. But he
tackled Henrietta about it at the first opportunity.

"What did you want to make that silly
thing of Gerda for? It's unworthy of you.
After all, you usually turn out decent stuff."
Henrietta said slowly:
<<I didn't think it was bad. Gerda seemed
quite pleased."
, "Gerda was delighted. She would be.
Gerda doesn't know art from a coloured photograph."

"It wasn't bad art, John. It was just a
portrait statuette--quite harmless and not at
all pretentious."
"You don't usually waste your time doing
that kind of stuff--"
He broke off, staring at a wooden figure
about five feet high.
"Hullo, what's this?"
"It's for the International Group. Pearwood.
The Worshipper."
She watched him. He stared and then--
suddenly, his neck swelled and he turned on
her furiously.
"So that's what you wanted Gerda for?
How dare you?"
"I wondered if you'd see. . . ."
"See it? Of course I see it. It's here." He
placed a finger on the broad, heavy neck
muscles.
Henrietta nodded.
"Yes, it's the neck and shoulders I
wanted--and that heavy forward slant--the
submission--that bowed look. It's wonderful!"

"Wonderful? Look here, Henrietta, I
won't have it. You're to leave Gerda alone."
"Gerda won't know. Nobody will know.
You know Gerda would never recognize herself
here--nobody else would either. And it isn't Gerda. It isn't anybody."
"I recognized it, didn't I?"
"You're different, John. You--see
things."
"It's the damned cheek of it! I won't have
it, Henrietta! I won't have it. Can't you see
that it was an indefensible thing to do?"
"Was it?"
"Don't you know it was? Can't you feel it
was? Where's your usual sensitiveness?"
Henrietta said slowly:
"You don't understand, John. I don't
think I could ever make you understand
. . . You don't know what it is to want
something--to look at it day after day--that
line of the neck--those muscles--the angle
where the head goes forward--that heaviness
round the jaw. I've been looking at
them, wanting them--every time I saw
Gerda ... In the end I just had to have
them!"
"Unscrupulous!"
"Yes, I suppose just that. But when you want things in that way you just have to take
them."
"You mean you don't care a damn about
anybody else. You don't care about Gerda--"
"Don't
be stupid, John. That's why I
made that statuette thing. To please Gerda
and make her happy. I'm not inhuman!"
"Inhuman is exactly what you are."
"Do you think--honestly--that Gerda
would ever recognize herself in this?"
John looked at it unwillingly. For the first
time his anger and resentment became subordinated
to his interest. A strange submissive
figure 5 a figure offering up worship to
an unseen deity--the face raised--blind, dumb, devoted-- terribly strong, terribly fanatical.
... He said:
"That's rather a terrifying thing that you
have made, Henrietta!"
Henrietta shivered slightly.
She said: "Yes--I thought that. ..."
John said sharply:
"What's she looking at--who is it?--
there in front of her?"
Henrietta hesitated. She said, and her
voice had a queer note in it--
"I don't know. But I think--she might be
looking at you, John."
Chapter V
in the dining room the child Terence made
another scientific statement.
"Lead salts are more soluble in cold water
than in hot."
He looked expectantly at his mother but
without any real hope. Parents, in the opinion
of young Terence 3 were sadly disappointing.

"Did you know that. Mother?"
"I don't know anything about chemistry, dear."
"You could read about it in a book," 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 . . . S
he had
been miserable ever since she woke up this horning and realized that at last this longdreaded week-end 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 attempt at
kindliness was the figure she dreaded most.
But the others were nearly as bad. For Gerda
it was two days of sheer martyrdom--to be
endured for John's sake.
For John, that morning, as he stretched
himself, had remarked in tones of unmitigated
pleasure:
"Splendid to think we'll be getting into
the country this week-end. It will do you
good, Gerda; just what you need."
She had smiled mechanically and had said
with unselfish fortitude, "It will be delightful."

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 water colours 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 Gerda's clothes--a
thing which made Gerda feel hot and uncomfortable
all over. She would lie miserably, enduring these things, trying to comfort
herself by thinking. Only one morning more
. . . 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 more
clever than she was. Their comments, quick, impatient, not quite unkind, had whistled
about her ears like a hailstorm: "Oh, do be
quick, Gerda." "Butterfingers, give it to
me!" "Oh, don't let Gerda do it, she'll be ages." "Gerda never takes in anything. . . ."
Hadn't they seen, all of them, that that
was the way to make her slower and more
stupid still? She'd got worse and worse, more
clumsy with her fingers, more slowwitted,
1 more inclined to stare vacantly when something
was said to her.
1 Until, suddenly, she had reached the point
where she had found a way out . . . Almost
^ i
accidentally, really, she found her weapon
of defence.
She had grown slower still, her puzzled
stare had become even more blank. But now, when they said impatiently, "Oh, Gerda, how stupid you are, don't you understand that?" she had been able, behind her blank
expression, to hug herself a little in her secret
knowledge . . . For she wasn't quite 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 someone's 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 didn't have to
do them at all, and then people didn't know
that you did them badly. And so, slowly,
you came round again almost to where you ^
r
started. To feeling that you could hold your
own on equal terms with the world at large.
(But that wouldn't, Gerda feared, hold
good with the Angkatells; the Angkatells
were always so far ahead that you didn't feel
even in the same street with them. How she
hated the Angkatells! It was good for John
--John liked it there. He came home less
tired--and 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 out--and the interest he
took in his hospital patients--all that side of
his work that didn't pay at all. John was so disinterested--so 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. "I'll look after you," he had
said. Nicely, rather masterfully. "Don't
worry about things, Gerda, I'll take care of
you . . ."
Just what a man ought to be. Wonderful ^ think John should have chosen her.
He had said, with that sudden, very attractive, half pleading smile of his, "I like
my own way, you know, Gerda."
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
nervywhen nothing seemed to please him.
When, somehow, nothing she did was right.
One couldn't blame him. He was so busy,
so unselfish
Oh, dear, that mutton! She ought to have
sent it back! Still no sign of John . . . Why
couldn't she, sometimes, decide right. Again
those dark waves of misery swept over her.
The mutton! This awful week-end 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, "Don't
think about it. No use poisoning yourself
with drugs. Take a brisk walk."
The mutton! Staring at it, Gerda felt the
words repeating themselves in her aching
head, "The mutton, the MUTTON, THE
MUTTON. ..."
Tears of self-pity sprang to her eyes. Why,
she thought, does nothing ever go right for
me?
Terence looked across the table at his
mother and then at the joint. He thought, Why can't we have our dinner? How stupid
grown up people are. They haven't any
sense!
Aloud he said in a careful voice:
"Nicholson Minor and I are going to make
nitro-glycerine in his father's shrubbery.
They live in Streatham."
"Are you, dear? That will be very nice,"
said Gerda.
There was still time. If she rang the bell
and told Lewis to take the joint down
now--
Terence looked at her with faint curiosity.
He had felt instinctively that the manufacture
of nitro-glycerine 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 judgment had been
Justified. If, by any chance, there should be
a fuss--if, that is, the properties of nitroglycerine
should manifest themselves too evidently, he would be able to say in an injured
voice, "I told Mother ..."
All the same, he felt vaguely disappointed.
Even Mother, he thought, ought to know
about nitroglycerine.
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
John's 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. . . .
"God," he exclaimed as he sat down and
energetically sharpened the carving knife
against the steel, "how I hate sick people!"
"Oh, John." Gerda was quickly reproachful.
"Don't say things like that. They'U think
you mean it."
She gestured slightly with her head towards
the children.
"I do mean it," said John Christow. "Nobody
ought to be ill."
"Father's joking," said Gerda quickly to
Terence.
Terence examined his father with the dispassionate
attention he gave to everything.
"I don't think he is," he said.
"If you hated sick people, you wouldn't
be a doctor, dear," said Gerda, laughing
gently.
"That's exactly the reason," said John
Christow. "No doctors like sickness. Good
God, this meat's stone cold. Why on earth
didn't you have it sent down to keep hot?"
"Well, dear, I didn't know. You see, I
thought you were just coming--"
John Christow pressed the bell, a long, irritated push. Lewis came promptly.
"Take this down, and tell cook to warm
it up."
He spoke curtly.
"Yes, sir." 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:
"I'm so sorry, dear, it's all my fault, but
first, you see, I thought you were coming, and then I thought, well, if I did send it
back ..."
John interrupted her impatiently.
'Oh, what does it matter? It isn't impor-
tant. Not worth making a song and dance
about."
Then he asked:
"Is the car here?"
"I think so. Collie ordered it."
"Then we can get away as soon as lunch
is over."
Across Albert Bridge, he thought, and
then over Clapham Common--the short cut
by the Crystal Palace--Croydon--Purley
Way, then avoid the main road--take that
right-hand fork up Metherly Hill--along
Haverston Ridge--get suddenly right out of
the suburban belt, through Cormerton, and
then up Shovel Down--trees golden red--
woodland below one everywhere--the soft
Autumn smell, and down over the crest of
the hill . . .
Lucy and Henry . . . Henrietta . . .
He hadn't seen Henrietta for four days.
When he had last seen her, he'd been angry.
She'd had that look in her eyes . . . Not
abstracted, not inattentive--he couldn't quite
describe it--that look of seeing something--
something that wasn't there--something (and
that was the crux of it) something that wasn't
John Christow!
He said to himself, "I know she's a sculptor.
I know her work's good. But, damn it
all, can't she put it aside sometimes? Can't
she sometimes think of me--and nothing
else?"
He was unfair. He knew he was unfair.
Henrietta seldom talked of her work--was
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, "Would you give all this up if I asked
you to?"
"All--what?" Her warm voice held surprise.

"All--this." He waved a comprehensive
hand round the studio.
And immediately he thought to himself, Fool! Why did you ask her that? And again, Let her say "Of course." Let her lie to me!
If she'll only say, "Of course I will." It
doesn't matter if she means it or not! But let
her say it. I must have peace.
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:
"I suppose so. If it was necessary . . ."
"Necessary? What do you mean by necessary?"

"I don't really know what I mean by it, John. Necessary, as an amputation might be
necessary ..."
"Nothing short of a surgical operation, in
fact!"
"You are angry. What did you want me
to say?"
"You know well enough. One word would
have done. Yes. Why couldn't you say it?
You say enough things to other people to
please them, without caring whether they're
true or not. Why not to me? For God's sake, why not to me?"
And still, very slowly, she had answered:
"I don't know . . . really, I don't know, John. I can't--that's all. I can't."
He had walked up and down for a minute
or two. Then he had said:
"You will drive me mad, Henrietta. I
never feel that I have any influence over you
at all."
"Why should you want to have?"
"I don't know, but I do."
He threw himself down on a chair.
"I want to come first."
"You do, John."
"No. If I were dead, the first thing you'd
do, with the tears streaming down your face, would be to start modelling some damned mourning woman or some figure of
grief. ..."
<<I wonder. I believe--yes, perhaps I
would. It's rather horrible ..."
She had sat there looking at him with dismayed
eyes--
The pudding was burnt. Christow raised his
eyebrows over it and Gerda hurried into
apologies.
"I'm so sorry, dear. I can't think why that
should happen! It's my fault. Give me the
top and you take the underneath."
The pudding was burnt because he, John
Christow, had stayed sitting in his consulting
room for a quarter of an hour after he needed
to, 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
I " I r _ _
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.
"Why on earth don't you blow your
nose?"
"She's got a little cold, I think, dear."
"No, she hasn't. You're always thinking
they have colds! She's all right."
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 suggestion of illness.

"I sneezed eight times before lunch," said
Zena importantly.
"Heat sneeze!" said John.
"It's not hot," said Terence. "The thermometer
in the hall is fifty-five."
John got up.
"Have we finished? Good, let's get on.
Ready to start, Gerda?"
"In a minute, John, I've just a few things
to put in."
"Surely you could have done that before. What have you been doing all the morning?"
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 couldn't she have been
ready? His own suit-case was packed and in
the hall. Why on earth--
Zena was advancing on him, clasping
some rather sticky cards.
"Can I tell your fortune. Daddy? I know
how. I've told Mother's and Terry's and
Lewis's and Jane's and Cook's."
"All right--"
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, sniffling, diseased people.
He wanted to get to woods and wet leaves
--and the graceful aloofness of Lucy Angkatell
who always gave you the impression
she hadn't even got a body.
Zena was importantly dealing out cards.
"That's you in the middle. Father, the
King of Hearts. The person whose fortune's
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 head--that has power over you, and one under your feet--you have power
over it. And this one--covers you!
"Now!" Zena drew a deep breath. "We
turn them over. On the right of you is the
Queen of Diamonds--quite close."
Henrietta, he thought, momentarily diverted
and amused by Zena's solemnity.
"And the next one is the Knave of
Clubs--he's some quite young man--
"On the left of you is the eight of spades
--that's a secret enemy. Have you got a secret
enemy. Father?"
"Not that I know of."
"And beyond is the Queen of Spades--
that's a much older lady."
"Lady Angkatell," he said to himself.
"Now this is what's over your head and
has power over you--the Queen of
Hearts. ..."
Veronica, he thought. Veronica! And then:
What a fool I am! Veronica doesn't mean a
thing to me now.
"And this is under your feet and you have
power over it--the Queen of Clubs ..."
Gerda hurried into the room.
"I'm quite ready now, John."
"Oh, wait. Mother, wait, I'm telling Daddy's
fortune. Just the last card. Daddy--the
most important of all. The one that covers
you."
Zena's small sticky fingers turned it over.
She gave a gasp.
"Oo--it's the Ace of Spades! That's usually
a death--but--"
"Your mother," said John, "is going to
run over someone on the way out of London.
Come on, Gerda. Goodbye, you two. Try
and behave."
Chapter VI
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
Alfrege's 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.
"Hullo, my dear."
"Am I very late?"
"You haven't missed lunch," said Sir
Henry, smiling.
Midge sat down beside him and said with
a sigh:
"It's nice being here."
"You're looking rather peaked."
"Oh, I'm all right. How delightful to be
somewhere where no fat women are trying
to get into clothes several sizes too small for
them!"
"Must be dreadful!" Sir Henry paused
and then said, glancing down at his wristwatch, "Edward's arriving by the 12:15."
"Is he?" Midge paused, then said, "I
haven't seen Edward for a long time ..."
"He's just the same," said Sir Henry.
"Hardly ever comes up from Ainswick."
Ainswick, thought Midge. Ainswick! Her
heart gave a sick pang. Those lovely days at
Ainswick. Visits looked forward to for
months! Pm going to Ainswick . . . Lying
awake for nights beforehand thinking about
it. . .And at last--the day! The little country
station at which the train--the big London
express--had to stop if you gave notice
to the guard! The Daimler waiting outside.
The drive--the final turn in through the gate
and up through the woods till you came out
into the open and there the house was--big
and white and welcoming. Old Uncle Geoffrey
in his patchwork tweed coat . . .
"Now then, youngsters--enjoy yourselves."
And how they had enjoyed themselves.
Henrietta, over from Ireland.
Edward, home from Eton. She herself, from
the North country grimness of a manufacturing
town. How like heaven it had been.
But always centering 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 that she had been startled one
day when Tremlet the head gardener had
said:
"The place will be Mr. Edward's some
day."
"But why, Tremlet? He's not Uncle Geoffrey's
son?"
"He's the heir, Miss Midge. Entailed, that's what they call it. Miss Lucy, she's Mr.
Geoffrey's only child, but she can't inherit
because she's a female and Mr. Henry, her
husband, he's only a second cousin. Not so
near as Mr. Edward."
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.
78 |
Her father, old Geoffrey Angkatell, had been
a great "character" in the county. 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 "getting over it." One
simply did not get over anyone like Edward.
Edward at 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 remember . . .
Sir Henry's voice recalled her:
"How do you think Lucy is looking?"
79
"Very well. She's just the same as ever." Midge smiled a little. "More so."
"Ye-es." Sir Henry drew on his pipe. He
said unexpectedly:
"Sometimes, you know. Midge, I get worried
about Lucy."
"Worried?" Midge looked at him in surprise.
"Why?"
Sir Henry shook his head.
"Lucy," he said, "doesn't realize that
there are things that she can't do."
Midge stared. He went on:
"She gets away with things. She always
has." He smiled. "She's flouted the traditions
of Government House--she's played
merry hell with precedence at dinner parties
(and that. Midge, is a black crime!). She's
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
Raj--I'm damned if she hasn't got away with
it! That trick others--smiling at people and
looking as though she couldn't help it! Servants
are the same--she gives them any
amount of trouble and they adore her."
"I know what you mean," said Midge
thoughtfully. "Things that you wouldn't
stand from anyone else, you feel are all right
if Lucy does them. What is it, I wonder?
Charm? Magnetism?"
Sir Henry shrugged his shoulders.
I "She's always been the same from a girl--
only sometimes I feel if s growing on her. . . .
I mean that she doesn't realize that there are limits. Why, I really believe. Midge," he said, amused, "that Lucy would feel she could get
away with murder!"
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 Delage's health, she started
off.
"Running a treat. Miss," 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 short cuts out of
London. She had routes of her own and
when driving in London itself had as inti-
mate a knowledge of its streets as any taxi
driver.
She now took her own newly discovered
way southwest, turning and twisting through
intricate mazes of suburban streets.
When she finally came 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, I love Autumn. It's so
much richer than Spring.
And suddenly one of those moments of
intense happiness came to her--a sense of
the loveliness of the world--of her own intense
enjoyment of that world.
She thought, I shall never be as happy
again as I am now . . . never. . . .
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.
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:
"Oh! there you are, Henrietta. When
you've taken your car into the stables and given it a bran mash, lunch will be ready."
"What a penetrating remark of Lucy's,"
said Henrietta as she drove round the house, Midge accompanying her on the running
board. "You know, I always prided myself
on having completely escaped the horsy taint
of my Irish forebears. When you've 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.
It's quite true. I do."
"I know," said Midge. "Lucy is quite devastating.
She told me this morning that I was
to be as rude as I liked whilst I was here."
Henrietta considered this for a moment
and then nodded.
"Of course," she said. "The shop!"
"Yes. When one has to spend every day
of one's 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 one--well, one does want
to cuss! You know, Henrietta, I always wonder
why people think it's so humiliating to
go 'into service5 and that it's 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."
"It must be foul, darling. I wish you
weren't so grand and proud and insistent on
earning your own living ..."
"Anyway, Lucy's an angel. I shall be gloriously
rude to everyone this weekend."
"Who's here?" said Henrietta as she got
out of the car.
"The Christows are coming." Midge
paused and then went on: "Edward's just
arrived."
"Edward? How nice! I haven't seen Edward
for ages. Anybody else?"
"David Angkatell. That, according to
Lucy, is where you are going to come in
useful. You're going to stop him biting his
nails."
"It sounds very unlike me," said Henrietta.
"I hate interfering with people and I
wouldn't dream of checking their personal
habits. What did Lucy really say?"
"It amounted to that! He's got an Adam's
apple, too!"
"I'm not expected to do anything about
that, am I?" asked Henrietta, alarmed.
"And you're to be kind to Gerda."
"How I should hate Lucy if I were
Gerda!"
"And someone who solves crimes is coming
to lunch tomorrow."
"We're not going to play the Murder
Game, are we?"
"I don't think so. I think it is just neighbourly
hospitality."
Midge's voice changed a little.
"Here's Edward coming out to hunt us."
"Dear Edward," 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.
"Hullo, Henrietta. I haven't seen you for
over a year."
"Hullo, Edward."
How nice Edward was! That gentle smile of his, the little creases at the corners of his eyes. And all his nice knobbly bones ... I
believe it's his bones I like so much, thought
Henrietta. The warmth of her affection for
Edward startled her. She had forgotten that
she liked Edward so much. . . .
After lunch Edward said, "Come for a walk,
Henrietta."
It was Edward's kind of walka 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 3 what fun they had
had there! She began to talk to Edward about
Ainswick. They revived old memories.
"Do you remember our squirrel? The one
with the broken paw? And we kept it in a
cage and it got well?"
"Of course. It had a ridiculous name
what was it now?"
"Cholmondeley-Marj oribanks!'?
"That's it."
They both laughed.
"And old Mrs. Bondy, the housekeeper
she always said it would go up the chimney
one day."
"And we were so indignant ..."
"And then it did ..."
"She made it," said Henrietta positively.
"She put the thought into the squirrel's
head."
She went on:
"Is it all the same, Edward? Or is it
changed? I always imagine it as just the
same."
"Why don't you come and see, Henrietta?
It's a long, long time since you've been
there."
"I know. ..."
Why, she thought, had she let so long a
time go by? One got busy--interested--tangled
up with people . . .
"You know you're always welcome there
at any time."
"How sweet you are, Edward!"
Dear Edward, she thought, with his nice bones . . .
He said presently:
"I'm glad you're fond of Ainswick, Henrietta."
She
said dreamily, "Ainswick is the loveliest
place in the world. ..."
A long-legged girl, with a mane of untidy
brown hair ... a happy girl with no idea at
all of the things that life was going to do to
her ... a girl who loved trees . . .
To have been so happy and not to have
known it! If I could go back, she thought. . .
And aloud she said suddenly:
"Is Ygdrasil still there?"
"It was struck by lightning."
"Oh, no, not Ygdrasil!"
She was distressed. Ygdrasil--her own
special name for the big oak tree. If the gods
could strike down Ygdrasil, then nothing
was safe! Better not go back . . .
"Do you remember your special sign, the
Ygdrasil sign?" Edward asked.
"The 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."
He handed her a pencil and notebook, and laughing, she drew the ridiculous tree.
"Yes," he said, "that's Ygdrasil ..."
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.
"It's a little like Ainswick here--a kind
of pocket Ainswick. I've sometimes wondered--Edward,
do you think that that is
why Lucy and Henry came here?"
"It's possible."
"One never knows," said Henrietta
slowly, "what goes on in Lucy's head."
Then she asked, "What have you been doing
with yourself, Edward, since I saw you last?"
"Nothing, Henrietta."
"That sounds very peaceful."
"I've never been very good at--doing
things."
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.

"Perhaps," she said, "you are wise."
"Wise?"
"Not to do things ..."
Edward said slowly, "That's an odd thing
for you to say, Henrietta. You, who've been
so successful."
"Do you think of me as successful? How
funny."
"But you are, my dear. You're an artist.
You must be proud of yourself--you can't
help being."
"I know," said Henrietta. "A lot of people ^y that to me. They don't understand--
they don't understand the first thing about ^I You don't, Edward. Sculpture isn't a
thing you set out to do and succeed in. It's
a thing that gets at you, that nags at you
and haunts youso that, sooner or later,
you've got to make terms with it. And then,
for a bit, you get some peaceuntil the
whole thing starts over again."
"Do you want to be peaceful, Henrietta?"
"Sometimes I think I want to be peaceful
more than anything in the world, Edward!"
"You could be peaceful at Ainswick . . .
I think you could be happy there. Even
even if you had to put up with me. What
about it, Henrietta? Won't you come to
Ainswick and make it your home? It's always
been there, you know, waiting for you."
Henrietta turned her head slowly. She said
in a low voice:
"I wish I wasn't so dreadfully fond of you,
Edward. It makes it so very much harder to
go on saying no."
"It is no, then?"
"I'm sorry."
"You've said no beforebut this time
well, I thought it might be different. You've
been happy this afternoon, Henrietta. You
can't deny that."
"I've been very happy."
"Your face evenit's younger than it was
this morning."
"I know."
"We've been happy together, talking
about Ainswick, thinking about Ainswick.
Don't you see what that means, Henrietta?"
"It's you who don't see what it means,
Edward! We've been living all this afternoon
in the past."
"The past is sometimes a very good place
to live."
"One can't go back. That's the one thing
one can't do--go back."
He was silent for a minute or two. Then
he said in a quiet, pleasant and quite unemotional
voice:
"What you really mean is that you won't
marry me because of John Christow."
Henrietta did not answer, and Edward
went on:
"That's it, isn't it? If there were no John
Christow in the world you would marry me."
Henrietta said harshly, "I can't imagine a
world in which there was no John Christow!
That's what you've got to understand."
"If it's like that, why on earth doesn't the
fellow get a divorce from his wife and then
you could marry?"
"John doesn't want to get a divorce from
his wife. And I don't know that I should
want to marry John if he did. It isn'tit
isn't in the least like you think."
Edward said in a thoughtful, considering
way:
"John Christow . . . There are too many
John Christows in this world ..."
"You're wrong," said Henrietta. "There
are very few people like John ..."
"If that's soit's a good thing! At least,
that's what I think!"
He got up. "We'd better go back again."
Chapter VII
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 out
--this awful week-end 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 laundry--she'd put it--
where had she put it? Would the children
be all right with Mademoiselle? Mademoiselle
was so--so-- Would 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, "The car will start better, Gerda, if you
switch on the engine."
03
"Oh, dear, how stupid of me." She shot
a quick alarmed glance at him. If John was
going to become annoyed straight away
But to her relief he was smiling.
That's because, thought Gerda, with one
of her flashes of acumen, he's so pleased to
be going to the Angkatells'.
Poor John, he worked so hard! His life
was so unselfish, so completely devoted to
others. No wonder he looked forward to this
long week-end. 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 curb:
"You know, John, you really shouldn't
make jokes about hating sick people. It's
wonderful of you to make light of all you do,
and I understand. But the children don't.
Terry, in particular, has such a very literal
mind."
"There are times," said John Christow,
"when Terry seems to me almost human
not like Zena! How long do girls go on being
a mass of affectation?"
Gerda gave a little, quite sweet laugh.
John, she knew, was teasing her. She stuck
to her point. Gerda had an adhesive mind.
"I really think, John, that it's good for
f\A
children to realize the unselfishness and devotion
of a doctor's life."
"Oh, God!" 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 Gerda's driving and
said, "What are you stopping for?"
"I thought the lights might change--"
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:
"You really are the worst driver in the
world, Gerda!"
"I always find traffic lights so worrying.
One doesn't know just when they are going
to change."
John cast a quick sideways look at Gerda's
anxious unhappy face.
Everything worries Gerda, he thought,
and tried to imagine what it must feel like
to live in that state. But since he was not a
nc
man of much imagination, he could not picture
it at all.
"You see," Gerda stuck to her point, "I've always impressed on the children just
what a doctor's life is--the self-sacrifice, the
dedication of oneself to helping pain and
suffering--the desire to serve others. It's
such a noble life--and I'm so proud of the
way you give your time and energy and never
spare yourself--"
T
John Christow interrupted her.
"Hasn't it ever occurred to you that I like doctoring--that it's a pleasure, not a sacrifice!
Don't you realize that the damned
thing's interesting!"
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.
"Drowning in treacle," he said under his
breath.
"What?" Gerda leaned towards him.
He shook his head.
If he were to tell Gerda that he was trying
to "find a cure for cancer," she would
respond--she could understand a plain sentimental
statement. But she would never understand
the peculiar fascination of the
intricacies of Ridgeway's Disease--he
doubted if he could even make her understand
what Ridgeway's Disease actually was.
(Particularly, he thought with a grin, as
we're not really quite sure ourselves! We
don't really know why the cortex degenerates!)

But it occurred to him suddenly that Terence,
child though he was, might be interested
in Ridgeway's Disease. He had liked
the way that Terence had eyed him appraisingly
before stating: "I think Father does
mean it . . ."
Terence had been out of favour the last
few days for breaking the Cona coffee
machine--some nonsense about trying to
make ammonia . . . Ammonia? Funny kid,
why should he want to make ammonia? Interesting
in a way . . .
Gerda was relieved at John's 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
f\^7
were in the car. Her nervous determination
to do it right this time was always 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.
"Stroke it in, Gerda, stroke it in," Henrietta
had pleaded once, years ago. Henrietta
had demonstrated. "Can't you feel the way
it wants to go--it wants to slide in--keep
your hand flat till you get the feeling of it--
don't just push it anywhere--feel it."
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
didn't have that horrible grinding noise.
On the whole, thought Gerda, as she began
the ascent of Mersham Hill, this drive
wasn't going too badly. John was still absorbed
in thought--and he hadn't 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.
"What on earth's the point of changing
up just when you're coming to the steep
bit?"
Gerda set her jaw. Not very much farther
now. Not that she wanted to get there. No, indeed, she'd much rather drive on for hours
and hours, even if John did lose his temper
with her!
But now they were driving along Shovel
Down--flaming Autumn woods all round
them.
"Wonderful to get out of London into
this," exclaimed John. "Think of it, Gerda, most afternoons we're stuck in that dingy
drawing room having tea--sometimes with
the light on."
The image of the somewhat dark drawing
room of the flat rose up before Gerda's eyes
with the tantalizing delight of a mirage. Oh!
if only she could be sitting there now.
"The country looks lovely," she said heroically.

Down the steep hill--no escape now . . .
That vague hope that something, she didn't
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.
nn
John was glad to see Henrietta, too . . .
It seemed to him exactly the fitting journey's
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 skirt
that 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 smilea brief
recognition of the fact that each was glad of
the other's presence. John didn't want to talk
to Henrietta now. He just enjoyed feeling
that she was thereknowing that without
her the week-end 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.
"But how very nice to see you, Gerda! It's
been such a long time. And John!"
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, "You know Edward? Edward
Angkatell?"
John nodded to Edward and said, "No, I
don't think so."
The afternoon sun lighted up the gold of
John's 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, bloodless--a shadowy figure, stooping a little . . .
Henrietta suggested to Gerda that they
should go and look at the kitchen garden.
"Lucy is sure to insist on showing us the
rock garden and the Autumn border," she
said as she led the way, "but I always think
kitchen gardens are nice and peaceful. One
can sit on the cucumber frames, or go inside
a greenhouse if it's cold, and nobody bothers
one and sometimes there's something to
eat."
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
wouldn't 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!
"She only wants to be allowed to curl up
and purr," 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. Gerda's face lost its
expression of placidity. Her shoulders
drooped. She sat there, the picture of misery.
She jumped when Henrietta spoke.
"Why do you come," said Henrietta, "if
you hate it so much?"
Gerda hurried into speech.
"Oh, I don't! I mean, I don't know why
you should think--"
She paused, then went on:
"It is really delightful to get out of
London, and Lady Angkatell is so very kind--"
"Lucy? She's not a bit kind."
Gerda looked faintly shocked.
"Oh, but she is. She's so very nice to me
always."
"Lucy has good manners and she can be
gracious. But she is rather a cruel person. I
think really because she isn't quite human
--she doesn't know what it's 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?"
"Well, you see, John likes it--"
"Oh, John likes it all right. But you could
let him come by himself."
"He wouldn't like that. He wouldn't enjoy
it without me. John is so unselfish. He thinks ^ is good for me to get out into the country."
"The country is all right," said Henrietta,
"but there's no need to throw in the Angkatells."

"I--I--don't want you to feel that I'm
ungrateful."
"My 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 don't wonder outside people want to
murder us."
Then she added:
"I expect it's about teatime. Let's go
back."
She was watching Gerda's face as the latter
got up and started to walk towards the house.
It's interesting, thought Henrietta, one
portion of whose mind was always detached, to see exactly what a female Christian martyr's
face looked like before she went into
the Arena. . . .
As they left the walled kitchen garden,
they heard shots and Henrietta remarked:
"Sounds as though the massacre of the
Angkatells had begun!"
It turned out to be Sir Henry and Edward
discussing firearms and illustrating their discussion
by firing revolvers. Henry Angkatell's
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.
"Hullo, Henrietta. Want to try if you
could kill a burglar?"
Henrietta took the revolver from him.
"That's right--yes, so, aim like this."
Bang!
"Missed him," said Sir Henry.
"You try, Gerda."
"Oh, I don't think I--"
"Come on, Mrs. Christow. It's quite simple."

Gerda fired the revolver, flinching, and
shutting her eyes. The bullet went even
wider than Henrietta's had done.
"Oo, I want to do it," said Midge, strolling
up.
"It's more difficult than you'd think," she
remarked after a couple of shots. "But it's
rather fun."
Lucy came out from the house. Behind
her came a tall, sulky young man with an
Adam's apple.
"Here's David," 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.
"Well done, Lucy," exclaimed Midge. "I |
didn't know shooting was one of your accomplishments."

"Lucy," said Sir Henry gravely, "always
kills her man!"
Then he added reminiscently, "Came in
useful once. Do you remember, my dear, those thugs that set upon us that day on the
Asian side of the Bosporus? I was rolling
about with two of them on top of me, feeling
for my throat."
"And what did Lucy do?" asked Midge.
"Fired two shots into the melee. I didn't
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 I've ever had. I can't think how she didn't
hit me."
Lady Angkatell smiled at him.
"I think one always has to take some risk,"
she said gently. "And one should do it
quickly and not think too much about it."
"An admirable sentiment, my dear," said
Sir Henry. "But I have always felt slightly
aggrieved that I was the risk you took!"
Chapter VIII
after tea John said to Henrietta, "Come
for a walk," 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, "It's
not a Marathon, John!" He slowed down and laughed.
"Am I walking you off your feet?"
"I can do it--but is there any need? We
haven't got a train to catch. Why do you
have this ferocious energy? Are you running
away from yourself?" He stopped dead. "Why do you say that?"
Henrietta looked at him curiously.
"I didn't mean anything particular by it."
John went on again, but walking more
slowly.
"As a matter of fact," he said, "I'm tired.
I'm very tired."
She heard the lassitude in his voice.
"How's the Crabtree?"
"It's early days to say, but I think, Henrietta,
that I've got the hang of things. If
I'm right"--his footsteps began to quicken
--"a lot of our ideas will be revolutionised
--we'll have to reconsider the whole question
of hormone secretion--"
"You mean that there will be a cure for
Ridgeway's Disease? That people won't
die?"
"That, incidentally."
What odd people doctors were, thought
Henrietta. Incidentally!
"Scientifically, it opens up all sorts of possibilities!"

He drew a deep breath. "But it's good to
get down here--good to get some air into
your lungs--good to see you." He gave her
one of his sudden quick smiles, "And it will
do Gerda good."
"Gerda, of course, simply loves coming to
The Hollow!"
"Of course she does. By the way, have I met Edward Angkatell before?" "You've met him twice," said Henrietta
dryly.
"I couldn't remember. He's one of those
vague, indefinite people."
"Edward's a dear. I've always been very
fond of him."
"Well, don't let's waste time on Edward!
None of these people count."
Henrietta said in a low voice:
"Sometimes, John--I'm afraid for you!"
"Afraid for me--what do you mean?"
He turned an astonished face upon her.
"You are so oblivious--so--yes, blind." "Blind?"
"You don't know--you don't see--you're
curiously insensitive! You don't know what
other people are feeling and thinking."
"I should have said just the opposite."
"You see what you're looking at, yes.
You're--you're like a search-light. A powerful
beam turned onto the one spot where
your interest is, and behind it and each side
of it, darkness!" "Henrietta, my dear, what is all this?" "It's dangerous, John. You assume that everyone likes you, that they mean well to
you. People like Lucy, for instance."
"Doesn't Lucy like me?" he said, surprised.
"I've always been extremely fond of
her."
"And so you assume that she likes you.
But I'm not sure . . . And Gerda and Edward--or
and Midge and Henry? How do
you know what they feel towards you?"
"And Henrietta? Do I know how she
feels?" He caught her hand for a moment.
"At least--I'm sure of you."
She took her hand away.
"You can be sure of no one in this world, John."
His face had grown grave.
"No, I won't believe that. I'm sure of you
and I'm sure of myself. At least--" His face
changed.
"What is it, John?"
"Do you know what I found myself saying
today? Something quite ridiculous. "/ want
to go home.9 That's what I said and I haven't
the least idea what I meant by it."
Henrietta said slowly, "You must have
had some picture in your mind ..."
He said sharply, "Nothing. Nothing at
all!"
At dinner that night, Henrietta was put next
to David and from the end of the table Lu-
cy's delicate eyebrows telegraphed--not a
command--Lucy never commanded--but
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 Lucy's 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
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 charlatans--all manner and social success--his 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 5 though responding loyally to
the eyebrows, had some difficulty in making
headway. David's 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 un justifiable pronouncement on a
modern composer, knowing that David had
much technical 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.
"That," he said in loud, clear tones, fixing
a cold eye on Henrietta, "shows that you
don't know the first thing about the subject!"

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.

"So clever of you, darling," murmured
Lady Angkatell as she slipped an arm
through Henrietta's on the way to the drawing-room.
"What 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?"
"I think David would be rather insulted by animal grab."
"Perhaps 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."
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 also--but 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 anything like a break, she intended that Gerda
should win. Gerda was not really a bad
bridge player--away from John she was
quite average--but 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 over-confident player. Edward
was a very good player indeed.
The evening wore on and at Henrietta's
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 Henrietta's overcalling
her own bids and playing the hand.
Those moments when John, unable to refrain
from that critical attitude which did
more to undermine Gerda's self-confidence
than he could possibly have imagined, exclaimed, "Why on earth did you lead that
club, Gerda?" were countered almost immediately
by Henrietta's swift, "Nonsense,
John, of course she had to lead the club! It j
was the only possible thing to do." &
Finally, with a sigh, Henrietta drew the
score towards her.
"Game and rubber, but I don't think we
shall make much out of it, Gerda."
John said, "A lucky finesse," 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, "You don't always look deliberately
into people's hands, do you?"
Henrietta said calmly, "Perhaps I was a
little obvious. How despicable it is to want
to win at games!"
"You wanted Gerda to win the rubber, you mean. In your desire to give pleasure to
people, you don't draw the line at cheating."
"How horribly you put things! And you
are always quite right."
"Your wishes seemed to be shared by my
partner."
So he had noticed, thought Henrietta. She
had wondered, herself, if she had been mistaken.
Edward was so skilful--there was
nothing you could have taken hold of. A
failure, once, to call the game. A lead that had been sound and obvious--but when a
less obvious lead would have assured success.

It worried Henrietta . . . Edward 5 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 any more
success for John Christow that he was unable
to endure . . .
She felt suddenly keyed up, alert. She
didn't like this party of Lucy's.
And then dramatically, unexpectedly, with 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.
"You must forgive me--bursting in upon
you this way. I'm your neighbour. Lady
Angkatell--from that ridiculous cottage
Dovecotes--and the most frightful catastrophe
has occurred!"
Her smile broadened--became more humorous.

"Not 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."
Nobody spoke for a moment, for Veronica
had rather that effect. She was lovely--not
quietly lovely, not even dazzlingly lovely--
but so efficiently lovely that it made you
gasp! The waves of pale shimmering hair,
the curving mouth--the 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!
"And I smoke," she said, "like a chimney!
And my lighter won't work! And besides,
there's breakfast--gas stoves--" She thrust
out her hands. "I do feel such a complete
fool."
Lucy came forward, gracious, faintly
amused.
"Why, of course--" 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.

1 T7
"Why, surely--John! It's John Christow!
Now isn't that too extraordinary? I haven't
seen you for years and years and years! And
suddenly--to find you here!"
She had his hands in hers by now. She
was all warmth and simple eagerness. She
half turned her head to Lady Angkatell.
"This is just the most wonderful surprise.
John's an old, old friend of mine. Why, John's the first man I ever loved! I was crazy
about you,John."
She was half laughing now--a woman
moved by the ridiculous remembrance of
young love.
"I always thought John was just wonderful!"

Sir Henry, courteous and polished, had
moved forward to her.
She must have a drink. He manoeuvred
glasses. Lady Angkatell said:
"Midge dear, ring the bell."
When Gudgeon came, Lucy said:
"A box of matches. Gudgeon--at least has
cook got plenty?"
"A new dozen came in today, m'lady."
"Then bring in half a dozen. Gudgeon.?? "Oh, no. Lady Angkatell--just one!"
Veronica protested, laughing, she had her
r
drink now and was smiling round at everyone.
John Christow said:
"This is my wife, Veronica."
"Oh, but how lovely to meet you." Veronica
beamed upon Gerda's 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.
"Oh, dear Lady Angkatell, not all these!"
Lucy's gesture was negligently royal.
"It's so tiresome having only one of a
thing. We can spare them quite easily."
Sir Henry was saying pleasantly:
"And how do you like living at Dovecotes?"

"I adore it. It's wonderful here, near London,
and yet one feels so beautifully isolated."

Veronica put down her glass. She drew
the platinum foxes a little closer round her.
She smiled on them all.
"Thank you so much! You've been so
kind--" the words floated between Sir
Henry and Lady Angkatell, and for some ^ason, Edward. "I shall now carry home
the spoils. John," she gave him an artless,
11 /\
friendly smile, "you must see me safely
back 5 because I want dreadfully to hear all
you've been doing in the years and years
since I've seen you. It makes me feel, of
course 5 dreadfully old . . "
She moved to the window and John Christow
followed her. She flung a last brilliant
smile at them all.
"I'm so dreadfully sorry to have bothered
you in this stupid way . . . Thank you so
much, Lady Angkatell."
She went out with John. Sir Henry stood
by the window looking after them.
"Quite a fine warm night," he said.
Lady Angkatell yawned.
"Oh, dear," she murmured, "we must go
to bed. Henry, we must go and see one of
her pictures. I'm sure, from tonight, she
must give a lovely performance."
They went upstairs. Midge, saying good
night, asked Lucy:
"A lovely performance?"
"Didn't you think so, darling?"
"I gather, Lucy, that you think it's just
possible she may have some matches in
Dovecotes all the time."
"Dozens of boxes, I expect, darling. But
we mustn't be uncharitable. And it was a
lovely performance!"
Doors were shutting all down the corridor,
'voices were murmuring good nights. Sir
Henry said, "I'll leave the window for Christow."
His own door shut.
Henrietta said to Gerda, "What fun actresses
are. They make such marvellous entrances
and exits!" She yawned and added, "I'm frightfully sleepy."
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.
"Not quite like the Mediterranean, is it, John?" she said.
He knew then what he had been waiting
for--knew that in all those fifteen years of
separation from Veronica, she had still been ^ith him. The blue sea, the scent of mimosa, ^e hot dust--pushed down, thrust out of ^ght, but never really forgotten . . . They ^1 meant one thing--Veronica. He was a

young man of twenty-four, desperately and
agonizingly in love and this time he was not
going to run away. . . .
Chapter IX
john christow came out from the chestnut
woods onto 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 wrist-watch he wore.
It was three o'clock. 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.
He'd been a fool, of course, a complete
damned fool, but he didn't 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 leg--and now
the weight was gone. He was free.
He was free and himself, John Christow
--and he knew that to John Christow, suc-
i ^f
cessful Harley Street specialist, Veronica
Cray meant nothing whatsoever. All that had
been in the past--and because that conflict
had never been resolved, because he had always
suffered humiliatingly from the fear
that he had, in plain language, "run away,"
Veronica's 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 for ever. He was back in the present--and
it was 3:00 a.m., and it was just possible that
he had mucked up things rather badly.
He'd 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 didn't care quite
so much about Henrietta. He could, he felt, at a pinch explain to Henrietta. He could never explain to Gerda.)
And he didn't, definitely he didn't, want
to lose anything.
All his life he had been a man who took
a justifiable amount of risks. Risks with patients, risks with treatment, risks with investments.
Never a fantastic risk--only the
kind of risk that was just beyond the margin
of safety.
If Gerda guessedif Gerda had the least
suspicion.
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 this . . .
What had he looked like when he followed
Veronica's tall, triumphant figure out of that
window? What had he shown in his face?
Had they seen a boy's dazed, love-sick face?
Or had they only observed a man doing a
polite duty? He didn't know! He hadn't the
least idea.
But he was afraidafraid for the ease and
order and safety of his life. He'd been mad
quite mad, he thought with exasperation
and then took comfort in that very
thought. Nobody would believe, surely, he
could have been as mad as that?
Everybody was in bed and asleep, 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? Henrietta's room . . .
Henrietta! Not Henrietta, his heart cried
in a sudden panic. I can't lose Henrietta!
He wanted suddenly to fling up a handful
of pebbles at her window, to cry out to her.
"Come out, my dear love. Come out to
me now and walk with me up through the
woods to Shovel Down and there listen--
listen to everything that I now know about
myself and that you must know, too, if you
do not know it already ..." ;
He wanted to say to Henrietta:
"I 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, s
Because I never knew whether it was
strength or weakness that took me away from
Veronica 51 have been afraid of myself, afraid
of life? afraid of you."
If he were to wake Henrietta and make
her come out with him now--up through
the woods to where they could watch, together, the sun come up over the rim of the
world . . .
"You're mad," he said to himself. He
shivered. It was cold now, late September
after all. "What the devil is the matter with
you?" he asked himself. "You've behaved
quite insanely enough for one night. If you
get away with it as it is, you're damned
lucky!" 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
he'd 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 didn't 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 snooped--not 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 knew--
"Nonsense," he said to himself, "why |
should she? She's gone up to bed and she's
fast asleep. She's 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
Gerda's even breathing. She stirred as he
came in and closed the door. Her voice came
to him, blurred and indistinct with sleep:
"Is that you,John?"
"Yes."
"Aren't you very late? What time is it?"
He said easily,
"I've no idea. Sorry I woke you up. I had
to go in with the woman and have a drink."
He made his voice sound bored and
sleepy.
Gerda murmured, "Oh? Good night, John."
There was a rustle as she turned over in
bed.
It was all right! As usual, he'd been lucky
... As usual--just for a moment it sobered
him, the thought of how often his luck had
held! Time and again there had been a moment
when he'd held his breath and said, ^ifthis goes wrong ..." And it hadn't gone Wrong! But some day, surely, his luck would
change. . . .
He undressed quickly and got into bed.
I
Funny, that kid's fortune telling. And this
one is over your head and has power over you
. . . Veronica! And she had had power over
him all right.
But not any more, my girl, he thought
with a kind of savage satisfaction. All that's
over. I'm quit of you now!
Chapter X
it was ten o'clock 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 "giving trouble."
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 ^ith a letter on a salver.
"This has just come by hand, sir."
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! He'd a
good mind not to go. Then he thought he
might as well and get it over. He'd 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.
"Come inside, John. It's cold this morning."

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 "intellectual actresses." She had
a university degree and had had views on
Strindberg and on Shakespeare.
He was struck now with what had been
only dimly apparent to him in the past--
that 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.
"I sent for you," said Veronica as she
handed him a box of cigarettes, "because
we've got to talk. We've got to make arrangements.
For our future, I mean."
He took a cigarette and lighted it. Then
he said quite pleasantly:
"But have we a future?"
She gave him a sharp glance.
"What do you mean, John? Of course we
have got a future. We've wasted fifteen
years. There's no need to waste any more
time."
He sat down.
"I'm sorry, Veronica. But I'm afraid
you've got all this taped out wrong. I've--
enjoyed meeting you again very much. But
your life and mine don't touch anywhere.
They are quite divergent."
"Nonsense, John. I love you and you love
me. We've always loved each other. You
were incredibly obstinate in the past! But
never mind that now. Our lives needn't
clash. I don't mean to go back to the States.
When I've finished this picture I'm working
on now, I'm going to play a straight part on
the London stage. I've got a wonderful
play--Elderton's written it for me. It will
be a terrific success."
"I'm sure it will," he said politely.
"And you can go on being a doctor." Her
voice was kind axnd condescending. "You're
quite well knowm, they tell me."
"My dear girl^ I'm married. I've got children."

"I'm married rmyselfat the moment," said
| Veronica. "But ^11 these things are easily arranged.
A good lawyer can fix up everything."
She smxied at him dazzlingly. "I
always did mean to marry you, darling. I
can't think why I have this terrible passion
for you, but theire it is!"
"I'm sorry, Veronica, but no good lawyer
is going to fix ixp anything. Your life and
mine have nothing to do ^ith each other."
"Not after last night?"
"You're not a o:hild, Veronica. You've had
a couple of husbands, and by all accounts, several lovers. What does last night mean
actually? Nothing at all, and you know it."
"Oh, my de^r John--" she was still
amused, indulgent. "If you'd seen your
face--there in lhat stuffy drawing-room!
You might have 'been in San Miguel again!"
John sighed. He said:
"I 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
today--today's 4ifferent. I'm a man fifteen
years older. A man you don't even know--
I
and whom, I daresay, you wouldn't like
much if you did know."
"You prefer your wife and children to
me?"
She was genuinely amazed.
"Odd as it may seem to you, I do."
"Nonsense, John, you love me."
"I'm sorry, Veronica."
She said incredulously:
"You don't love me?"
"It's better to be quite clear about these
things. You are an extraordinarily beautiful
woman, Veronica, but I don't love you."
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.
"Who is she?"
"She? Who do you mean?"
"That woman by the mantelpiece last
night?"
Henrietta! he thought. How the devil did
she get on to Henrietta? Aloud he said:
"Who are you talking about? Midge Hardcastle?"
"Midge?
That's the square dark girl, isn't
it? No, I don't mean her. And I don't mean
your wife. I mean that insolent devil who
^
H was leaning against the mantlepiece! It's because
of her that you're turning me down!
Oh, don't pretend to be so moral about your
wife and children. It's that other woman."
She got up and came towards him.
"Don't you understand, John, that ever
since I came back to England, eighteen
months ago, I've 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 week-ends with the
Angkatells!"
"So last night was all planned, Veronica?"
"You belong to me, John. You always
have!"
"I don't belong to anyone, Veronica!
Hasn't life taught you even now that you
can't own other human beings body and
soul? I loved you when I was a young man.
I wanted you to share my life. You wouldn't
do it!"
"My life and career were much more important
than yours! Anyone can be a doctor!"
He lost his temper a little.
"Are you quite as wonderful as you think
you are?"
"You mean that I haven't got to the top
of the tree. I shall! / shall!"
John Christow looked at her with a sudden
quite dispassionate interest.
"I don't believe, you know, that you will
. . . There's a lack in you, Veronica. You're
all grab and snatch--no real generosity--I
think that's it ..."
Veronica got up. She said in a quiet voice:
"You turned me down fifteen years ago
. . . You've turned me down again today.
I'll make you sorry for this."
John got up and went to the door.
"I'm sorry, Veronica, if I've hurt you.
You're very lovely, my dear, and I once
loved you very much. Can't we leave it at
that?"
"Good-bye, John. We're not leaving it at
that. You'll find that out all right. I think
--I think I hate you more than I believed I
could hate anyone."
He shrugged his shoulders.
"I'm sorry. Goodbye."
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
-w
God alone knew what would have happened
to him by now if he hadn't!
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 Henrietta--she wasn't made that
way. Storms broke over her and she stood
there, meditative, her eyes looking at you
from very far away . . .
He thought, I shall go to Henrietta and
tell her--
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 noise--a very
faint businesslike click . . .
And suddenly, John was acutely conscious
of danger. How long had he been sitting
i ( here? Half an hour? An hour? There was
someone watching him. Someone--
And that click was--of course it was--
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 onto the concrete of
the pool edge and from there dripped red
into the blue water . . .
Chapter XI
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 and he would not
dress like an English country gentleman. He
was Hercule Poirot!
He did not, he confessed it to himself, really like the country. The week-end cottage--so
many of his friends had extolled
it--he 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 time--they had
that untidy habit of shedding their leaves!
He could endure poplars and he approved
of a monkey puzzle--but this riot of beech
and oak left him unmoved. Such a landscape
was best enjoyed from a car on a fine afternoon.
You exclaimed, "Quel beau pay sage!" 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, Francoise, Victor's
wife, devoted herself with tenderness
to the care of her employer's stomach.
Hercule Poirot passed through the gate, sighed, glanced down once more at his shining
black shoes, adjusted his pale grey Hornburg
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, each 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 detour
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 short cuts uninvited, especially
when one was the guest of people of social
importance. He was, it must be admitted, pleased by their invitation.
"Je suis un peu snob," he murmured to
himself.
He had retained an agreeable impression
of the Angkatells from the time in Baghdad, particularly of Lady Angkatell. "Une originate!" 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 door bell. 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.
"Her ladyship is in the pavilion by the
swimming pool, sir. Will you come this
way?"
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 drawingroom
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 o'clock, 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 AngkatelFs
excellent cook to embark on souffles
and such accurately timed delicacies without
too much trepidation.
To Hercule Poirot, the plan did not commend
itself.
"In a little minute," he thought, "I shall
be almost back where I started."
With an increasing awareness of his feet
in his shoes he followed Gudgeon's 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, "M. Poirot, m'lady," in the
Proper subdued and respectful tones when
his suppleness became suddenly rigid. He
gasped. It was an unbutlerlike noise.
Hercule Poirot stepped out onto the open
space surrounding the swimming pool, and
immediately he too stiffened, but with annoyance.

It was too much--it was really too much!
He had not suspected such cheapness of the
Angkatells. The long walk by the road, the
disappointment at the house--and now this! The misplaced sense of humour of the English!
He
was annoyed and he was bored--oh!
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, middleaged
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 further 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 "crime"? Was he to register dismay--
alarm? Or was he to bow, to congratulate his
hostess--"Ah! but it is very charming, what
you arrange for me here."
Really, the whole thing was very stupid
--not spirituel at all! Was it not Queen Victoria
who had said, "We are not amused"?
He felt very inclined to say the same. "I, Hercule Poirot, am not amused."
Lady Angkatell had walked towards the
body. He followed, conscious of Gudgeon, still breathing hard, behind him. He is not
in the secret, that one, Hercule Poirot
thought to himself. From the other side of ^e pool, the other two people joined them.
They were all quite close now, looking down
on that spectacular sprawling figure by the
pool's edge.
And suddenly, with a terrific shock, with
that feeling as of blurring on a cinematography
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.
Curious, 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 man's 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. J
And suddenly, or so it felt to Poirot, there
seemed to be in all this group of people only
one person who was really alivethe 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.
^Henriettaf' 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.
"Yes," he said. "He is dead ..."
The picture broke up, wavered, refocused
itself. There were individual reactions now
trivial happenings. Poirot was conscious
|pf himself as a kind of magnified eyes and
parsrecording. Just that, recording.
1 He was aware of Lady AngkatelFs hand
relaxing its grip on her basket and Gudgeon
springing forward, quickly taking it from
her.
"Allow me, m'lady ..."
Mechanically, quite naturally. Lady Angkatell
murmured:
"Thank you. Gudgeon."
And then, hesitantly, she said:
"Gerda--"
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.
"John's dead," she said. "John's dead. ..." With a kind of swift authority the tall
young woman with the leaf brown hair, came
swiftly to her.
"Give that to me, Gerda," she said.
And dexterously, before Poirot could protest
or intervene, she had taken the revolver
out of Gerda Christow's hand.
Poirot took a quick step forwards.
"You should not do that. Mademoiselle--"
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
"Oh" of consternation, turning her head to
look at Poirot apologetically.
"What a fool I am," she said. "I'm sorry." 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:
"Things should be handled as little as possible.
Everything must be left exactly as it
is for the police to see."
There was a little stir then--very faint, just a ripple of uneasiness.
Lady Angkatell murmured distastefully, "Of course. I suppose--yes, the police--"
In a quiet pleasant voice, tinged with fastidious
repulsion, the man in the shooting
coat said, "I'm afraid, Lucy, it's inevitable."
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:
"What's the matter? What's happened?"
His wife answered. "Gerda has--" she
broke off sharply. "I mean--John is--"
Gerda said in her flat, bewildered voice:
"John has been shot . . . he's dead. ..."
They all looked ^way from her, embarrassed.

Then Lady Anglkatell said quickly:
"My dear, I thin<< you'd better go and--- and lie down . . . perhaps we had better all
go back to the hoxise? Henry, you and M.
Poirot can stay her^ and--and wait for the
police."
"That will be th.e best plan, I think," said
Sir Henry. He turned to Gudgeon. "Will you
ring up the polic<e station. Gudgeon? Just
state exactly what: has occurred. When the
police arrive, bria^g them straight out here."
Gudgeon bent lii8 head a little and said,
"Yes, Sir Henry. 5? He was looking a little
white about the ^ills, but he was still the
perfect servant.
The tall young woman said, "Come,
Gerda," and putiting her hand through the
other woman's arw? ^e led her unresistingly
away and along tlh^ P^h towards the house.
Gerda walked as (hough in a dream. Gudgeon
stood back ss. little to let them pass and
then followed, carrying the basket of eggs.
Sir Henry turr-^d sharply to his wife.
"Now, Lucy, -what is all this? What happened
exactly?"
Lady AngkaiteH stretched out vague
hands;, a lovely helpless gesture. Hercule
Poirot felt the charm of it and the appeal.
"My dear, I hardly know ... I was down by the hens. I heard a shot that seemed very
near, but I didn't really think anything about
it. After all," she appealed to them all, "one
doesn't! 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 moment--from over there."
She nodded towards the farther side of the
pool, where two paths ran up into the woods.
Hercule Poirot cleared his throat.
"Who were they, this John and this
Gerda? If I may know," he added apologetically.

"Oh, of course." Lady Angkatell turned
to him in quick apology. "One forgets--but
then one doesn't exactly introduce people--
not when somebody has just been killed.
John is John Christow, Dr. Christow. Gerda
Christow is his wife."
"And the lady who went with Mrs. Christow
to the house?"
"My cousin, Henrietta Savernake."
There was a movement, a very faint movement
from the man on Poirot5 s left.
Henrietta Savernake, thought Poirot, and
he does not like that she should say it--but
it is, after all, inevitable that I should
know .. .
("Henrietta!" the dying man had said. He
had said it in a very curious way. A way that
reminded Poirot of something--of some incident
. . . now, what was it? No matter, it
would come to him.)
Lady Angkatell was going on, determined
now on fulfilling her social duties.
"And this is another cousin of ours^ Edward
Angkatell. And Miss Hardcastle."
Poirot acknowledged the introductions
with polite bows. Midge felt suddenly that
she wanted to laugh hysterically; she controlled
herself with an effort.
"And now, my dear," said Sir Henry, "I
think that, as you suggested, you had better
go back to the house ... I will have a word
or two here with M. Poirot."
Lady Angkatell looked thoughtfully at
them.
"I do hope," she said, "that Gerda is lying
down. Was that the right thing to suggest?
I really couldn't think what to say. I mean,
one has no precedent. What does one say to a
woman who has just killed her husband?"
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.
"Christow," he observed at last, "was a
very able fellow--a very able fellow."
Poirot's 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:
"Such a tragedy as this is very unfortunate,"
he said.
"This sort of thing is more in your line
than mine," said Sir Henry. "I don't think
I have ever been at close quarters with a
murder before. I hope I've done the right
thing so far?"
"The procedure has been quite correct,"
said Poirot. "You have summoned the police
and until they arrive and take charge, there is nothing for us to do--except to make
sure that nobody disturbs the body or tampers
with the evidence."
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 no--that had been an accident.
Sir Henry murmured distastefully:
"Think we've got to stand about? A bit
chilly. It would be all right, I should think, if we went inside the pavilion?"
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.
"I'd offer you a drink," said Sir Henry, "but I suppose I'd better not touch anything
until the police come--not, I should imagine, that there's anything to interest them in
here. Still, it is better to be on the safe side.
Gudgeon hadn't brought out the cocktails
yet, I see. He was waiting for you to arrive." The two men sat down rather gingerly in
two wicker chairs near the door so that they
I 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 AngkatelFs shoulders.
It worried him. It breathed a mixture of
opulence and self-advertisement--and those
characteristics were lacking in anyone he had seen so far.
"I suppose we can smoke," said Sir
Henry, offering his case to Poirot.
Before taking the cigarette, Poirot sniffed
the air.
French perfume ... an 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 Henry's lighter, Poirot's glance fell on
a little pile of match-boxes--six of them--
stacked on a small table near one of the settees.

It was a detail that struck him as definitely
odd.
Chapter XII
"half past two," said Lady Angkatell.
She was in the drawing-room with Midge
and Edward. From behind the closed door
of Sir Henry's study came the murmur of
voices. Hercule Poirot, Sir Henry and Inspector
Grange were in there.
Lady Angkatell sighed.
"You 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 lunch
--and he is probably hungry. And it can't
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--"
I
Edward Angkatell said, "Don't worry on
my account, Lucy dear."
"You are always considerate, Edward.
And then there is David--I 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?"
"He went up to his room," said Midge, "after he had heard what had happened."
"Yes--well, that was rather tactful of
him. I daresay it made him feel awkward
... Of course, say what you like, a murder is an awkward thing--it upsets the servants
and puts the general routine out--we were
having ducks for lunch--fortunately they
are quite nice eaten cold . . . What does one
do about Gerda, do you think? Something
on a tray? A little strong soup, perhaps?"
Really, thought Midge, Lucy is inhuman!
And then with a qualm she reflected that it
was perhaps because Lucy was too human
that it shocked one so! Wasn't 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
"poor Gerda" and who was now, presumably,
shortly to be standing in the dock
accused of murder.
"These things happen to other people,"
thought Midge. "They can't happen to us."
She looked across the room at Edward.
They oughtn't, she thought, to happen to
people like Edward. People who are so very ^violent . . . 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.
"I have placed sandwiches and some coffee
in the dining room, m'lady."
"Oh, thank you. Gudgeon!"
"Really," said Lady Angkatell as Gudgeon
left the room. "Gudgeon is wonderful!
I don't know what I should do without Gudgeon.
He always knows the right thing to
do. Some really substantial sandwiches are
as good as lunch--and nothing heartless about them if you know what I meani"
"Oh, Lucy, don't. . ."
Midge suddenly felt warm tears running
down her cheeks. Lady Angkatell looked
surprised, murmured:
"Poor darling. It's all been too much for
you."
Edward crossed to the sofa and sat down
by Midge. He put his arm round her.
"Don't worry, little Midge," 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, "It's been a shock.
Can I get her some brandy, Lucy?"
"On the sideboard in the dining room. I
don't think--"
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
cousin--but 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.
"Oh, there you are, Henrietta," cried
Lady Angkatell. "I have been wondering.
The police are with Henry and M. Poirot.
What have you given Gerda? Brandy? Or tea
and an aspirin?"
"I gave her some brandy--and a hot water
bottle."
"Quite right," said Lady Angkatell approvingly.
"That's what they tell you in First
Aid classes--the hot water bottle, I mean, for shock--not the brandy; there is a reaction
nowadays against stimulants. But I think
that is only a fashion. We always gave brandy
l for shock when I was a girl at Ainswick.
Though, really, I suppose, it can't be exactly shock with Gerda. I don't know really what one would feel if one had killed one's
husband--it's the sort of thing one just can't
begin to imagine--but it wouldn't exactly
give one a shock. I mean there wouldn't be
any element of surprise."
Henrietta's voice, icy cold, cut into the
placid atmosphere.
She said, "Why are you all so sure that
Gerda killed John?"
There was a moment's pause--and Midge
felt a curious shifting in the atmosphere--
there was confusion, strain and, finally, a
kind of slow watchfulness.
"Mrs. Christow?"
Gerda said eagerly:
"Yes, I am Mrs. Christow."
"I don't 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 it--"
Sir Henry put in:
"It is sometimes wiser, Gerda--"
She interrupted:
"A solicitor? Why a solicitor? Why should
a solicitor know anything about John's
death?"
Inspector Grange coughed. Sir Henry
seemed about to speak. Henrietta put in:
"The Inspector only wants to know just
what happened this morning."
Gerda turned to him. She spoke in a wondering
voice,
"It seems all like a bad dream--not real. I--I haven't been able to cry or anything.
One just doesn't feel anything at all."
Grange said soothingly:
"That's the shock, Mrs. Christow."
"Yes, yes--I suppose it is ... But you
see it was all so sudden. I went out from the
house and along the path to the swimming
pool--"
"At what time, Mrs. Christow?"
"It was just before one o'clockabout
two minutes to one. I know, because I looked
at that clock. And when I got therethere
was John, lying thereand blood on the
edge of the concrete ..."
"Did you hear a shot, Mrs. Christow?"
"YesnoI don't know. I knew Sir
Henry and Mr. Angkatell were out shooting
. . . II just saw John"
"Yes, Mrs. Christow?"
"Johnand bloodand a revolver. I
picked up the revolver"
"Why?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"Why did you pick up the revolver, Mrs.
Christow?"
"II don't know."
"You shouldn't have touched it, you
know."
"Shouldn't I?" Gerda was vague, her face
vacant. "But I did. I held it in my hand ..."
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 sharpanguished.
"Who could have killed John? Nobody
could have wanted to kill him. He washe
was the best of men. So kind, so unselfish
^he 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 accident--
it must--it must!" She flung out a hand to the room.
"Ask anyone. Inspector. Nobody could
have wanted to kill John, could they?"
She appealed to them all.
Inspector Grange closed up his notebook.
"Thank you, Mrs. Christow," he said in
an unemotional voice. "That will be all for
the present."
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 "the
body" 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 Christow--he
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
Christow's body had lain and where his life
blood had welled away over concrete into
artificially blue water . . .
Artificial--for a moment Poirot grasped
at the word . . . Yes, there had been something
artificial about it all. As though--
A man in a bathing suit came up to the
Inspector.
"Here's the revolver, sir," he said.
Grange took the dripping object gingerly.
"No hope of finger-prints now," he remarked, "but luckily it doesn't matter in this
case. Mrs. Christow was actually holding the
revolver when you arrived, wasn't she, M.
Poirot?"
"Yes."
"Identification of the revolver is the next
thing," said Grange. "I should imagine Sir
Henry will be able to do that for us. She got
it from his study, I should say."
He cast a glance around the pool.
"Now, let's have that again to be quite
clear. The path below the pool comes up
from the farm and that's the way Lady Angkatell
came-- The other two, Mr. Edward
Angkatell and Miss Savernake, came down
from the woods--but not together. He came
by the left-hand path, and she by the righthand
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?"
"Yes."
"And this path here beside the pavilion
leads on to Fodder's Lane. Right--we'll go
along it."
As they walked. Grange spoke, without
excitement, just with knowledge and quiet
pessimism.
"Never like these cases much," he said.
"Had one last year--down near Ashridge.
Retired military man he was--distinguished
career. Wife was the nice, quiet, old-fashioned
kind, sixty-five, grey hair--rather
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 we're making inquiries, but we know
what's what."
"You mean," said Poirot, "that you have
decided that Mrs. Christow shot her husband?"

Grange gave him a look of surprise.
"Well, don't you think so?" Poirot said slowly, "It could all have happened
as she said."
Inspector Grange shrugged his shoulders.
"It could have--yes. But it's a thin story.
And they all think she killed him! They know
something we don't." He looked curiously
at his companion. "You thought she'd done
it all right, didn't you, when you arrived on
the scene?"
Poirot half closed his eyes. Coming along
the path . . . Gudgeon stepping aside . . .
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 it ... had
thought, at least, that that was the impression
he was meant to have . . . Yes, but that was not the same thing . . .
A scene staged--set 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.
(<--once you get all the facts behind the
case, and you can usually get all that from
\tl>J\^,
the servants."
* *
"Mrs. Christow is going back to London?"
"Yes.
There're a couple of kids there.
Have to let her go. Of course, we keep a
sharp eye on her, but she won't know that.
She thinks she's got away with it all right.
Looks rather a stupid kind of woman to
me . . ."
Did Gerda Christow realize, Poirot wondered, what the police thought--and 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 husband's
death. . . .
They had come out into the lane.
Poirot stopped by his gate. Grange said:
"This your little place? Nice and snug.
Well, good-bye for the present, M. Poirot.
Thanks for your cooperation. I'll drop in
sometime and give you the lowdown on how
we're getting on."
His eye travelled up the lane.
"Who's your neighbour? That's not where
our new celebrity hangs out, is it?"
"Miss Veronica Cray, the actress, comes
there for week-ends, I believe."
"Of course. Dovecotes. I liked her in Lady
Rides on Tiger but she's a bit highbrow for
my taste. Give me Deanna Durbin or Hedy
Lamarr."
He turned away.
"Well, I must get back to the job. So long, M. Poirot."
"You recognize this. Sir Henry?"
Inspector Grange laid the revolver on the
desk in front of Sir Henry and looked at him
expectantly.
"I can handle it?" Sir Henry's hand hesitated
over the revolver as he asked the question.

Grange nodded.
"It's been in the pool. Destroyed whatever
finger-prints there were on it. A pity, if I
may say so, that Miss Savernake let it slip
out of her hand."
"Yes, yes--but, of course, it was a very
tense moment for all of us. Women are apt
to get flustered and--er--drop things."
Again Inspector Grange nodded. He said:
"Miss Savernake seems a cool, capable
young lady on the whole."
The words were devoid of emphasis 5 yet
something in them made Sir Henry look up
sharply. Grange went on:
"Now, do you recognize it, sir?"
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:
"Yes, Inspector, this comes from my collection
here."
"When did you see it last?"
"Yesterday afternoon. We were doing
some shooting in the garden with a target, and this was one of the firearms we were
using."
"Who actually fired this revolver on that
occasion?"
"I think everybody had at least one shot
with it."
"Including Mrs. Christow?"
"Including Mrs. Christow."
"And after you had finished shooting?"
"I put the revolver away in its usual place.
Here."
He pulled out the drawer of a big bureau.
It was half full of guns.
"You've got a big collection of firearms, Sir Henry."
"It's been a hobby of mine for many
years."
Inspector Grange's 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 himself--in fact, a man he
would much prefer to his own present Chief
Constable. Inspector Grange did not think
much of the Chief Constable of Wealdshire
--a fussy despot and a tuft-hunter--he
brought his mind back to the job in hand.
"The revolver was not, of course, loaded
when you put it away, Sir Henry?"
"Certainly not."
"And you keep your ammunition--
where?"
"Here." Sir Henry took a key from a pigeonhole
and unlocked one of the lower
drawers of the desk.
Simple enough, thought Grange. The
Christow woman had seen where it was kept.
She'd only got to come along and help herself. Jealousy, he thought, plays the dickens
with women. He'd lay ten to one it was jealousy.
The thing would come clear enough
when he'd finished the routine here and got
onto the Harley Street end. But you'd got
to do things in their proper order.
He got up and said:
"Well, thank you. Sir Henry. I'll let you
know about the inquest."
Chapter XIII
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.
"We 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 one's favourite pudding.
But caramel custard is so easyslippery if
you know what I meanand then one leaves
a little on one's plate."
She sighed and said that she hoped they
had done right in letting Gerda go back to
London.
"But quite correct of Henry to go with
her."
For Sir Henry had insisted on driving
Gerda to Harley Street.
"She will come back here for the inquest, of course," went on Lady Angkatell, meditatively eating caramel custard. "But, naturally, she wanted to break it to the children--they
might see it in the papers and
with only a Frenchwoman in the house--
one knows how excitable--a 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 relations--
sisters perhaps. Gerda is the sort of person
who is sure to have sisters--three or four, I
should think, probably living at Tunbridge
Wells."
"What extraordinary things you do say, Lucy," said Midge.
"Well, darling, Torquay if you prefer it
--no, not Torquay. They would be at least
sixty-five if they were living at Torquay--
Eastbourne, perhaps, or St. Leonard's."
Lady Angkatell looked at the last spoonful
of caramel custard, seemed to condole with
it, and laid it down very gently uneaten.
David, who liked only savouries, looked
down gloomily at his empty plate.
Lady Angkatell got up.
"I think we shall all want to go to bed
early tonight," she said. "So much has happened, hasn't it? One has no idea, from reading 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
about--but 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 right--but not the News of the
World. Don't you agree with me, David? I
like to know what the young people think;
it keeps one from losing touch."
David said in a gruff voice that he never
read the News of the World.
"I always do," said Lady Angkatell. "We
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 ovens--an incredible number of
them!"
"What will they do in the houses of the
future which are all electric?" asked Edward
Angkatell with a faint smile.
"I suppose they will just have to decide
to make the best of things--so much more
sensible."
"I disagree with you, sir," said David,
"about the houses of the future being all
electric. There can be communal heating laid
on from a central supply. Every workingclass
house should be completely laboursaving--"

Edward Angkatell said hastily that he was
afraid that was a subject he was not very well
up in. David's lip curled with scorn.
Gudgeon brought in coffee on a tray, moving
a little slower than usual to convey a sense
of mourning.
"Oh, Gudgeon," said Lady Angkatell, "about those eggs. I meant to write the date
in pencil on them as usual. Will you ask Mrs.
Medway to see to it?"
"I think you will find, m'lady, that everything
has been attended to quite satisfactorily."
He cleared his throat. "I have seen to
things myself."
"Oh, thank you. Gudgeon."
As Gudgeon went out she murmured, "Really, Gudgeon is wonderful. The servants
are all being marvellous. And one does
so sympathize with them having the police
here--it must be dreadful for them. By the
way, are there any left?"
"Police, do you mean?" asked Midge.
"Yes. Don't they usually leave one standing
in the hall? Or perhaps he's watching the
front door from the shrubbery outside."
"Why should he watch the front door?"
"I don't know, I'm sure. They do in
books. And then somebody else is murdered
in the night."
"Oh, Lucy, don't," said Midge.
Lady Angkatell looked at her curiously.
"Darling, I am so sorry. Stupid of me.
And, of course, nobody else could be murdered.
Gerda's gone home--I mean, oh,
Henrietta dear, I am sorry. I didn't mean to
say that."
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, "Sorry, Lucy,
what did you say?"
"I wondered if there were any police left
over?"
"Like remnants in a sale? I don't think
so. They've all gone back to the police station, to write out what we said in proper
police language."
"What are you looking at, Henrietta?"
"Nothing."
Henrietta moved across to the mantelpiece.

"What do you think Veronica Cray is
doing tonight?" she asked.
A look of dismay crossed Lady Angkatell's
face.
"My dear! You don't think she might
come over here again? She must have heard
by now."
"Yes," said Henrietta thoughtfully. "I
suppose she's heard ..."
"Which reminds me," said Lady Angkatell, "I really must telephone to the Careys.
We can't have them coming to lunch
tomorrow just as though nothing had happened."

She left the room.
David, hating his relations, murmured
that he wanted to look up something in the Encyclopaedia Britannica. The library, he
thought, would be a peaceful place.
Henrietta went to the French windows, opened them, and passed through. After a
moment's hesitation Edward followed her.
He found her standing outside looking up
at the sky. She said:
"Not so warm as last night, is it?"
In his pleasant voice, Edward said, "No, distinctly chilly."
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.
"Better come in. It's cold."
She shook her head.
"I'm going for a stroll. To the swimming
pool."
"Oh, my dear--" He took a quick step
towards her. "I'll come with you."
"No, thank you, Edward." Her voice cut
sharply through the chill of the air. "I want
to be alone with my dead."
"Henrietta! My dear--I haven't said anything.
But you do know how--how sorry I
 
am."
"Sorry? That John Christow is dead?"
There was still the brittle sharpness in her
tone.
"I meant--sorry for you, Henrietta. I
know it must have been a--a great shock."
"Shock? Oh, but I'm 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 didn't like
John Christow."
Edward murmured, "He and I--hadn't
much in common."
"How 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, weren't you? Only
that didn't make a bond between you--quite
the opposite."
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. To him
she was always 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:
"Henrietta, dearest, do believe this--that
I do sympathize with you--in your grief, your loss."
"Is it grief?"
The question startled him. She seemed to
be asking it, not of him, but of herself.
She said in a low voice:
"So quick--it can happen so quickly . . .
One moment living, breathing, and the next
--dead--gone--emptiness. Oh! the emptiness!
And here we are, all of us, eating
caramel custard and calling ourselves alive
--and John, who was more alive than any j
of us, is dead. I say the word, you know, over and over again to myself. Dead--
dead--dead--dead--dead . . . And soon it
hasn't got any meaning--not any meaning
at all ... It's just a funny little word like
the breaking off of a rotten branch. Dead--
dead--dead--dead-- It's like a tom-tom, isn't it, beating in the jungle? Dead--dead
--dead--dead--dead--dead--''
"Henrietta, stop! For God's sake, stop!"
She looked at him curiously.
"Didn't you know I'd feel like this? What
did you think? That I'd 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 I'd begin to get over
it. And that you'd comfort me very nicely.
You are nice, Edward. You're very nice, but
you're so--so inadequate."
He drew back. His face stiffened. He said
in a dry voice:
"Yes, I've always known that."
She went on fiercely:
"What do you think it's 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! Can't you see how like a fantastic nightmare
it all is?"
Edward said nothing. He stepped back a
pace, into shadows.
Looking at him, Henrietta said:
"Tonight--nothing seems real to me, nobody
is real--but John!"
Edward said quietly, "I know ... I am
not very real. ..."
"What a brute I am, Edward! But I can't
help it. I can't help resenting that John who
was so alive is dead."
"And that I who am half dead am
alive . . ."
"I didn't mean that, Edward."
"I think you did, Henrietta ... I think, perhaps, you are right."
But she was saying, thoughtfully, harking
back to an earlier thought:
"But it is not grief. Perhaps I cannot feel
grief . . . Perhaps I never shall . . . And
yet--I would like to grieve for John ..."
Her words seemed to him fantastic. Yet
he was even more startled when she added,
suddenly, in an almost businesslike voice:
"I must go to the swimming pool."
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:
"It's cold ..."
"Are you very cold, Edward? Shall we
shall Ilight a fire?"
"What?"
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, "A fire is nice. It warms
one . . ."
How cold he looks, she thought. But it
can't be as cold as that outside. It's Henrietta!
What has she said to him?
"Bring your chair nearer, Edward. Come
close to the fire."
"What?"
"Your chair. To the fire."
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.
"Have you been talking to me. Midge?
I'm sorry. I'm afraid I was--thinking of
something."
"Oh, it was nothing. Just the fire."
The sticks were crackling and some fir
cones were burning with a bright clear flame.
Edward looked at them. He said:
"Ifs a nice fire."
He stretched out his long thin hands to
the blaze, aware of relief from tension.
Midge said, "We always had fir cones at
Ainswick ..."
"I still do. A basket of them is brought in
every day and put by the grate."
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, Ainswick--Ainswick . . .
She could smell the soft air that drifted in
from the magnolia which would still, in Sep-
tember, have some great, white, sweetsmelling,
waxy flowers on it ... And the
pine cones 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 saddle-back 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:
"Where is Henrietta?"
"She went to the swimming pool."
Midge stared. "Why?"
Her voice, abrupt and deep, roused Edward
a little.
"My dear Midge, surely you knew--oh, well--guessed. She knew Christow pretty
well. ..."
"Oh, of course, one knew that! But I don't
see why she should go mooning off to where
he was shot. That's not at all like Henrietta.
She's never melodramatic."
"Do any of us know what anyone else is
like? Henrietta, for instance. ..."
Midge frowned. She said:
"After all, Edward, you and I have known
Henrietta all our lives."
"She has changed."
"Not really. I don't think one changes."
"Henrietta has changed." Midge looked at him curiously.
"More than we have, you and I?"
"Oh, I have stood still, I know that well
enough. And you--"
His eyes, suddenly focussing, looked at
her where she knelt by the fender. It was as
though he was looking at her from a long
way off, taking in the square chin, the dark
eyes, the resolute mouth. He said:
"I wish I saw you more often. Midge my
dear."
She smiled up at him. She said:
"I know. It isn't easy, these days, to keep
touch."
There was a sound outside and Edward
got up.
"Lucy was right," he said. "It has been a
tiring day--one's first introduction to murder!
I shall go to bed. Good night."
He had left the room when Henrietta came
through the window.
Midge turned on her.
"What have you done to Edward?"
"Edward?" Henrietta was vague. Her forehead
was puckered. She seemed to be thinking
of something far away.
"Yes, Edward. He came in looking
dreadful--so cold and grey."
"If you care about Edward so much, Midge, why don't you do something about
him?"
"Do something? What do you mean?"
"I don't know. Stand on a chair and shout!
Draw attention to yourself. Don't you know
that's the only hope with a man like Edward?"
"Edward
will never care about anyone but
you, Henrietta. He never has."
"Then it's very unintelligent of him." She
threw a quick glance at Midge's white face.
"I've hurt you. I'm sorry. But I hate Edward
tonight--"
"Hate Edward? You can't . . ."
"Oh, yes, I can! You don't know--"
"What?"
Henrietta said slowly:
"He reminds me of such a lot of things I
would like to forget."
"What things?"
"Well, Ainswick, for instance."
"Ainswick? You want to forget Ainswick?"
Midge's
tone was incredulous.
"Yes, yes, yes! 1 was happy there. I can't
stand, just now, being reminded of happiness
. . . Don't you understand? A time
| when one didn't know what was coming.
When one said confidently, everything is
going to be lovely! Some people are wise--
they never expect to be happy. I did."
She said abruptly:
"I shall never go back to Ainswick."
Midge said slowly:
<<I wonder ..."
Chapter XIV
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 week-end? She had been worried
. . . had thought that something unpleasant
might happen.
Yes, and something unpleasant had happened--something
that was lying now upon
Midge's heart and spirits like a thick black
cloud. Something that she didn't want to
think about--didn't want to remember.
Something, surely, that frightened her ....
Something to do with Edward . . .
Memory came with a rush. One ugly stark
word--murder!
Oh, no, thought Midge, it can't be true.
It's a dream I've been having. John Christow,
murdered, shot--lying there by the
pool. Blood and blue water--like the jacket
of a detective story . . . Fantastic, unreal
. . . The sort of thing that doesn't happen
to oneself . . .Ifwe were at Ainswick, now.
It couldn't have happened at Ainswick.
The black weight moved from her forehead.
It settled instead in the pit of her stomach, making her feel slightly sick.
It was not a dream. It was a real happening--a
News of the World happening--and
she and Edward and Lucy and Henry and
Henrietta were all mixed up with it.
Unfair--surely unfair--since it was nothing
to do with them if Gerda had shot her
husband.
Midge stirred uneasily.
Quiet, stupid, slightly pathetic Gerda--
you couldn't associate Gerda with melodrama--with violence.
Gerda, surely, couldn't shoot anybody.
Again that inward uneasiness rose. No,
no, one mustn't 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 Henry's study.
Gerda had said that she had found John
dead and picked up the revolver . . . Well, what else could she say? She'd have to say something, poor thing . . .
All very well for Henrietta to defend her
--to say that Gerda's story was perfectly possible.
Henrietta hadn't considered the impossible
alternatives.
Henrietta had been very odd last
night. . . .
But that, of course, had been the shock
of John Christow's death.
Poor Henrietta--who had cared so terribly
for John!
But she would get over it in time--one
got over everything. And then she would
marry Edward and live at Ainswick--and
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 so--
so pale by comparison.
It struck Midge, when she came down to
breakfast that morning, that already Edward's
personality, freed from John Christow's
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.
"You must come more often to Ainswick, David. I'd like you to feel at home there and
to get to know all about the place."
Helping himself to marmalade, David said
coldly:
"These big estates are completely farcical.
They should be split up."
"That won't happen in my time, I hope," said Edward, smiling. "My tenants are a
contented lot."
"They shouldn't be," said David. "Nobody
should be contented."
"If apes had been content with tails--"
murmured Lady Angkatell from where she
was standing by the sideboard, looking
vaguely at a dish of kidneys. "That's a poem
I learnt in the nursery, but I simply can't
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--and
cod liver oil forced down babies' throats
whether they like it or not--such nastysmelling
stuff."
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.
"Well, dear," said Lucy, "was everything
all right?"
"Yes. The secretary was there--competent
sort of girl--She took charge of things.
There's a sister it seems. The secretary telegraphed
to her."
"I knew there would be," said Lady Angkatell.
"At Tunbridge Wells?"
"Bexhill, I think," said Sir Henry, looking
puzzled.
"I daresay--" Lucy considered Bexhill. "Yes--quite probably."
Gudgeon approached.
"Inspector Grange telephoned. Sir Henry.
The inquest will be at eleven o'clock on
Wednesday."
Sir Henry nodded. Lady Angkatell said:
"Midge, you'd better ring up your shop."
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 employer
that after four days* 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.
"What ith that, Mith Hardcathtle? A
death? A funeral? Do you not know very well
I am short-handed. Do you think I am going
to stand for these excutheth? Oh, yeth, you
are having a good time, I darethayl"
Midge interrupted, speaking sharply and
distinctly.
"The poleeth? The poleeth, you thay?" It
was almost a scream. "You are mixed up
with the poleeth?"
Setting her teeth. Midge continued to ex- ^loin <stranse 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.
"Do stay, Edward. Please. Oh, I want you
to."
The presence of Edward in the room gave
her strength--counteracted the poison.
She took her hand from where she had
laid it over the receiver.
"What? Yes. I am sorry. Madam . . . But, after all, it is hardly my fault--"
The ugly raucous voice was screaming angrily:

"Who are thethe friendth ofyourth? What
thort of people are they to have the poleeth
there and a man shot. I've a good mind not
to have you back at all! I can't have the tone
of my ethtablishment lowered."
Midge made a few submissive noncommittal
replies. She replaced the receiver at
last, with a sigh of relief. She felt sick and
shaken.
"It's the place I work," she explained. "I
had to let them know that I wouldn't be back
until Thursday because of the inquest and
the--the police."
"I 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?"
"I should hardly describe her as that!
She's a Whitechapel Jewess with dyed hair
and a voice like a corncrake."
"But, my dear Midge--"
Edward's face of consternation almost
made Midge laugh. He was so concerned.
"But, my dear child--you can't 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."
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, Edward--yes, even Henrietta--they
were all divided from her by an
impassable gulf--the 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 home--they 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 Lucy's 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 money--use 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 "smart" friends to buy, Madame Alfrege was disappointed.
Midge sternly discouraged any such
notion on the part of her friends.
She had no particular illusions about
working. She disliked the shop, she disliked
Madame Alfrege 3 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.
Edward's 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
she--was only half an Angkatelll And sometimes, like this morning, she did not feel like
an Angkatell at all! She was all her father's
daughter.
She thought of her father with the usual
pang of love and compunction, a greyhaired,
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 part--
it was the march of progress.
Strangely enough, it was not to her brilliant
Angkatell mother but to her quiet tired
father that Midge's devotion had always been
given. Each time, when she came back, from
those visits to Ainswick, which were the wild
delight other life, she would answer the faint
deprecating question in her father's tired f"^ ^\r fliniyinff her arms round his neck and
saying, "I'm glad to be home--I'm glad to
be home."
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 wife's
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 good will. 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, they don't
know anything!
Edward, sensitive as always, was looking
at her with a puzzled face. He asked gently:
"I've upset you? Why?"
Lucy drifted into the room. She was in
the middle of one of her conversations.
(<--you see, one doesn't really know
whether she'd prefer the White Hart to us or
not."
Midge looked at her blankly--then at Edward.
"It's
no use looking at Edward," said
Lady Angkatell. "Edward simply wouldn't
know; you, Midge, are always so practical."
"I don't know what you are talking about, Lucy."
Lucy looked surprised.
"The 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 course--but 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?" A
smile lit up Lady Angkatell's face. "I have
never been to an inquest! I thought my grey
--and a hat, of course, like church--but not gloves--
"You know," went on Lady Angkatell,
crossing the room and picking up the telephone
receiver and gazing down at it earnestly, "I don't believe I've 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, don't you think so?"
"Their only use is to avoid fingerprints
in crimes," said Edward, smiling.
"Now, it's very interesting that you should
say that, Edward-- Very interesting--what
am I doing with this thing?" Lady Angkatell
looked at the telephone receiver with faint
distaste.
"Were you going to ring up someone?"
"I don't think so." Lady Angkatell shook
her head vaguely and put the receiver back
on its stand very gingerly.
She looked from Edward to Midge.
"I don't think, Edward, that you ought
to upset Midge. Midge minds sudden deaths
more than we do."
"My dear Lucy," exclaimed Edward. "I
was only worrying about this place where
Midge works. It sounds all wrong to me."
"Edward thinks I ought to have a delightful, sympathetic employer who would appreciate
me," said Midge drily.
"Dear Edward," said Lucy with complete
appreciation.
She smiled at Midge and went out again.
"Seriously, Midge," said Edward, "I am
worried--"
She interrupted him:
^f\C'
"The damned woman pays me four
pounds a week. That's all that matters."
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 relatives 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 Encyclopaedia 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 week-end, 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
one's 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, "How do you like your relations?"

David shrugged his shoulders. He said:
"Does one really think about relations?"
Midge said:
"Does one really think about anything?"
Doubtless, David thought, she didn't. He
aid almost graciously:
"I was analyzing my reactions to murder." "It is certainly odd," said Midge, "to be
In one."
David sighed and said:
"Wearisome. ..." That was quite the
best attitude. "All the cliches that one
thought existed only in the pages of detective Fiction!"
"You must be sorry you came," said
Midge.
David sighed.
"Yes, I might have been staying with a
friend of mine in London." He added: "He
keeps a Left Wing bookshop."
"I expect it's more comfortable here," said
Midge.
"Does one really care about being comfortable?"
David asked scornfully.
"There are times," said Midge, "when I
feel I don't care about anything else."
"The pampered attitude to life," said
David. "If you were a worker--"
Midge interrupted him.
"I am a worker. That's just why being
comfortable is so attractive. Box beds, down
pillows--early morning tea softly deposited
beside the bed--a porcelain bath with lashings
of hot waterand delicious bath salts. The
kind of easy chair you really sink into ..."
Midge paused in her catalogue.
"The workers," said David, "should have
all these things."
But he was a little doubtful about the
softly deposited early morning tea which
sounded impossibly sybaritic for an earnestly
organised world.
"I couldn't agree with you more," said
Midge heartily.
Chapter XV
hercule poirot, enjoying a midmorning
cup of chocolate, was interrupted by the
ringing of the telephone. He got up and lifted
the receiver.
<( 'Allo?"
"M. Poirot?"
"Lady Angkatell?"
"How nice of you to know my voice. Am
I disturbing you?"
"But not at all. You are, I hope, none the
worse for the distressing events of yesterday?"
"No, indeed. Distressing, as you say, but
one feels, I find, quite detached. I rang you
up to know if you could possibly come
over--an imposition, I know, but I am really
in great distress ..."
"But certainly. Lady Angkatell. Did you
mean now?"
"Well, yes, I did mean now. As quickly
as you can. That's very sweet of you."
"Not at all. I will come by the woods, then?"
"Oh, of course--the shortest way. Thank
you so much, dear M. Poirot."
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 deserted--the police
had finished their work and gone. It looked
innocent and peaceful in the soft, misty Autumnal
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.
"It is not a place to keep matches--here
in the damp. One box, for convenience, perhaps--but not six."
He frowned down on the painted iron table.
The tray of glasses had been removed.
Someone had scrawled with a pencil on the
table--a 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.
"It was nice of you to come, M. Poirot."
She clasped his hand warmly.
"Madame, I am at your service."
Lady AngkatelFs hands floated out expressively.
Her wide beautiful eyes opened.
"You see, it's all so difficult. The Inspector
person is interviewing, no, questioning
--taking a statement--what is the term they
use?--Gudgeon. 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
police--even Inspector Grange, who I do
feel is really nice and probably a family
man--boys, I think, and he helps them with
Meccano in the evenings--and a wife who
has everything spotless but a little overcrowded
..."
Hercule Poirot blinked as Lady Angkatell
developed her imaginary sketch of Inspector
Grange's home life.
"By the way his moustache droops," went
on Lady Angkatell--"I think that a home
that is too spotless might be sometimes
depressing--like soap on hospital nurses' faces. Quite a shine! But that is more abroad
where things lag behind--in 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."
"You are very kind."
"I do not mind the police myself," said
Lady Angkatell. "I really find it all quite
interesting. 'Do let me help you in any way
I can,' I said to Inspector Grange. He seems
rather a bewildered sort of person, but methodical.

"Motive seems so important to policemen,"
she went on. "Talking of hospital
nurses just now, I believe that John Christow--a
nurse with red hair and an upturned
nose--quite attractive. But, of course, it was
a long time ago and the police might not be
interested. One doesn't really know how
much poor Gerda had to put up with. She
is the loyal type, don't 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."
Quite suddenly. Lady Angkatell flung
open the study door and ushered Poirot in,
crying brightly, "Here is M. Poirot." 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.
"I retire immediately. I assure you I had
no idea that Lady Angkatell--"
"No, no, you wouldn't have." Grange's
moustache looked more pessimistic than
ever this morning. Perhaps, thought Poirot, fascinated by Lady Angkatell5 s recent sketch
of Grange, there 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.
Angrily he dismissed these thoughts. Inspector
Grange's clean but overcrowded
home, his wife, his boys and their addiction
to Meccano were all figments of Lady Angkatell's
busy brain.
But the vividness with which they assumed
concrete reality interested him. It was
quite an accomplishment.
"Sit down, M. Poirot," said Grange.
"There's something I want to ask you about, and I've nearly finished here."
He turned his attention back to Gudgeon, who deferentially and almost under protest
resumed his seat and turned an expressionless
face towards his interlocutor.
"And that's all you can remember?"
"Yes, sir. Everything, sir, was very much
as usual. There was no unpleasantness of any
kind."
"There's a fur cape thing--out in that
summer house by the pool. Which of the
ladies did it belong to?"
"Are 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."
"Whose is it, then?"
"It might possibly belong to Miss Cray, sir. Miss Veronica Cray, the motion picture
actress. She was wearing something of the
kind."
"When?"
"When she was here the night before last,
sir."
"You didn't mention her as having been
a guest here."
"She was not a guest, sir. Miss Cray lives
at Dovecotes, the--er--cottage up the lane, and she came over after dinner, having run
out of matches, to borrow some."
"Did she take away six boxes?" asked
Poirot.
Gudgeon turned to him.
"That is correct, sir. Her ladyship, after
having inquired if we had plenty, insisted
on Miss Cray's taking half a dozen boxes."
"Which she left in the pavilion," said
Poirot.
"Yes, sir, I observed them there yesterday
morning."
"There is not much that that man does
not observe," remarked Poirot as Gudgeon
departed, closing the door softly and deferentially
behind him.
Inspector Grange merely remarked that
servants were the devil!
"However," he said with a little renewed
cheerfulness, "there's always the kitchen
maid. Kitchen maids talk--not like these
stuck-up upper servants."
"I've put a man on to make inquiries at
Harley Street," he went on, "and I shall be
there myself later in the day. We ought to
get something there. Daresay, you know, that wife of Christow's had a good bit to put
up with. Some of these fashionable doctors
and their lady patients--well, you'd 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."
"Yes," Poirot agreed. "She would be
vague. ..."
A skilfully built up picture. . . . John
Christow and amorous intrigues with hospital
nurses . . . the opportunities of a doctor's
life . . . plenty of reasons for Gerda
Christow's jealousy which had culminated at
last in murder. . . .
Yes, a skilfully suggested picture . . .
drawing attention to a Harley Street background--away
from The Hollow--away
from the moment when Henrietta Savernake,
stepping forward, had taken the revolver
from Gerda Christow's unresisting
hand . . . away from that other moment
when John Christow, dying, had said Henrietta.
. . .
Suddenly opening his eyes, which had
been half closed, Hercule Poirot demanded
with irresistible curiosity:
"Do your boys play with Meccano?"
"Eh, what?" Inspector Grange came back
from a frowning reverie to stare at Poirot.
"Why, what on earth? As a matter of fact, they're a bit young--but I was thinking of
giving Teddy a Meccano set for Christmas.
What made you ask?"
Poirot shook his head.
What made Lady Angkatell dangerous, he
thought, was the fact that those intuitive
wild guesses others might often be right. . .
With a careless (seemingly careless) word she
built up a picture--and if part of the picture
was right, wouldn't you, in spite of yourself, believe in the other half of the picture . . .
Inspector Grange was speaking.
"There's a point I want to put to you, M.
Poirot. This Miss Cray, the actress--she
traipses over here borrowing matches. If
she wanted to borrow matches why didn't
she come to your place only a step or two
away? Why come about half a mile?"
Hercule Poirot shrugged his shoulders.
"There might be reasons. Snob reasons, shall we say? My little cottage, it is small, unimportant. I am only a week-ender but
Sir Henry and Lady Angkatell are important--they
live here--they are what is called
gentry in the county. This Miss Veronica
Cray, she may have wanted to get to know
them--and after all, this was a way." Inspector Grange got up.
"Yes," he said, "that's perfectly possible, of course, but one doesn't want to overlook
anything. Still, I've no doubt that everything's
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 she'd seen Sir Henry put it
and the ammunition away. It's all quite simple."

"Yes," Poirot murmured. "It seems all
quite simple."
Just so, he thought, would a woman like
Gerda Christow commit a crime. Without
subterfuge or complexity--driven suddenly
to violence by the bitter anguish of a narrow
but deeply loving nature . . .
And yet surely--surely, she would have
had some sense of self-preservation. Or had
she acted in that blindness--that darkness
of the spirit--when reason is entirely laid
aside?
He recalled her blank dazed face.
He did not know--he simply did not
know.
But he felt that he ought to know.
Chapter XVI
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, "I don't know ... I really don't
know . . . Nothing seems to matter."
<<I know, dear, I know." Mrs. Patterson
was kind but firm. She knew exactly how to
treat people who had had a bereavement.
"Elsie is wonderful in a crisis," her family
said of her.
At the present moment she was sitting in
her sister Gerda's 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 Gerda--tragic for her to lose
her husband in such an awful way--and
really, even now, she didn't seem to take
in the--well, 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, "I think I should
decide on that black marocain at twelve guineas."^

One always did have to make up Gerda's mind for her.
Gerda stood motionless, her brow puckered.
She said hesitantly:
"I don't really know if John liked mourning.
I think I once heard him say he
didn't ..."
John, she thought. If only John were here
to tell me what to do.
But John would never be there again.
Never--never--never . . . Mutton getting
cold--congealing on the table . . . the
bang of the consulting room door, John running
up two steps at a time, always in a
hurry, so vital, so alive . . .
Alive . . .
Lying on his back by the swimming pool
. . . the slow drip of blood over the edge . . .
the feel of the revolver in her hand . . .
A nightmare, a bad dream, presently she
would wake up and none of it would be
true . . .
Her sister's crisp voice came cutting
through her nebulous thoughts.
"You must have something black for the
inquest. It would look most odd if you
turned up in bright blue."
Gerda said, "That awful inquest!" and
half shut her eyes.
"Terrible for you, darling," said Elsie Patterson
quickly. "But after it is all over you
will come straight down to us and we shall
take great care of you."
The nebulous blur of Gerda Christow's
thoughts hardened. She said, and her voice
was frightened, almost panic-stricken:
"What am I going to do without John?"
Elsie Patterson knew the answer to that
one. "You've got your children. You've got
to live for them."
Zena, sobbing and crying . . . "My Daddy's
dead!" Throwing herself on her bed.
Terry, pale, inquiring, shedding no tears . . .
An accident with a revolver, she had told
thempoor 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.
"Why was Father shot?"
"An accident, dear. I--I can't talk about
it."
"It wasn't an accident. Why do you say
what isn't true? Father was killed. It was
murder. The paper says so."
"Terry, how did you get hold of a paper?
I told Miss Collins--"
He had nodded--queer repeated nods like
a very old man.
"I went out and bought one, of course. I
knew there must be something in them that
you weren't telling us, or else why did Miss
Collins hide them?"
It was never any good hiding truth from
Terence. That queer, detached, scientific
curiosity of his had always to be satisfied.
"Why was he killed. Mother?"
She had broken down then, becoming
hysterical.
"Don't ask me about it--don't talk about
it--I can't talk about it... it's all too dreadful."

"But they'll find out, won't they? I mean
they have to find out. It's necessary."
So reasonable, so detached ... It made
Gerda want to scream and laugh and cry.
She thought. He doesn't care--he can't
care--he just goes on asking questions.
Why, he hasn't cried, even.
Terence had gone away, evading his Aunt
Elsie's ministrations, a lonely little boy with
a stiff pinched face. He had always felt alone.
But it hadn't 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 didn't care if
he never made nitroglycerine.
Terence felt almost shocked at himself.
Not to care any more about scientific experiment!
But when a chap's father had been
murdered . . . He thought. My father--
murdered . . .
And something stirred--took root-- grew
... a slow anger.
Beryl Collier tapped on the bedroom door
and came in. She was pale, composed, efficient.
She said:
"Inspector Grange is here." And as Gerda
gasped and looked at her piteously. Beryl
went on quickly, "He said/there was no need
for him to worry you. He'll have a word with
you before he goes, but it is just routine
questions about Dr. Christow's practice and
I can tell him everything he wants to know."
"Oh, thank you. Collie."
Beryl made a rapid exit and Gerda sighed
out:
"Collie is such a help. She's so practical."
"Yes, indeed," said Mrs. Patterson. "An
excellent secretary, I'm sure. Very plain,
poor girl, isn't she? Oh, well, I always think
that's just as well. Especially with an attractive
man like John was."
Gerda flamed out at her:
"What do you mean, Elsie? John would
never--he never--you talk as though John
would have flirted or something horrid if he
had had a pretty secretary. John wasn't like
that at all."
"Of course not, darling," said Mrs. Patterson.
"But after all, one knows what men
are like!"
In the consulting room Inspector Grange
faced the cool, belligerent glance of Beryl
Collier. It was belligerent, he noted that.
Well, perhaps that was only natural.
Plain bit of goods, he thought. Nothing
between her and the doctor, I shouldn't
think. She may have been sweet on him, though. It works that way sometimes.
But not this time, he came to the conclusion, when he leaned back in his chair a
quarter of an hour later. Beryl Collier's answers
to his questions had been models of
clearness. She replied promptly, and obviously
had every detail of the doctor's 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.
"I suppose they quarrelled every now and
then like most married couples?" The Inspector
sounded easy and confidential.
"I do not remember any quarrels. Mrs.
Christow was quite devoted to her husband--really
quite slavishly so."
There was a faint edge of contempt in her
voice. Inspector Grange heard it.
Bit of a feminist, this girl, he thought.
Aloud he said:
"Didn't stand up for herself at all?"
"No. Everything revolved round Dr.
Christow."
"Tyrannical, eh?"
Beryl considered.
"No, I wouldn't 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."
"Any difficulties with patientswomen,
I mean? You needn't mind about being
frank. Miss Collier. One knows doctors have
their difficulties in that line."
"Oh, that sort of thing!" Beryl's voice was
scornful. "Dr. Christow was quite equal to
dealing with any difficulties in that line. He
had an excellent manner with patients." She
added, "He was really a wonderful doctor."
There was an almost grudging admiration
in her voice.
Grange said, "Was he tangled up with any
woman? Don't be loyal. Miss Collier, it's
important that we should know."
"Yes, I can appreciate that. Not to my
knowledge."
A little too brusque, he thought. She
doesn't know, but perhaps she guesses . . .
He said sharply, "What about Miss Henrietta
Savernake?"
Beryl's lips closed tightly.
"She was a close friend of the family's."
"Notrouble between Dr. and Mrs.
Christow on her account?"
"Certainly not."
The answer was emphatic. (Overemphatic?)

The Inspector shifted his ground.
"What about Miss Veronica Cray?"
"Veronica Cray?"
There was pure astonishment in Beryl's
voice.
"She was a friend of Dr. Christow's, was
she not?"
"I never heard of her. At least, I seem to
know the name--"
"The motion picture actress."
Beryl's brow cleared.
"Of course! I wondered why the name was
familiar. But I didn't even know that Dr.
Christow knew her."
She seemed so positive on the point that
the Inspector abandoned it at once. He went
on to question her about Dr. Christow's
manner on the preceding Saturday. And
here, for the first time, the confidence of
Beryl's replies wavered. She said, slowly:
"His manner wasn't quite as usual."
"What was the difference?"
"He seemed distrait. There was quite a
long gap before he rang for his last patient
--and yet normally he was always in a hurry
to get through when he was going away. I
thoughtyes, I definitely thought he had
something on his mind."
But she could not be more definite.
Inspector Grange was not very satisfied
with his investigations. He'd come nowhere
near establishing motiveand 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 motivebut 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
Collier picked up the receiver.
She said, "It's for you. Inspector," and
passed the instrument to him.
"Hullo, Grange here. . . . What's
that? ..." Beryl heard the alteration in his
tone and looked at him curiously. The
wooden-looking face was impassive as ever.
He was grunting--listening--
"Yes . . . yes, I've got that. . . . That's
absolutely certain, is it? ... No margin of
error . . . Yes . . . yes . . . yes, I'll be down.
I've about finished here . . . Yes."
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:
"You've no ideas of your own, I suppose, Miss Collier, about this matter?"
"You mean--"
"I mean no ideas as to who it was killed Dr. Christow?"
She said flatly:
"I've absolutely no idea at all. Inspector."
Grange said slowly:
"When the body was found, Mrs. Christow
was standing beside it with the revolver
in her hand--"
He left it purposely as an unfinished sentence.

Her reaction came promptly. Not heated, cool and judicial.
"If 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 doctor's 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."
"Then if she didn't, who did?" he asked
sharply.
Beryl said slowly, "I've no idea ..."
The Inspector moved to the door. Beryl
asked:
"Do you want to see Mrs. Christow before
you go?"
"No--yes, perhaps I'd better."
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:
"Have you found out any more about who
killed John?"
"Not yet, Mrs. Christow."
"It's so impossible--so absolutely impossible."

"But it happened, Mrs. Christow."
She nodded, looking down, screwing a
handkerchief into a little ball.
He said quietly:
"Had your husband any enemies, Mrs.
Christow?"
"John? Oh, no. He was wonderful. Everyone
adored him."
"You can't think of anyone who had a
grudge against him," he paused, "or against
you?"
"Against me?" She seemed amazed. "Oh,
no. Inspector."
Inspector Grange sighed.
"What about Miss Veronica Cray?"
"Veronica Cray? Oh, you mean the one
who came that night to borrow matches?"
"Yes, that's the one. You knew her?"
Gerda shook her head.
"I'd never seen her before. John knew her
years ago--or so she said."
"I suppose she might have had a grudge
against him that you didn't know about?"
Gerda said with dignity:
"I don't believe anybody could have had
a grudge against John. He was the kindest
and most unselfish--oh, and one of the noblest
men."
"H'm," said the Inspector. "Yes. Quite
so. Well, good morning, Mrs. Christow. You
understand about the inquest? Eleven
o'clock Wednesday in Market Depleach. It
will be very simple--nothing to upset you
--probably be adjourned for a week so that
we can make further inquiries."
"Oh, I see. Thank you."
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 taxi--justifiable 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 irrelevant--crazy. It simply did
not make sense. But in some way that 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.
Chapter XVII
sir henry stared curiously at Inspector
Grange.
He said slowly, "I'm not quite sure that
I understand you. Inspector."
"It's quite simple. Sir Henry. I'm asking
you to check over your collection of firearms.
I presume they are catalogued and indexed?"
"Naturally. But I have already identified
the revolver as part of my collection."
"It isn't quite so simple as that. Sir
Henry." 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:
"Dr. Christow was not shot with the revolver
you identified this morning."
Sir Henry's eyebrows rose.
"Remarkable!" 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 remarkable--and beyond that
simply did not make sense.
Sir Henry asked:
"Have you any reason to believe that the
weapon from which the fatal shot was fired
comes from my collection?"
"No reason at all. But I have got to make
sure, shall we say, that it doesn't."
Sir Henry nodded his head in confirmation.

"I appreciate your point. Well, we will get
to work. It will take a little time."
He opened the desk and took out a leatherbound
volume.
As he opened it he repeated:
"It will take a little time to check up--"
Grange's attention was held by something
in his voice. He looked up sharply. Sir Henry's
shoulders sagged a little--he seemed
suddenly an older and more tired man.
Inspector Grange frowned.
He thought. Devil if I know what to make
of these people down here . . .
"Ah"
Grange spun round. His eyes noted the
time by the clock, thirty minutestwenty
minutessince Sir Henry had said, "It will
take a little time ..."
Grange said sharply:
"Yes, sir?"
"A .38 Smith & Wesson is missing. It was
in a brown leather holster and was at the end
of the rack in this drawer."
"Ah!" The Inspector kept his voice calm,
but he was excited. "And when, sir, to your
certain knowledge, did you last see it in its
proper place?"
Sir Henry reflected for a moment or two.
"That is not very easy to say. Inspector.
I last had this drawer open about a week ago
and I thinkI am almost certainthat 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."
Inspector Grange nodded his head.
"Thank you, sir, I quite understand. . . .
Well, I must be getting on with things"
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 onto
the terrace. His wife was busy with a gardening
basket and gloves. She was trimming
some rare shrubs with a pair of scissors.
She waved to him brightly.
"What did the Inspector want? I hope he
is not going to worry the servants again. You
know. Henry, they don't like it. They can't
see it as amusing or as a novelty like we do."
"Do we see it like that?"
His tone attracted her attention. She
smiled up at him sweetly.
"How tired you look. Henry. Must you
let all this worry you so much?"
"Murder is worrying, Lucy."
Lady Angkatell considered a moment, absently
clipping off some branches, then her
face clouded over.
"Oh, dear--that is the worst of scissors, they are so fascinating--one can't stop and
one always clips off more than one means.
What was it you were saying--something
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 stroke--horrid, with one's face all on
one side--or 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 difficulties--money
quarrels and whether to
wear black or not--and who was to have
Aunt Selina's writing desk--things like
that!"
Sir Henry sat down on the stone coping.
He said:
"This is all going to be more upsetting
than we thought, Lucy."
"Well, darling, we shall have to bear it.
And when it's all over we might go away
somewhere. Let's not bother about present
troubles but look forward to the future. I
really am happy about that. I've been wondering
whether it would be nice to go to
Ainswick for Christmas--or leave it until
Easter. What do you think?"
"Plenty of time to make plans for Christmas."

"Yes, but I like to see things in my mind.
Easter, perhaps. . .Yes," Lucy smiled happily, "she will certainly have got over it by
then."
"Who?" Sir Henry was startled.
Lady Angkatell said calmly:
"Henrietta ... I think if they were to
have the wedding in October--October of
next year, I mean, then we could go and
stop for that Christmas. I've been thinking, Henry--"
"I wish you wouldn't, my dear. You think
too much."
"You 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 nice--or two boys
and two girls--"
"Lucy--Lucy! How you run on."
"But, darling," Lady Angkatell opened
wide beautiful eyes, "Edward 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 him--and
she will now that John Christow is out of the
way. He was really the greatest misfortune
that could possibly have happened to her."
"Poor devil!"
"Why? Oh, you mean because he's dead?
Oh, well, everyone has to die sometime. I
never worry over people dying ..."
He looked at her curiously.
"I always thought you liked Christow,
Lucy?"
"I found him amusing. And he had
charm. But I never think one ought to attach
too much importance to anybody."
And gently, with a smiling face. Lady
Angkatell clipped remorselessly at a vine.
Chapter XVIII
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.
"May I come in and see your house? I like
looking at people's houses. I'm just taking
the dog for a walk."
"But most certainly. How English it is to
take the dog for a walk!"
"I know," said Henrietta. "I thought of
that. Do you know that nice poem: 'The days
passed slowly one by one. I fed the ducks, reproved my wife, played Handel's Largo on
the fife. And took the dog a run.'"
Again she smiled--a brilliant, unsubstantial
smile.
Poirot ushered her into his sitting room.
She looked round its neat and prim arrangement
and nodded her head.
"Nice," she said, "two of everything.
How you would hate my studio."
"Why should I hate it?"
"Oh, a lot of clay sticking to things--and
here and there just one thing that I happen
to like and which would be ruined if there
were two of them."
"But I can understand that. Mademoiselle.
You are an artist."
"Aren't you an artist too, M. Poirot?"
Poirot put his head on one side.
"It is a question, that. But, on the whole, I would say no. I have known crimes that
were artistic--they were, you understand, supreme exercises of imagination--but the
solving of them--no, it is not the creative
power that is needed. What is required is a
passion for the truth."
"A passion for the truth," said Henrietta
meditatively. "Yes, I can see how dangerous
that might make you. Would the truth satisfy
you?"
He looked at her curiously.
"What do you mean. Miss Savernake?"
"I 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?"
He was interested in her approach.
"You are suggesting that if I knew the
truth about Dr. Christow's death--I might
be satisfied to keep that knowledge to myself.
Do you know the truth about his
death?"
Henrietta shrugged her shoulders.
"The obvious answer seems to be Gerda.
How cynical it is that a wife or a husband is
always the first suspect."
"But you do not agree?"
"I always like to keep an open mind."
Poirot said quietly:
"Why did you come here. Miss Saver -
nake?"
"I must admit that I haven't your passion
for truth, M. Poirot. Taking the dog for a
walk was such a nice English countryside
excuse. But, of course, the Angkatells haven't
got a dog--as you may have noticed the other
day."
"The fact had not escaped me."
"So I borrowed the gardener's spaniel. I
am not, you must understand, M. Poirot, very truthful."
Again that brilliant, brittle smile flashed
out. He wondered why he should suddenly
find it unendurably moving. He said quietly:
"No, but you have integrity."
"Why on earth do you say that?"
She was startled--almost, he thought, dismayed.

"Because I believe it to be true."
"Integrity," Henrietta repeated thoughtfully.
"I wonder what that word really
means. ..."
She sat very still, staring down at the carpet, then she raised her head and looked at
him steadily.
"Don't you want to know why I did
come?"
"You find a difficulty, perhaps, in putting
it into words."
"Yes, I think I do ... The inquest, M.
Poirot, is tomorrow. One has to make up
one's mind just how much--"
She broke off. Getting up, she wandered
across to the mantel piece, 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.
"How do you like that, M. Poirot?"
"Not at all. Mademoiselle."
"I thought you wouldn't." She laughed, moved everything quickly and deftly back
to their original positions. "Well, 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 Christow's mistress?"
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:
"I see. You were lovers?"
"If you prefer to put it like that."
He looked at her curiously.
"It was not how you put it. Mademoiselle."

"No."
"Why not?"
Henrietta shrugged her shoulders. She
came and sat down by him on the sofa. She
said slowly:
"One likes to describe things as--as accurately
as possible."
His interest in Henrietta Savernake grew
stronger. He said:
"You had been Dr. Christow's mistress--
for how long?"
"About six months."
"The police will have, I gather, no difficulty
in discovering the fact?"
Henrietta considered.
"I imagine not. That is, if they are looking
for something of that kind?"
"Oh, they will be looking, I can assure
you of that."
"Yes, I rather thought they would." She
paused, stretched out her fingers on her knee
and looked at them, then gave him a swift
friendly glance. "Well, M. Poirot, what does
one do? Go to Inspector Grange and say--
what does one say to a moustache like that?
It's such a domestic family moustache."
Poirot5 s hand crawled upwards to his own
proudly borne adornment.
"Whereas mine. Mademoiselle?"
"Your moustache, M. Poirot, is an artistic
triumph. It has no associations with anything
but itself. It is, I am sure, unique."
"Absolutely."
"And 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?"
"That depends," said Poirot. "If the police
think it has no bearing on the case, they
will be quite discreet. You--are very anxious
on this point?"
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.
"Why should things be made worse than
they are for poor Gerda? She adored John
and he's dead. She's lost him. Why should
she have to bear an added burden?"
"It is for her that you mind?"
"Do you think that is hypocritical? I suppose
you're thinking that if I cared at all
about Gerda's peace of mind, I would never
have become John's mistress. But you don't
understand--it was not like that. I did not
break up his married life. I was only one--
of a procession."
"Ah, it was like that?"
She turned on him sharply:
H "No, no, no! Not what you are thinking.
That's what I mind most of all! The false
idea that everybody will have of what John
was like. That's why I'm here talking to
you--because I've 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 happen--the
headlines in the papers--A Doctor's Love
Life--Gerda, myself, Veronica Cray. John
wasn't like that--he wasn't, actually, a man
who thought much about women. It wasn't women who mattered to him most, it was his work! It was in his work that his interest and
his excitement--yes, and his sense of adventure
really 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--Mrs.
Crabtree."
"Mrs. Crabtree?" Poirot was surprised.
"Who, then, is this Mrs. Crabtree?"
There was something between tears and
laughter in Henrietta's voice as she went on.
"She's an old woman--ugly, dirty, wrinkled, quite indomitable. John thought the
world of her. She's a patient in St. Christopher's
Hospital. She's got Ridgeway's Disease.
That's a disease that's very rare but if
you get it, you're bound to die--there just
isn't any cure. But John was finding a cure
--I can't explain technically--it was all very
complicated--some question of hormone secretion.
He'd been making experiments and
Mrs. Crabtree was his prize patient--you
see, she's got guts, she wants to live--and
she was fond of John. She and he were fighting
on the same side. Ridgeway's Disease
and Mrs. Crabtree is what has been uppermost
in John's mind for months--night and
day--nothing else really counted. That's
what being the kind of doctor John was really
means--not all the Harley Street stuff and
the rich fat women, that was only a sideline--it's
the intense scientific curiosity and
achievement. I--oh, I wish I could make
you understand."
Her hands flew out in a curiously despairing
gesture and Hercule Poirot thought how
very lovely and sensitive those hands were.
He said:
"You seem to understand very well."
"Oh, yes, I understood. John used to
come and talk, do you see? Not quite to
me--partly I think to himself. He got things
clear that way. Sometimes he was almost
despairing--he couldn't see how to overcome
the heightened toxicity--and then
he'd get an idea for varying the treatment.
I can't explain to you what it was like--it
was like, yes, a battle. You can't imagine
the--the fury of it and the concentration--
and yes, sometimes the agony. And sometimes
the sheer tiredness ..."
She was silent for a minute or two, her
eyes dark with remembrance.
Poirot said curiously:
"You must have a certain technical knowledge
yourself?"
She shook her head.
"Not really. Only enough to understand
what John was talking about. I got books
and read about it."
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.
"If I could only make you see--"
"But you have. Mademoiselle."
"Really?"
"Yes. One recognizes authenticity when
one hears it."
"Thank you. But it won't be so easy to
explain to Inspector Grange."
"Probably not. He will concentrate on the
personal angle."
Henrietta said vehemently:
"And that was so unimportant--so completely
unimportant."
Poirot's eyebrows rose slowly. She answered
his unspoken protest.
"But it was! You see--after a while--I
got between John and what he was thinking
of. I affected him, as a woman ... He
couldn't concentrate as he wanted to concentrate--because
of me. He began to be
afraid that he was beginning to love me--
he didn't want to love anyone. He--he made
love to me because he didn't want to think
about me too much. He wanted it to be light, easy, just an affair like other affairs that he
had had."
"And you--" Poirot was watching her
closely. "You were content to have it--like
that?"
Henrietta got up. She said and once more
it was her dry voice:
"No, I wasn't--content. After all, one is
human. ..."
Poirot waited a minute, then he said:
"Then why. Mademoiselle--"
"Why?" she whirled round on him. "I
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
about--his work. If he didn't want to be
hurt--to be vulnerable again--why--why, then, that was all right by me!"
Poirot rubbed his nose.
"Just now. Miss Savernake, you mentioned
Veronica Cray. Was she also a friend
of John Christow's?"
"Until last Saturday night, he hadn't seen
her for fifteen years."
"He knew her fifteen years ago?"
"They were engaged to be married." Henrietta
came back and sat down. "I see I've
got to make it all clearer. John loved Veronica
desperately. Veronica was, and is, a bitch
of the first water. She's the supreme egoist.
Her terms were that John was to chuck
everything he cared about and become Miss
Veronica Cray's little tame husband. John
broke up the whole thing--quite 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 affairs--none of them important.
Gerda, of course, never knew about
them. But I think, myself, that for fifteen
years there has been something wrong with
John--something connected with Veronica.
He never really got over her. And then last
Saturday he met her again."
After a long pause, Poirot recited dreamily;

"He went out with her that night to see
her home and returned to The Hollow at
3:00 a.m."
"How do you know?"
"A housemaid had the toothache."
Henrietta said irrelevantly, "Lucy has far
too many servants."
"But you yourself knew that. Mademoiselle."

"Yes."
"How did you know?"
Again there was an infinitesimal pause.
Then Henrietta replied slowly:
"I was looking out of my window and saw
him come back to the house."
"The toothache. Mademoiselle?"
She smiled at him.
"Quite another kind of ache, M. Poirot."
She got up and moved towards the door
and Poirot said:
"I will walk back with you, Mademoiselle."

They crossed the lane and went through
the gate into the chestnut plantation.
Henrietta said:
")<?
"We need not go past the pool. We can
go up to the left and along the top path to
the flower walk."
A track led steeply up hill 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:
"Of what are you thinking. Mademoiselle?"

"Of Ainswick. . . ."
"What is Ainswick?"
"Ainswick? It's a place." 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.
"It was your home?"
"Not really. I lived in Ireland. It was
where we came, all of us, for holidays. Edward
and Midge and myself. It was Lucy's
home actually. It belonged to her father. After
his death it came to Edward."
"Not to Sir Henry? But it is he who has
the title."
"Oh, that's a K.C.B.," she explained.
"Henry was only a distant cousin."
"And after Edward Angkatell, to whom
does it go, this Ainswick?"
"How odd. I've never really thought. If
Edward doesn't marry--" She paused. A
shadow passed over her face. Hercule Poirot
wondered exactly what thought was passing
through her mind.
"I suppose," said Henrietta slowly, "it
will go to David. So that's why--"
"Why what?"
"Why Lucy asked him here . . . David
and Ainswick?" She shook her head. "They
don't fit somehow."
Poirot pointed to the path in front of them.
"It is by that path. Mademoiselle, that you
went down to the swimming pool yesterday?"

She gave a quick shiver.
"No, by the one nearer the house. It was
Edward who came this way." She turned on
him suddenly. "Must we talk about it any
more? I hate the swimming pool. ... I even
hate The Hollow."
"I hate the dreadful Hollow behind the
little wood.
Its lips in the field above are dabbled
with blood-red heath;
The red-ribb'd ledges drip with a silent
horror of blood, And Echo there, whatever is ask'd her,
answers 'Death.'"
Henrietta turned an astonished face on
him.
"Tennyson," said Hercule Poirot, nodding
his head proudly. "The poetry of your
Lord Tennyson."
Henrietta was repeating.
"And Echo there, whatever is asked her . . ." She went on, almost to herself. "But, of
course--1 see--that's what it is--Echo!"
"How do you mean. Echo?"
"This place--The Hollow itself! I almost
saw it before--on Saturday when Edward
and I walked up to the ridge. An echo of
Ainswick . . . And that's what we are, we
Angkatells. Echoes! We're not real--not real
as John was real." She turned to Poirot. "I
wish you had known him, M. Poirot. We're
all shadows compared with John. John was
really alive."
"I knew that even when he was dying, Mademoiselle."
"I know. One felt it... And John is dead, and we, the echoes, are alive. . . . It's like, you know, a very bad joke. ..."
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.
"I am sorry. What did you say, M.
Poirot?"
"I was asking whether your aunt. Lady
Angkatell, liked Dr. Christow."
"Lucy? She is a cousin, by the way, not
an aunt. Yes, she liked him very much."
"And your--also a cousin?--Mr. Edward
Angkatell--did he like Dr. Christow?"
Her voice was, he thought, a little constrained, as she replied:
"Not particularly--but then he hardly
knew him."
"And your--yet another cousin?--Mr.
David Angkatell?"
Henrietta smiled.
"David, I think, hates all of us. He spends
his time immured in the library reading the Encyclopaedia Britannica."
"Ah, a serious temperament."
"I am sorry for David. He has had a
difficult home life--his mother was unbalanced--an
invalid. Now his only way of
protecting himself is to try to feel superior
to everyone. It's all right as long as it works, but now and then it breaks down and the
vulnerable David peeps through."
"Did he feel himself superior to Dr. Christow?"
"He
tried to--but I don't 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."
Poirot nodded his head thoughtfully.
"Yes--self-assurance, confidence, virility
--all the intensive male qualities. It is
interesting--very interesting.'?
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, "I wonder--"
"I beg your pardon?"
Poirot said, "That is one of Inspector
Grange's men. He seems to be looking for
something."
"Clues, I suppose. Don't policemen look
for clues? Cigarette ash, footprints, burnt
matches?"
Her voice held a kind of bitter mockery.
Poirot answered seriously:
"Yes, they look for these things--and
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."
"I don't think I understand you."
"Little things," said Poirot, his head
thrown back, his eyes half closed. "Not cigarette
ash, or a rubber heel mark--but a
gesture, a look, an unexpected action ..."
Henrietta turned her head sharply to look
at him. He felt her eyes but he did not turn
his head. She said:
"Are you thinking of--anything in particular?"

"I was thinking of how you stepped forward
and took the revolver out of Mrs.
Christow's hand and then dropped it in the
pool."
He felt the slight start she gave. But her
voice was quite normal and calm.
"Gerda, 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 and--and hurt someone."
"But it was rather clumsy of you, was it
not, to drop it in the pool?"
"Well--I had had a shock, too." She
paused. "What are you suggesting, M.
Poirot?"
Poirot sat up, turned his head, and spoke
in a brisk matter-of-fact way:
"If there were finger-prints on that revolver, that is to say, finger-prints made before
Mrs. Christow handled it, it would be
interesting to know whose they were--and
that we shall never know now."
Henrietta said quietly, but steadily:
"Meaning 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, isn't it?) But surely ,if I did
that, you will give me credit for enough intelligence
to have wiped off my own fingerprints
first!"
"But 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. Christow's, 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 finger-prints before using it--why should she?"
Henrietta said slowly:
"So you think I killed John?"
"When Dr. Christow was dying, he said, 'Henrietta.'"
"And you think that that was an accusation?
It was not."
"What was it then?"
Henrietta stretched out her foot and traced
a pattern with the toe. She said in a low voice:
"Aren't you forgetting--what I told you
not very long ago? I mean--the terms we
were on?"
"Ah, yes--he was your lover--and so, as
he is dying, he says Henrietta. That is very
touching."
She turned blazing eyes upon him.
"Must you sneer?"
"I am not sneering. But I do not like being
lied to--and that, I think, is what you are
trying to do."
Henrietta said quietly:
"I have told you that I am not very
truthful--but when John said Henrietta,' he
was not accusing me of having murdered
him. Can't you understand that people of
my kind, who make things, are quite incapable
of taking life? I don't kill people, M.
Poirot. I couldn't kill anyone. That's the
plain stark truth. You suspect me simply
because my name was murmured by a dying
man who hardly knew what he was saying."
"Dr. 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, 'Nurse, the
forceps, please.'"
"But--" She seemed at a loss, taken
aback. Hercule Poirot went on rapidly:
"And 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 murder--that, no. But you
might have fired that shot in a sudden moment
of fierce resentment--and if so--if so, Mademoiselle, you have the creative imagination
and ability to cover your tracks."
Henrietta got up. She stood for a moment, pale and shaken, looking at him. She said
with a sudden rueful smile:
"And I thought you liked me."
Hercule Poirot sighed. He said sadly:
"That is what is so unfortunate for me. I
do."
Chapter XIX
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 Savernake's
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 something--
which?
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 impertinence--
a joke.
It was still an impertinence--but 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 up--all of them--seeing them clearly
in his mind's 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 his
or her own tragedy and meaning, his or her
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 Christow's
death.
"But, of course. Inspector," said Veronica.
"I'm only too anxious to help you."
"Thank you. Miss Cray."
Veronica Cray was not, somehow, at all
what the Inspector had imagined.
He had been prepared for glamour, for
artiflciality, 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 charm
--glamour 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
business woman. Veronica Cray, he thought, was no fool.
"We just want a clear statement. Miss
Cray. You came over to The Hollow on Saturday
evening?"
"Yes, I'd run out of matches. One forgets
how important these things are in the country."

"You went all the way to The Hollow?
Why not to your next door neighbour, M.
Poirot?"
She smiled--a superb confident camera
smile.
"I didn't know who my next door neighbour
was--otherwise I should have. I just
thought he was some little foreigner and I
thought, you know, he might become a
bore--living so near."
Yes, thought Grange, quite plausible.
She'd worked that one out ready for the occasion.

"You got your matches," he said. "And
you recognized an old friend in Dr. Christow,
I understand?"
She nodded.
"Poor John. Yes, I hadn't seen him for
fifteen years."
"Really?" There was polite disbelief in the
Inspector's tone.
"Really." Her tone was firmly assertive.
"You were pleased to see him?"
"Very pleased. It's always delightful, don't you think. Inspector, to come across
an old friend?"
"It can be on some occasions."
Veronica Cray went on without waiting for
further questioning:
"John saw me home. You'll want to know
if he said anything that could have a bearing
on the tragedy, and I've been thinking over
our conversation very carefully--but really
there wasn't a pointer of any kind."
"What did you talk about. Miss Cray?"
"Old days. 'Do you remember this, that
and the other?'" She smiled pensively. "We
had known each other in the South of
France. John had really changed very little
--older, of course, and more assured. I
gather he was quite well known in his profession.
He didn't talk about his personal life
at all. I just got the impression that his married
life wasn't perhaps frightfully happy--
but it was only the vaguest impression. I
suppose his wife, poor thing, was one of
those dim, jealous women--probably always
making a fuss about his better-looking lady
patients."
"No," said Grange. "She doesn't really
seem to have been that way."
Veronica said quickly:
"You mean--it was all underneath? Yes--
yes, I can see that that would be far more
dangerous."
"I see you think Mrs. Christow shot him, Miss Cray?"
"I oughtn't to have said that! One mustn't
comment--is that it--before a trial? I'm extremely
sorry. Inspector. It was just that my
maid told me she'd 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."
"Servants can be very useful sometimes, Miss Cray."
"Yes, I suppose you get a lot of your information
that way."
Grange went on stolidly:
"It's a question, of course, of who had a
motive--"
He paused. Veronica said with a faint rueful
smile:
"And a wife is always the first suspect?
How cynical! But there's usually what's
called 'the other woman.' I suppose she might be considered to have a motive, too?"
"You think there was another woman in
Dr. Christow's life?"
"Well--yes, I did rather imagine there
might be. One just gets an impression, you
know."
"Impressions can be very helpful sometimes,"
said Grange.
"I rather imagined--from what he said--
that that sculptress woman was, well, a very
close friend. But I expect you know all about
that already?"
"We have to look into all these things, of
course."
Inspector Grange's 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:
"Dr. Christow saw you home, you say.
What time was it when you said good night
to him?"
"Do you know, I really can't remember!
We talked for some time, I do know that. It
must have been quite late."
"He came in?"
"Yes, I gave him a drink."
"I see. I imagined your conversation
might have taken place in the--er--pavilion
by the swimming pool."
He saw her eyelids flicker. There was
hardly a moment's hesitation before she said:
"You really are a detective, aren't you?
Yes, we sat there and smoked and talked for
some time. How did you know?"
Her face bore the pleased, eager expression
of a child asking to be shown a clever
trick.
"You left your furs behind there. Miss
Cray." He added just without emphasis, "And the matches."
"Yes, of course, I did."
"Dr. Christow returned to The Hollow at
3:00 a.m.," announced the Inspector, again
without emphasis.
"Was it really as late as that?" Veronica
sounded quite amazed.
"Yes, it was. Miss Cray."
"Of course, we had so much to talk over
--not having seen each other for so many
years."
"Are you sure it was quite so long since
you had seen Dr. Christow?"
"I've just told you I hadn't seen him for
fifteen years."
"Are you quite sure you're not making a mistake? I've got the impression you might
have been seeing quite a lot of him."
"What on earth makes you think that?"
"Well, this note for one thing." 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."
"Ye-es." She smiled. "It is a little peremptory, perhaps. I'm afraid Hollywood
makes one--well, rather arrogant."
"Dr. 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?"
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:
"We didn't quarrel."
"Oh, yes, you did. Miss Cray. Your last
words were, 'I think I hate you more than I
believed I could hate anyone.'"
She was silent now. He could feel her
thinking--thinking 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:
"I see. More servants' tales. My little maid
has rather a lively imagination. There are
different ways of saying things, you know.
I can assure you that I wasn't being melodramatic.
It was really a mildly flirtatious
remark. We had been sparring together."
"Those words were not intended to be
taken seriously?"
"Certainly 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."
She was poised again, detached, sure of
herself.
Grange did not argue or pursue the subject.
He got up.
"That's all for the moment. Miss Cray,"
he said pleasantly.
He went out of Dovecotes and down the
lane and turned in at the gate of Resthaven.
Hercule Poirot stared at the Inspector in the
utmost surprise. He repeated incredulously:
"The 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."

"Exactly, M. Poirot. Put bluntly, it just
doesn't make sense."
Poirot murmured softly:
"No, it does not make sense . . . But all
the same. Inspector, it has got to make sense, eh?"
The Inspector said heavily, "That's just I it, M. Poirot. We've got to find some way
that it does make sense--but at the moment
I can't see it. The truth is that we shan't get
much further until we've found the gun that was used. It came from Sir Henry's collection
all right--at least there's one missing--
and that means that the whole thing is still
tied up with The Hollow."
"Yes," murmured Poirot. "It is still tied
up with The Hollow."
"It seemed a simple, straightforward business,"
went on the Inspector. "Well, it isn't
so simple or so straightforward."
"No," said Poirot, "it is not simple."
"We've got to admit the possibility that
the thing was a frame-up--that's 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?"
"She might not have picked it up."
"That's true, but even if she didn't, so
long as nobody else's finger-prints were on
the gun--that's to say if it was wiped after
use--she would probably have been suspected
all right. And that's what the murderer
wanted, wasn't it?"
"Was it?"
Grange stared.
"Well, if you'd done a murder, you'd want
to plant it good and quick on someone else, wouldn't you? That would be a murderer's
normal reaction."
"Ye-es," said Poirot. "But then perhaps
we have here a rather unusual type of murderer.
It is possible that that is the solution
of our problem."
"What is the solution?"
Poirot said thoughtfully:
"An unusual type of murderer."
Inspector Grange stared at him curiously.
He said:
"But then--what was the murderer's
idea? What was he or she getting at?"
Poirot spread out his hands with a sigh.
"I have no idea--I have no idea at all. But
it seems to me--dimly--"
"Yes?"
"That the murderer is someone who
wanted to kill John Christow but who did
not want to implicate Gerda Christow."
"Hm! Actually we suspected her right
away."
"Ah, 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 time--"
Poirot came to a full stop.
"Time to do what?"
"Ah, mon ami, there you have me. Again
I have to say I do not know."
Inspector Grange took a turn or two up
and down the room. Then he stopped and
came to a stand in front of Poirot.
"I've come to you this afternoon, M.
Poirot, for two reasons. One is because I
know--it's pretty well known in the Force
--that you're a man of wide experience
who's done some very tricky work on this
type of problem. That's reason Number
One. But there's another reason. You were
there. You were an eye-witness. You saw what happened."
Poirot nodded.
"Yes, I saw what happened--but the eyes, Inspector Grange, are very unreliable witnesses."
"What do you mean, M. Poirot?"
"The eyes see, sometimes, what they are
meant to see."
"You think that it was planned out beforehand?"

"I 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."
"Hm," the Inspector pulled his drooping
moustache firmly downwards. "What you
are getting at is that some of the other particulars
of the picture may be wrong, too?"
Poirot nodded. He said:
"There were three other people present--
three 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.
"Of 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 almost simultaneously, and a few minutes after
Gerda Christow.
"But one of those three, Inspector, could
have been at the pool before Gerda Christow,
could have shot John Christow, and could
have retreated up or down one of the paths
and then, turning round, could have arrived
at the same time as the others."
Inspector Grange said:
"Yes, it's possible."
"And 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."
Grange said, "You're dead right. There
are two other possible suspects besides Gerda
Christow. We've got the same motive
jealousyit's definitely a crime passionel
there were two other women mixed up with
John Christow."
He paused and said:
"Christow went over to see Veronica Cray
that morning. They had a row. She told him
that she'd make him sorry for what he'd done
and she said she hated him more than she
believed she could hate anyone."
"Interesting," murmured Poirot.
"She's straight from Hollywoodand 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 she'd left in the pavilion the night
before. They could have met--the whole
thing could have flared up--she fired at
him--and then, hearing someone coming, she could have dodged back the way she
came."
He paused a moment and added irritably:
"And now we come to the part where it
all goes haywire. That damned gun! Unless,"
his eyes brightened, "she shot him
with her own gun and dropped one that she'd
pinched from Sir Henry's study so as to
throw suspicion on the crowd at The Hollow.
She mightn't know about our being able
to identify the gun used from the marks on
the rifling."
"How many people do know that, I wonder?"

"I put the point to Sir Henry. He said he
thought quite a lot of people would know--
on 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."
"But Veronica Cray would have had to get
the gun somehow from Sir Henry's study."
"Yes, it would mean premeditation ..." The Inspector took another tug at his moustache, then he looked at Poirot. "But you've
hinted yourself at another possibility, M.
Poirot. There's Miss Savernake. And here's
where your eye-witness stuff, or rather I
should say ear-witness stuff, comes in again.
Dr. Christow said 'Henrietta' when he was
dying. You heard him--they all heard him, though Mr. Angkatell doesn't seem to have
caught what he said--"
"Edward Angkatell did not hear? That is
interesting."
"But 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 'Henrietta.' She doesn't, I think, attach any importance to it."
Poirot smiled. "No--she would not attach
importance to it."
"Now, M. Poirot, what about you? You
were there--you saw--you heard. Was Dr.
Christow trying to tell you all that it was
Henrietta who had shot him? In short, was
that word an accusation?"
Poirot said slowly:
"I did not think so at the time."
"But now, M. Poirot? What do you think now?" Poirot sighed. Then he said slowly:
"It 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."
Grange said hastily:
"Of course, this is all off the record.
What M. Poirot thought isn't evidence--I
know that. It's only a pointer I'm trying to
get."
"Oh, I understand you very well--and
an impression from an eye-witness 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 'Henrietta,'
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."
"I know what you mean," said Grange. "But it seems to me that since 'Henrietta' Was the last word Christow spoke, it must
have meant one of two things. It was either
an accusation of murder or else it was--well, purely emotional. She's the woman he was
in love with and he was dying. Now, bearing
everything in mind, which of the two did it
sound like to you?"
Poirot sighed, stirred, closed his eyes, opened them again, stretched out his hands
in acute vexation. He said:
"His voice was urgent--that is all I can
say--urgent. It seemed to me neither accusing
nor emotional--but urgent, yes! And of
one thing I am sure. He was in full possession
of his faculties. He spoke--yes, he
spoke like a doctor--a doctor who has, say, a sudden surgical emergency on his hands
--a patient who is bleeding to death, perhaps.
. . ."
Poirot shrugged his shoulders. "That is
the best I can do for you."
"Medical, eh?" said the Inspector. "Well,
yes, that is a third way of looking at it. He
was shot, he suspected he was dying, he
wanted something done for him quicklyAnd
if, as Lady Angkatell says. Miss Savernake
was the first person he saw when his
eyes opened, then he would appeal to her
. . .It's not very satisfactory, though."
"Nothing about this case is satisfactory,"
said Poirot with some bitterness.
A murder scene, set and staged to deceive
Hercule Poirot--and which had deceived
him! No, it was not satisfactory.
Inspector Grange was looking out of the
window.
"Hullo," he said, "here's Coombes, my
Sergeant. Looks as though he's got something.
He's been working on the servants--
the friendly touch. He's a nice-looking chap,
got a way with women."
Sergeant Coombes came in a little breathlessly.
He was clearly pleased with himself, though subduing the fact under a respectful
official manner.
"Thought I'd better come and report, sir, since I knew where you'd gone."
He hesitated, shooting a doubtful glance
at Poirot, whose exotic foreign appearance
did not commend itself to his sense of official
reticence.
"Out with it, my lad," said Grange. "Never mind M. Poirot here. He's forgotten more about this game than you'll know for
many years to come."
"Yes, sir. It's this way, sir. I got something
out of the kitchen maid--"
Grange interrupted. He turned to Poirot
triumphantly.
"What did I tell you? There's always hope
where there's 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.
They're so kept down and in their place by
the cook and the upper servants that it's only
human nature to talk about what they know
to someone who wants to hear it. Go on, Coombes."
"This 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."
"Gudgeon?"
"Yes, sir." Coombes referred to a notebook.
"These are her own words. (I don't
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.'
"I don't suppose," said Coombes, breaking
off, "that 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."
"0 A
Inspector Grange rose, with the satisfaction
of a man who sees a task ahead of him
which he is well fitted to perform.
"Gudgeon?" he said. "I'll have a word with
Mr. Gudgeon right away."
Chapter XX
sitting once more in Sir Henry's study, Inspector Grange stared at the impassive face
of the man in front of him.
So far, the honours lay with Gudgeon.
"I am very sorry, sir," he repeated.
"I suppose I ought to have mentioned the
occurrence, but it had slipped my memory."

He looked apologetically from the Inspector
to Sir Henry.
"It 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 master's 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."
"Point it out to me," said Grange.
Gudgeon rose and went to the shelf in
question, the Inspector close beside him.
"It was this one, sir." Gudgeon's finger indicated a small Mauser pistol at the end of
the row.
It was a .25--quite a small weapon. It was
certainly not the gun that had killed John
Christow.
Grange, with his eyes on Gudgeon's face, said:
"That's an automatic pistol, not a revolver."

Gudgeon coughed.
"Indeed, sir? I'm afraid that I am not at
all well up in firearms. I may have used the
term revolver rather loosely, sir."
"But you are quite sure that that is the
gun you found in the hall and brought in
here?"
"Oh, yes, sir, there can be no possible
doubt about that."
Grange stopped him as he was about to
stretch out a hand.
"Don't touch it, please. I must examine
it for finger-prints and to see if it is loaded."
"I don't think it is loaded, sir. None of
Sir Henry's collection is kept loaded. And as for finger-prints, I polished it over with
my handkerchief before replacing it, sir, so
there will only be my finger-prints on it."
"Why did you do that?" asked Grange
sharply.
But Gudgeon's apologetic smile did not
waver.
"I fancied it might be dusty, sir."
The door opened and Lady Angkatell
came in. She smiled at the Inspector.
"How 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
her--but, 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 myself--easy, you know, if
right is unpleasant and wrong is agreeable, because then one knows where one is--but
confusing when it is the other way about--
and I think, don't you. Inspector, that everyone
must do what they think right themselves.
What have you been telling them about that
pistol. Gudgeon?"
Gudgeon said with respectful emphasis:
"The pistol was in the hall, m'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."

Lady Angkatell shook her head. She said
gently:
"You really shouldn't have said that. Gudgeon.
I'll talk to the Inspector myself."
Gudgeon made a slight movement and
Lady Angkatell said very charmingly:
"I do appreciate your motives. Gudgeon.
I know how you always try to save us trouble
and annoyance." She added in gentle dismissal, "That will be all now."
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:

"You 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."
Grange said stiffly:
"Am I to understand. Lady Angkatell,
that you yourself have some further knowledge
about the matter?"
"Of course. Gudgeon didn't find it in the
hall at all. He found it when he took the eggs
out."
"The eggs?" Inspector Grange stared at
her.
"Out of the basket," said Lady Angkatell.
She seemed to think that everything was
now quite clear. Sir Henry said gently:
"You must tell us a little more, my dear.
Inspector Grange and I are still at sea."
"Oh!" Lady Angkatell set herself to be
explicit. "The pistol you see was in the basket, under the eggs."
"What basket and what eggs. Lady Angkatell?"

"The 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 I'd
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 eggs--a thing I always do--otherwise
one eats the fresher eggs sometimes before
the older ones--and he said all that had been
attended to--and 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 here--I suppose
really because there were police in the house.
Servants are always so worried by police, I
find. Very nice and loyal--but also quite
stupid, because, of course. Inspector, it's the
truth you want to hear, isn't it?"
And Lady Angkatell finished up by giving
the Inspector a beaming smile.
"The truth is what I mean to get," said
Grange rather grimly.
Lady Angkatell sighed.
"It all seems such a fuss, doesn't it?" she
said. "I mean, all this hounding people
down. I don't suppose whoever it was that
shot John Christow really meant to shoot
him--not seriously, I mean. If it was Gerda, I'm sure she didn't. In fact, I'm really surprised
that she didn't miss--it's the sort of
thing that one would expect of Gerda. And
I she's 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, she's probably
dreadfully sorry about it now. It's bad
enough for children to have a father who's
that you yourself have some further knowledge
about the matter?"
"Of course. Gudgeon didn't find it in the
hall at all. He found it when he took the eggs
out."
"The eggs?" Inspector Grange stared at
her.
"Out of the basket," said Lady Angkatell.
She seemed to think that everything was
now quite clear. Sir Henry said gently:
"You must tell us a little more, my dear.
Inspector Grange and I are still at sea."
"Oh!" Lady Angkatell set herself to be
explicit. "The pistol you see was in the basket,
under the eggs."
"What basket and what eggs. Lady Angkatell?"

"The 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 I'd
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 eggs--a thing I always do--otherwise
one eats the fresher eggs sometimes before
the older ones--and he said all that had been
attended to--and 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 here--I suppose
really because there were police in the house.
Servants are always so worried by police, I
find. Very nice and loyal--but also quite
stupid, because, of course. Inspector, it's the
truth you want to hear, isn't it?"
And Lady Angkatell finished up by giving
the Inspector a beaming smile.
"The truth is what I mean to get," said
Grange rather grimly.
Lady Angkatell sighed.
"It all seems such a fuss, doesn't it?" she
said. "I mean, all this hounding people
down. I don't suppose whoever it was that
shot John Christow really meant to shoot
him--not seriously, I mean. If it was Gerda, I'm sure she didn't. In fact, I'm really surprised
that she didn't miss--it's the sort of
thing that one would expect of Gerda. And
she's 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, she's probably
dreadfully sorry about it now. It's bad
enough for children to have a father who's
been murdered--but it will make it infinitely
worse for them to have their mother
hanged for it. Sometimes I don't think you
policemen think of these things."
"We are not contemplating arresting anyone
at present. Lady Angkatell."
"Well, that's sensible at any rate. But I
have thought all along. Inspector Grange, that you were a very sensible sort of man."
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.
"As you said just now. Lady Angkatell, it's the truth I want to get at. You took the
pistol from here--which gun was it, by the
way?"
Lady Angkatell nodded her head towards
the shelf by the mantelpiece. "The second
from the end. The Mauser .25." 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 "vague"
and "just a bit batty," to describe a firearm
with such technical precision.
"You took the pistol from here and put it
in your basket. Why?"
"I knew you'd ask me that," said Lady
Angkatell. Her tone, unexpectedly, was almost
triumphant. "And, of course, there
must be some reason. Don't you think so, Henry?" She turned to her husband. "Don't
you think I must have had a reason for taking
a pistol out that morning?"
"I should certainly have thought so, my
dear," said Sir Henry stiffly.
"One does things," said Lady Angkatell, gazing thoughtfully in front of her, "and
then one doesn't 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." She appealed to him. "What do you
think it can have been?"
Grange stared at her. She displayed no
embarrassment--just a childlike eagerness.
It beat him. He had never yet met anyone
like Lucy Angkatell and just for the moment
he didn't know what to do about it.
"My wife," said Sir Henry, "is extremely
absentminded, Inspector.''
"So it seems, sir," said Grange. He did
not say it very nicely.
"Why do you think I took that pistol?"
Lady Angkatell asked him confidentially.
"I have no idea, Lady Angkatell."
<<I came in here," mused Lady Angkatell.
"I had been talking to Simmons about the
pillow cases--and I dimly remember crossing
over to the fireplace--and thinking we
must get a new poker--the curate, not the
rector--"
Inspector Grange stared. He felt his head
going round.
"And I remember picking up the Mauser--it
was a nice handy little gun, I've always
liked it--and dropping it into the
basket--I'd just got the basket from the
flower room--But there were so many things
in my head--Simmons, you know, and the
bindweed in the Michaelmas daisies--and
hoping Mrs. Medway would make a really rich Nigger in his Shirt--"
"A nigger in his shirt?" Inspector Grange
had to break in.
"Chocolate, you know, and eggs--and
then covered with whipped cream. Just the
sort of sweet a foreigner would like for
lunch."
Inspector Grange spoke fiercely and
brusquely, feeling like a man who brushes
away fine spiders' webs which are impairing
his vision.
"Did you load the pistol?"
He had hoped to startle her--perhaps
even to frighten her a little;, but Lady Angkatell
only considered the question with a
kind of desperate thoughtfulness.
"Now did I? That's so stupid. I can't remember.
But I should think I must have, don't you. Inspector? I mean, what's the
good of a pistol without ammunition? I wish
I could remember exactly what was in my
head at the time."
"My dear Lucy," said Sir Henry. "What
goes on or does not go on in your head has
been for years the despair of everyone who
knows you well."
She flashed him a very sweet smile.
"I 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 couldn't imagine what I wanted
with it."
"Presumably you were going to ring someone
up," said the Inspector coldly.
"No, funnily enough, I wasn't. I remembered
afterwards--I'd been wondering why
Mrs. Mears, the gardener's 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
Chapter XXI
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:
"Why did you take the pistol, Lucy?"
Lady Angkatell came back and sank down
gracefully into a chair.
"I'm not really quite sure. Henry. I suppose
I had some vague ideas of an accident."
"Accident?"
"Yes. All those roots of trees, you know,"
said Lady Angkatell vaguely, "sticking out
--so easy, just to trip over one . . . One
might have had a few shots at the target and
left one shot in the magazine--careless, of
course--but then people are careless. I've
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 oneself. ..."
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:
"Who was to have had--the accident?"
Lucy turned her head a little, looking at
him in surprise.
"John Christow, of course."
"Good God, Lucy--" He broke off.
She said earnestly:
"Oh, Henry, I've been so dreadfully worried.
About Ainswick."
"I see. It's Ainswick. You've always cared
too much about Ainswick, Lucy. Sometimes
I think it's the only thing you do care
for. . . ."
"Edward and David are the last--the last
of the Angkatells. And David won't do, Henry. He'll never marry--because of his
mother and all that. He'll get the place when
Edward dies, and he won't marry, and you
and I will be dead long before he's even middle-aged.
He'll be the last of the Angkatells
and the whole thing will die out."
"Does it matter so much, Lucy?"
"Of course it matters! Ainswick r) "You should have been a boy, Lucy."
But he smiled a little--for he could not
imagine Lucy being anything but feminine.
"It all depends on Edward's marrying
and Edward's so obstinatethat long head
of his, like my father's. I hoped he'd get over
Henrietta and marry some nice girlbut I
see now that that's hopeless. Then I thought
that Henrietta's affair with John would run
the usual course. John's affairs were never,
I imagined, 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.
She's not the kind of person to cherish
a memory and live in the past. So, you see,
it all came to thatget rid of John Christow."
"Lucy.
You didn't What did you do,
Lucy?"
Lady Angkatell got up again. She took two
dead flowers out of a vase.
"Darling," she said, "you don't imagine
for a moment, do you, that / shot John
Christow? I did have that silly idea about an
accident. But then, you know, I remembered
that we'd asked John Christow hereit's not
as though he proposed himself. One can't
ask someone to be a guest and then arrange
accidents. Even Arabs are most particular
about hospitality. So don't worry, will you,
Henry?"
She stood looking at him with a brilliant, affectionate smile. He said heavily:
"I always worry about you, Lucy. ..."
"There's 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," said Lady
Angkatell reminiscently, "of that man in
Bombay who was so frightfully rude to me.
He was run over by a tram three days later."
She unbolted the French window 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.
"Putting yourself forward and jumping to
conclusions in a way only an inexperienced
girl would do."
"That's right," said Mrs. Medway.
"If you see me with a pistol in my hand,
the proper thing to do is to come to me and
say, 'Mr. Gudgeon, will you be so kind as
to give me an explanation?5"
"Or you could have come to me," put in
Mrs. Medway. "Pm always willing to tell a
young girl what doesn't know the world what
she ought to think."
"What you should not have done," said
Gudgeon severely, "is to go babbling off to
a policeman--and only a Sergeant at that!
Never get mixed up with the police more
than you can help. It's painful enough having
them in the house at all."
"Inexpressibly painful," murmured Miss
Simmons. "Such a thing never happened to me before."
"We all know," went on Gudgeon, "what
her ladyship is like. Nothing her ladyship
does would ever surprise me--but the police
don't know her ladyship the way we do, and
it's not to be thought of that her ladyship
should be worried with silly questions and
suspicions just because she wanders about
with firearms. It's the sort of thing she would
do, but the police have the kind of minds
that just see murder and nasty things like
that. Her ladyship is the kind of absentminded
lady who wouldn't hurt a fly but
there's no denying that she put things in
funny places. I shall never forget," added
Gudgeon with feeling, "when she brought
back a live lobster and put it in the card tray
in the hall. Thought I was seeing things!"
"That must have been before my time," said Simmons with curiosity.
Mrs. Medway checked these revelations
with a glance at the erring Doris.
"Some other time," she said. "Now then, Doris, we've only been speaking to you for
your own good. It's common to be mixed up
with the police, and don't you forget it. You
can get on with the vegetables now and be
more careful with the runner beans than you
were last night."
Doris sniffed.
"Yes, Mrs. Medway," she said and shuffled
over to the sink.
Mrs. Medway said forebodingly:
"I don't feel as I'm 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 that--happening to
us."
Chapter XXII
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 5 a scent that Poirot recognized.
She wore tweeds and brogues as
Henrietta had done--but she was, he decided, very different from Henrietta.
"M. Poirot." Her tone was delighted, a
little thrilled. "I've only just discovered who
my neighbour is. And I've always wanted so
much to know you."
He took her outstretched hands, bowed
over them.
"Enchanted, Madame."
She accepted the homage smilingly, refused
his offer of tea, coffee or cocktail.
"No, I've just come to talk to you. To talk
seriously. I'm worried."
"You are worried? I am sorry to hear
that."
Veronica sat down and sighed.
"It's about John Christow's death. The
inquest's tomorrow. You know that?"
"Yes, yes, I know."
"And the whole thing has really been so
extraordinary--"
She broke off.
"Most people really wouldn't believe it.
But you would, I think, because you know
something about human nature."
"I know a little about human nature," admitted
Poirot.
"Inspector Grange came to see me. He'd
got it into his head that I'd quarrelled with
John--which is true in a way, though not
in the way he meant-- I told him that I
hadn't seen John for fifteen years--and he
simply didn't believe me. But it's true, M.
Poirot."
Poirot said, "Since it is true, it can easily
be proved, so why worry?"
She returned his smile in the friendliest
fashion.
"The real truth is that I simply haven't
dared to tell the Inspector what actually happened on Saturday evening. It's so absolutely
fantastic that he certainly wouldn't believe
it. But I felt I must tell someone. That's why
I have come to you."
Poirot said quietly, "I am flattered."
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.

"John and I were engaged to be married fifteen years ago. He was very much in love
with me--so much so that it rather--
alarmed me sometimes. He wanted me to
give up acting--to give up having any mind
or life of my own. He was so possessive and
masterful that I felt I couldn't go through
with it, and I broke off the engagement. I'm
afraid he took that very hard."
Poirot clicked a discreet and sympathetic
tongue.
"I didn't see him again until last Saturday
night. He walked home with me. I told the
Inspector that we talked about old times--
that's true in a way. But there was far more
than that."
"Yes?"
"John went mad--quite mad. He wanted
to leave his wife and children, he wanted me
to get a divorce from my husband and marry
him. He said he'd never forgotten me--that
the moment he saw me time stood still..."
She closed her eyes, she swallowed. Under
her make-up her face was very pale.
She opened her eyes again and smiled almost
timidly at Poirot.
"Can you believe that a--a feeling like
that is possible?" she asked.
"I think it is possible, yes," said Poirot.
"Never to forget--to go on waiting--
planning--hoping--to determine with all
one's heart and mind to get what one wants
in the end. . . . There are men like that, M.
Poirot."
"Yes--and women."
She gave him a hard stare.
"I'm talking about men--about John
Christow. Well, that's 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. We'd argued and argued. . . .He was
still--just as determined."
She swallowed again.
"That's why I sent him a note the next
morning. I couldn't leave things like that. I
had to make him realize that what he wanted
was--impossible.''
"It was impossible?"
"Of course it was impossible! He came
over. He wouldn't listen to what I had to
say. He was just as insistent. I told him that
it was no good, that I didn't love him, that
I hated him. ..." She paused, breathing
hard. "I had to be brutal about it. So we
parted in anger. . . .And now--he's dead."
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 grief--no, it was anger. The anger, he thought, of a baffled egoist.
"Well, M. Poirot?" Her voice was controlled
and smooth again. "What am I to do?
Tell the story, or keep it to myself. It's what
happened--but it takes a bit of believing."
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 I
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:
"If all this had any bearing on John Christow's
death, you would have to speak out, but if it has not--and I cannot see why it
should have--then I think you are quite justified
in keeping it to yourself."
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 him
--why? To try out her story? To test his
reaction? Or to use him--to 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.
"Thank you, M. Poirot. What you say
seems eminently sensible. I'm so glad I came
to you. I--I felt I wanted somebody to
know."
"I shall respect your confidence, Madame."
When
she had gone, he opened the windows
a little. Scents affected him. He did
not like Veronica's 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 him
--he believed that. She would have enjoyed
pressing the trigger--would 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.
Chapter XXIII
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.
"How are you, Gerda dear? Not sleeping
too badly, I hope. I think it went off as well
as we could hope for, don't you? So sorry
we haven't got you with us at The Hollow, but I quite understand how distressing that
would be."
Mrs. Patterson said in her bright voice,
glancing reproachfully at her sister for not
introducing her properly:
"This was Miss Collier's idea--to drive
straight down and back. Expensive, of
course, but we thought it was worth it."
"Oh, I do so agree with you."
Mrs. Patterson lowered her voice.
"I am taking Gerda and the children
straight down to Bexhill. What she needs is
rest and quiet. The reporters! You've no
idea! Simply swarming round Harley
Street."
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 Gerda's
face beneath the unbecoming hat brim.
It was vacant, lost--she looked for the moment
like a half-witted child.
Midge Hardcastle muttered under her
breath, "Poor devil."
Edward said irritably:
"What did everybody see in Christow?
That wretched woman looks completely
heartbroken."
"She was absolutely wrapped up in him,"
said Midge.
"But why? He was a selfish sort of fellow, good company in a way--but--" He broke
7
off. Then he asked, "What did you think of
him. Midge?"
"I?" Midge reflected. She said at last, rather surprised at her own words, "I think
I respected him."
"Respected him? For what?"
"Well, he knew his job."
"You're thinking of him as a doctor?"
"Yes."
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, "You must come out and lunch
one day?" and Midge said that that would
be very nice but that she couldn't take more
than an hour off. Edward gave her his
charming smile and said:
"Oh, it's a special occasion. I'm sure
they'll understand."
Then he moved towards Henrietta. "I'll
ring you up, Henrietta."
"Yes, do, Edward. But I may be out a
good deal."
"Out?"
She gave him a quick mocking smile.
"Drowning my sorrow. You don't expect me to sit at home and mope, do you?"
He said slowly, "I don't understand you
nowadays, Henrietta. You are quite different."
Her face softened. She said unexpectedly, "Darling Edward," and gave his arm a quick
squeeze.
Then she turned to Lucy Angkatell. <<I can come back if I want to, can't I, Lucy?"
Lady Angkatell said, "Of course, darling.
And anyway there will be the inquest again
in a fortnight."
Henrietta went to where she had parked
the car in the market square. Her suitcases
and Midge's 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, "I'm glad to get
away--even from Lucy. Darling as she is, she gives me the creeps sometimes."
Henrietta was looking intently into the
small driving mirror.
She said rather inattentively:
"Lucy has to give the coloratura touch--
even to murder."
"You know, I'd never thought about murder
before."
' 1 A
"Why should you? It isn't a thing one
thinks about. It's a six-letter word in a crossword, or a pleasant entertainment between
the covers of a book. But the real thing--"
She paused. Midge finished:
"Is real! That is what startles one."
Henrietta said:
"It needn't be startling to you. You are
outside it. Perhaps the only one of us who
is."
Midge said:
"We're all outside it now. We've got
away."
| Henrietta murmured, "Have we?"
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 Henrietta's 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 Henrietta's
mouth.
She said, "Look over your shoulder, Midge. See that car way back there?"
"Yes."
"It's a Ventnor 10."
"Is it?" Midge was not particularly interested.

"They're useful little cars, low petrol consumption, keep the road well, but they're
not fast."
"No?"
Curious, thought Midge, how fascinated
Henrietta always was by cars and their performance.

"As I say, they're not fast--but that car,
Midge, has managed to keep its distance, although we've been going over sixty."
Midge turned a startled face to her.
"Do you mean that--"
Henrietta nodded. "The police, I believe, have special engines in very ordinary-looking
cars."
Midge said:
"You mean they're still keeping an eye on
us all?"
"It seems rather obvious."
Midge shivered.
"Henrietta, can you understand the meaning
of this second gun business?"
"No, it lets Gerda out. But beyond that
it just doesn't seem to add up to anything."
"But, if it was one of Henry's guns--"
"We don't know that it was. It hasn't been
found yet, remember."
11 ^
"No, that's true. It could be someone
outside altogether. Do you know who I'd
like to think killed John, Henrietta? That
woman."
"Veronica Cray?"
"Yes."
Henrietta said nothing. She drove on with
her eyes fixed sternly on the road ahead of
her.
"Don't you think it's possible?" persisted
Midge.
"Possible, yes," said Henrietta slowly.
"Then you don't think"
"It's no good thinking a thing because you
want to think it. It's the perfect solution
letting all of us out!"
"Us? But"
"We're in itall of us. Even you. Midge
darlingthough they'd be hard put to it to
find a motive for your shooting John! Of
course, I'd 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!"
Midge shot a quick look at her.
"Tell me, Henrietta, does it all make you
feel vindictive?"
"You mean"Henrietta paused a moment"because
I loved John?"
"Yes."
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:
"I can't explain to you what I feel. Perhaps
I don't know myself."
They were driving now over Albert
Bridge.
Henrietta said:
"You'd better come to the studio, Midge.
We'll have tea and I'll drive you to your digs
afterwards."
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.
"It's chilly," she said. "We'd better light
the gas fire. Oh, botherI meant to get
some matches on the way."
"Won't a lighter do?"
"Mine's no good and anyway it's difficult
to light a gas fire with one. Make yourself
at home. There's an old blind man stands
on the corner. I usually get my matches off
him. I shan't be a minute or two."
Left alone in the studio. Midge wandered
round, looking at Henrietta's 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, ribbon-like aluminum 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 Henrietta's key
turned in the lock and Henrietta herself came in slightly breathless.
Midge turned.
"What's this, Henrietta? It's rather frightening."

"That? That's The Worshipper. It's going
to the International Group."  Midge repeated, staring at it:
1^ "It's frightening ..."
^^^^B: <\
Kneeling to light the gas fire, Henrietta
said over her shoulder:
"It's interesting your saying that. Why do
you find it frightening?"
"I think--because it hasn't any
iace. . . .
"How right you are. Midge. ..."
"It's very good, Henrietta."
Henrietta said lightly: "It's a nice bit of
pear wood ..."
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
face--it had a sudden quite inexplicable exultation.

"Now for tea," said Henrietta, and in her
voice was the same warm jubilation that
Midge had already glimpsed in her face.
It struck an almost jarring note--but
Midge forgot it in a train of thought aroused
by the sight of the two boxes of matches.
"You remember those matches Veronica
Cray took away with her?"
"When Lucy insisted on foisting a whole
half dozen on her? Yes."
"Did anyone ever find out whether she
had matches in her cottage all the time?"
n
1 "I expect the police did. They're very
thorough."
A faintly triumphant smile was curving
Henrietta's lips. Midge felt puzzled and almost
repelled.
She thought. Can Henrietta really have
cared for John? Can she? Surely not.
And a faint desolate chill struck through
her as she reflected:
Edward will not have to wait very
long.. . .
Ungenerous of her not to let that thought
bring warmth. She wanted Edward to be
happy, didn't she? It wasn't as though she
could have Edward herself. To Edward
she would be always "little Midge." 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 Ainswick . . .
that was the proper ending to the story. Edward
and Henrietta living happy ever afterwards
. . .
She could see it all very clearly. . . .
"Cheer up. Midge," said Henrietta. "You
mustn't let murder get you down. Shall we
go out later and have a spot of dinner together?"

But Midge said quickly that she must get
back to her rooms. She had things to do--
letters to write. In fact, she'd better go as
soon as she'd finished her cup of tea.
"All right. I'll drive you there."
"I could get a taxi."
"Nonsense. Let's use the car as it's here."
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.
"A Ventnor 10. Our shadow. You'll see.
He'll follow us."
"How beastly it all is!"
"Do you think so? I don't really mind."
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:
"Well--to work . . . Better not waste
time."
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 Henrietta's
Irish hunting forebears. Nevertheless,it was
a horse--a 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.
Chapter XXIV
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
"Madame Alfrege."
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 him--more, had shocked him.
There had been in Midge's 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 wrong--the whole
thing was wrong! And then, when he had
shown his concern, she had met him pointI blank with the unpalatable truth that one
had to keep one's job, that jobs weren't easy
to get, and that the holding down of a job
entailed more unpleasantnesses than the
mere performing of a stipulated task.
Up till then Edward had vaguely accepted
the fact that a great many young women had "jobs" nowadays. If he had thought about
it at all, he had thought that, on the whole, they had jobs because they liked jobs--that
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 summer's
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 Midge--that
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.
Edward's tendency to live exclusively in
the past, and to accept the present dubiously
as something as 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 vision--he had felt
for a moment that he had lost something--
something that was a precious part of Ainswick.
And he had said impulsively, speaking
out of that suddenly aroused feeling, "I wish
I saw you more often. Midge my dear. ..."
Standing outside in the moonlight, speaking
to a Henrietta who was no longer, suddenly, the familiar Henrietta he had loved
for so long--he 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 Ainswick--and 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 Midge's
happiness or comfort. The idea of her uncongenial
job at Madame Alfrege's 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 women's
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. Someone--
Lady Angkatell, perhaps--must do something
about it.
Overcoming his shyness with an effort, Edward straightened his slightly stooping
shoulders and walked in.
He was instantly paralyzed with embarrassment.
Two platinum blonde little minxes
with shrill voices were examining dresses in
a show-case, 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 woman's fretful voice was raised.
"Frightful--perfectly frightful--can't you
bring me anything decent to try?"
In response he heard the soft murmur of
Midge's voice--a deferential persuasive
voice:
"This wine model is really very smart.
And I think it would suit you. If you'd just
slip it on--"
"I'm not going to waste my time trying
on things that I can see are no good. Do take
a little trouble. I've told you I don't want
reds. If you'd just listen to what you are
told--"
The colour surged up into Edward's neck.
He hoped Midge would throw the dress in
the odious woman's face. Instead she murmured:

"I'll have another look. You wouldn't care
for green, I suppose. Madam? Or this
peach?"
"Dreadful--perfectly dreadful! No, I
won't see anything more. Sheer waste of
time--"
But now Madame Alfrege, detaching herself from the stout customer, had come down
to Edward, and was looking at him inquiringly.

He pulled himself together.
"Is--could I speak--is Miss Hardcastle
here?"
Madame Alfrege's eyebrows went up--
but she took in the Savile Row cut of Edward's
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:
"Do be careful! How clumsy you are.
You've torn my hair net."
And Midge, her voice unsteady:
"I'm very sorry. Madam."
"Stupid clumsiness." (The voice disappeared, muffled.) "No, I'll do it myself. My
belt, please."
"Miss Hardcastle will be free in a minute,"
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.
"I've come to take you out to lunch," said
Edward without preamble.
Midge gave a harried glance up at the
clock.
"I don't get off until quarter past one,"
she began.
It was ten past one.
Madame Alfrege said graciously:
"You can go off now if you like. Miss
Hardcastle, as your friend has called for
you."
Midge murmured, "Oh, thank you, Madame
Alfrege," and to Edward, "I'll be
ready in a minute," and disappeared into the
back of the shop.
Edward, who had winced under the impact
of Madame Alfrege's heavy emphasis
on friend, 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 Pekingese came in and Madame Alfrege's
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.
"My God," he said, "is 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
didn't you throw the damned frocks at her
head?"
"I'd soon lose my job if I did things like
that."
"But don't you want to fling things at a
woman of that kind?"
Midge drew a deep breath.
"Of 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 off--instead of'Yes, Madam, no. Madam--I'll see if we have anything
else. Madam.'"
"Midge, dear little Midge, you can't put
up with all this!"
Midge laughed a little shakily.
"Don't be so upset, Edward. Why on
earth did you have to come here? Why not
ring up?"
"I wanted to see for myself. I've been worried
. . ." He paused and then broke out.
"Why, Lucy wouldn't talk to a scullery maid
the way that woman talked to you. It's all
wrong that you should have to put up with
insolence and rudeness. Good God, Midge, I'd like to take you right out of it all down
to Ainswick. I'd like to hail a taxi, bundle
you into it, and take you down to Ainswick
now by the 2:15."
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.
"Well, then, why don't you? There are
plenty of taxis!"
He stared at her, taken aback by her sudden
fury. She went on, her anger flaming I up: B
"Why do you have to come along and say these things? You don't mean them. Do you
think it makes it any easier after I've had the
hell of a morning to be reminded that there , are places like Ainswick? Do you think I'm
grateful to you for standing there and babbling
about how much you'd like to take me
out of it all? All very sweet and insincere.
You don't really mean a word of it. Don't
you know that I'd sell my soul to catch the
2:15 to Ainswick and get away from everything?
I can't bear even to think of Ainswick,
do you understand? You mean well, Edward,
but you're cruel! Saying things--just saying things. ..."
They faced each other, seriously incom-
moding 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, "All right then, damn it. You're
coming to Ainswick by the 2:15!"
He raised his stick and hailed a passing
taxi. It drew into the curb. Edward opened
the door and Midge, slightly dazed, got in.
Edward said "Paddington Station" to the
driver and followed her in.
They sat in silence. Midge's 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:
"I seem to have called your bluff."
Edward said shortly:
"It wasn't bluff."
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, "We can't catch the 2:15," and
tapping on the glass he said to the driver, "Go to the Berkeley."
Midge said coldly, "Why can't we catch
the 2:15? It's only twenty-five past one
now."
Edward smiled at her.
"You haven't got any luggage, little
Midge. No nightgowns or toothbrushes or
country shoes. There's a 4:15, you know.
We'll have some lunch now and talk things
over."
Midge sighed.
"That's so like you, Edward. To remember
the practical side. Impulse doesn't carry
you very far, does it? Oh, well, it was a nice
dream while it lasted."
She slipped her hand into his and gave
him her old smile.
"I'm sorry I stood on the pavement and
abused you like a fishwife," she said. "But
you know, Edward, you were irritating."
"Yes," he said, "I must have been."
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, "I ought to hurry back to
the shop. My time's up."
"You're going to take decent time over
your lunch today, even if I have to go back
and buy half the clothes in the shop!"
-- A
"Dear Edward, you are really ratb^ sweet."
They ate crepes suzette and then rf^ waiter brought them coffee. Edward stirred
his sugar in with his spoon.
He said gently:
|| "You really do love Ainswick, don't you?"
"Must we talk about Ainswick? I've si"*vived
not catching the 2:15--and I quite ^e"
alize that there isn't any question of the
4:15--but don't rub it in."
Edward smiled.
"No, I'm not proposing that we catch th^ 4:15. But I am suggesting that you come to Ainswick, Midge. I'm suggesting that y011 come there for good--that is, if you can p111 up with me."
She stared at him over the rim of her cotf66 cup--put it down with a hand that she ma11aged
to keep steady.
"What do you really mean, Edward?"
"I'm suggesting that you should maiW me. Midge. I don't suppose that I'm a v^y
romantic proposition. I'm a dull dog, I knc^ that, and not much good at anything--I just
read books and potter around. But although
I'm not a very exciting person, we've knov^11 each other a long time and I think that Air^"
wick itself would--well, would compensate
I think you'd be happy at Ainswick, Midge.
Will you come?"
Midge swallowed once or twice--then she
said:
"But I thought--Henrietta--" and
stopped.
Edward said, his voice level and unemotional:

"Yes, I've asked Henrietta three times to
marry me. Each time she has refused. Henrietta
knows what she doesn't want."
There was a silence, and then Edward
said:
"Well, Midge dear, what about it?"
Midge looked up at him. There was a
catch in her voice. She said:
"It seems so extraordinary--to be offered
heaven on a plate as it were, at the Berkeley!"
His face lighted up. He laid his hand over
hers for a brief moment.
"Heaven on a plate," he said. "So you feel
like that about Ainswick . . . Oh, Midge, I'm glad."
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:
"We'll have to go . . .1 suppose I'd better
go back to Madame Alfrege. After all, she's
counting on me. I can't just walk out."
"No, I suppose you'll have to go back and
resign, or hand in your notice, or whatever
you call it. You're not to go on working
there, though. I won't have it. But first I
thought we'd better go to one of those shops
in Bond Street where they sell rings."
"Rings?"
"It's usual, isn't it?"
Midge laughed.
In the dimmed lighting of the jeweller's
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:
"Not emeralds."
Henrietta in green tweeds--Henrietta in
an evening dress like Chinese jade . . .
No, not emeralds . . .
Midge pushed away the tiny stabbing pain
at her heart.
"Choose for me," 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.
"I like this."
Midge nodded. She loved this display of
Edward's unerring and fastidious taste.
She slipped it on her finger as Edward and
the shopman drew aside.
Edward wrote out a check for three
hundred and forty-two pounds and came
back to Midge smiling.
He said, "Let's go and be rude to Madame
Alfrege. ..."
Chapter XXV
"but, darlings, I am so delighted!"
Lady Angkatell stretched out a fragile
hand to Edward and touched Midge softly
with the other.
"You did quite right, Edward, to make
her leave that horrid shop and to bring her
right down here. She'll stay here, of course, and be married from here--St. George's, you know, three miles by the road, though
only a mile through the woods, but then one
doesn't go to a wedding through woods. And
I suppose it will have to be the Vicar--poor
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 impressive--and
more religious, too, if you know what I
mean. It is so hard to keep one's mind reverent
when somebody is saying things
through the nose."
It was. Midge decided, a very Lucyish
reception. It made her want to both laugh
and cry.
"I'd love to be married from here, Lucy," she said.
"Then that's settled, darling. Off-white
satin, I think, and an ivory prayer book-- not a bouquet. Bridesmaids?" ,<
"No. I don't want a fuss. Just a very quiet
wedding."
"I know what you mean, darling--and I
think perhaps you are right. With an Autumn
wedding it's nearly always chrysanthemums--such
an uninspiring flower, I
always think. And unless one takes a lot of
time to choose them carefully, bridesmaids
never match properly and there's nearly always
one terribly plain one who ruins the
whole effect--but one has to have her because
she's usually the bridegroom's sister.
But, of course--" Lady Angkatell beamed.
"Edward hasn't got any sisters."
"That seems to be one point in my favour,"
said Edward, smiling.
"But children are really the worst at weddings,"
went on Lady Angkatell, happily |
pursuing her own train of thought. "Every- |
one says 'How sweet!' but, my dear, the anxiety! They step on the train, or else they howl
for Nannie, and quite often they're sick. I
always wonder how a girl can go up the aisle
in a proper frame of mind, while she's so
uncertain about what is happening behind
her."
"There needn't be anything behind me,"
said Midge cheerfully. "Not even a train. I
can be married in a coat and skirt."
"Oh, no. Midge, that's so like a widow.
No, off-white satin and not from Madame
Alfrege's."
"Certainly not from Madame Alfrege's,"
said Edward.
"I shall take you to Mireille," said Lady
Angkatell.
"My dear Lucy, I can't possibly afford
Mireille."
"Nonsense, 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 won't be too tight. It's
nearly two years since he last went to a wedding.
And I shall wear--"
Lady Angkatell paused and closed her
eyes.
"Yes, Lucy?"
"Hydrangea blue," announced Lady Angkatell
in a rapt voice. "I 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 so 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 we've
had here for the murder."
Lady Angkatell uttered the last few words
in the most conversational of tones.
"Lady Angkatell has been entertaining a
few friends for a murder this Autumn,"
Midge could not help saying.
"Yes," said Lucy meditatively. "I suppose
it did sound like that. A party for the
shooting . . . You know, when you come to
think of it, that's just what it has been!"
Midge gave a faint shiver and said:
"Well, at any rate, it's over now."
"It's not exactly over--the 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."
"What are they looking for?" asked Edward.
"The revolver that Christow was shot
with?"
B "I 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 hadn't thought of. But they didn't 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
having--but 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 souffle last night was
quite uneatable. Souffles and pastry always
show if one is off balance. If it weren't for
Gudgeon keeping them all together, I really
believe half the servants would leave. Why
don't you two go and have a nice walk and
help the police look for the revolver?"
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
Angkatell5 s 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.
"Good 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?"

"Yes, Miss Savernake."
"Will they find it, do you think?"
"I think so. Quite soon now, I should
say?"
She looked at him inquiringly.
"Have you an idea, then, where it is?"
"No. But I think it will be found soon. It
is time for it to be found."
"You do say odd things, M. Poirot!"
"Odd things happen here. You have come
back very soon from London, Mademoiselle."

Her face hardened. She gave a short, bitter
laugh.
"The murderer returns to the scene of the
crime? That is the old superstition, isn't it?
So you do think that I--did it! You don't
believe me when I tell you that I wouldn't
--that I couldn't kill anybody?"
Poirot did not answer at once. At last he
said thoughtfully:
"It has seemed to me from the beginning
that either this crime was very simple--so
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
1
from the truth and led us to a point which
--ended in nothingness. This apparent futility, this continual barrenness, is not real
--it is artificial, it is planned. A very subtle
and ingenious mind is plotting against us the
whole time--and succeeding."
"Well?" said Henrietta. "What has that
to do with me?"
"The mind that is plotting against us is a
creative mind. Mademoiselle."
"I see--that's where I come in?"
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 down
as she did so.
Poirot watched her. Something stirred in
his mind--standing in Lady AngkatelFs
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:
"That is what you drew on your bridge
marker--a tree."
"Yes." Henrietta seemed suddenly aware
of what she was doing. "Ygdrasil, M.
Poirot." She laughed.
"Why do you call it Ygdrasil?"
She explained the origin of Ygdrasil.
"And so--when you 'doodle' (that is the
word 5 is it not?)--it is always Ygdrasil you
draw?"
"Yes. Doodling is a funny thing, isn't it?"
"Here on the seat ... on the bridge
marker on Saturday evening ... in the pavilion
on Sunday morning ..."
The hand that held the pencil stiffened
and stopped. She said in a tone of careless
amusement:
"In the pavilion?"
"Yes, on the round iron table there."
"Oh, that must have been on--on Saturday
afternoon."
"It was not on Saturday afternoon. When
Gudgeon brought the glasses out to the pavilion
about twelve o'clock on Sunday morning, there was nothing drawn on the table.
I asked him and he is quite definite about
that."
"Then it must have been"--she hesitated
for just a moment--"of course, on Sunday
afternoon."
But, still smiling pleasantly, Hercule
Poirot shook his head.
"I think not. Grange's 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."
Henrietta said slowly:
"I remember now--I went along there
quite late in the evening--after dinner--"
Poirot's voice came sharply:
"People do not 'doodle' 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?"
Henrietta said calmly:
"I am telling you the truth. Naturally, you
don't believe it. You have your own ideas--
What is your idea, by the way?"
"I am suggesting that you were in the pavilion
on Sunday morning after twelve o'clock
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."
"I 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 o'clock, I
went along to the pool. I've been through it
all with Inspector Grange. I never came near
the pool until one o'clock, just after John
had been shot."
"That," said Hercule Poirot, "is your
story. But Ygdrasil, Mademoiselle, testifies
against you."
"I was in the pavilion and I shot John,
that's what you mean?"
"You were there and you shot Dr. Christow,
or you were there and you saw who shot
Dr. Christowor someone else was there
who knew about Ygdrasil and deliberately
drew it on the table to put suspicion on you."
Henrietta got up. She turned on him with
her chin lifted.
"You 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!"
"You think that you are cleverer than I
am?"
"You will never prove it," said Henrietta,
and turning, she walked away down the
winding path that led to the swimming pool.
Chapter XXVI
grange came into Resthaven to drink a cup
of tea with Hercule Poirot. The tea was exactly
what he had had apprehensions it might
be--extremely weak and China tea at that.
"These foreigners," thought Grange,
"don't know how to make tea--you can't
teach 'em." 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, "The adjourned inquest's the day
after tomorrow and where have we got? Nowhere
at all. What the hell, that gun must
be somewhere! It's this damned country--
miles 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, we've got to face up to it--we may never find
that gun."
"You will find it," said Poirot confidently.
"Well, it won't be for want of trying!"
"You will find it, sooner or later. And I
should say sooner. Another cup of tea?"
"I don't mind if I do--no, no hot water."
"It is not too strong?"
"Oh, no, it's not too strong." The Inspector
was conscious of understatement.
Gloomily he sipped at the pale straw-coloured
beverage.
"This case is making a monkey of me, M.
Poirot--a monkey of me! I can't get the hang
of these people. They seem helpful--but
everything they tell you seems to lead you
away on a wild-goose chase."
"Away?" said Poirot. A startled look came
into his eyes. "Yes, I see. Away ..."
The Inspector was developing his grievance.

"Take the gun now. Christow was shot--
according to the medical evidence--only 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 wasn't hidden anywhere near
the pool--my men have raked the place, so
that's definitely out."
Poirot nodded. Grange went on:
"Gerda Christow was framed--by whom?
That's where every clue I follow seems to
vanish into thin air."
"Their stories of how they spent the morning
are satisfactory?"
"The 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 morning--Sir 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 he's the indoor
bookish kind.) Miss Hardcastle took a book
down to the orchard. All sounds very natural
and likely 3 and there's no means of checking
up on it. Gudgeon took a tray of glasses out
to the pavilion about twelve o'clock. He can't
say where any of the house party were or
what they were doing. In a way, you know, there's something against almost all of
them?"
"Really?"
"Of course, the most obvious person is
Veronica Cray; she had quarrelled with
Christow, she hated his guts, she's quite
likely to have shot him--but I can't 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
Henry's collection, no one who saw her
going to or from the pool that day. And the
missing revolver definitely isn't in her possession
now."
"Ah, you have made sure of that?"
"What do you think? The evidence would
have justified a search warrant but there was
no need. She was quite gracious about it. It's
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 we've had a tail on them to see
where they went and what they'd do. We've
had a man on at the film studios, watching
Veronica--no sign of her trying to ditch the
gun there."
"And Henrietta Savernake?"
"Nothing there either. She went straight
back to Chelsea and we've kept an eye on
her ever since. The revolver isn't in her studio
or in her possession. She was quite pleasant
about the search--seemed amused.
Some of her fancy stuff gave our man quite
I a turn. He said it beat him why people
wanted to do that kind of thing--statues all
lumps and swellings, bits of brass and aluminum
twisted into fancy shapes, horses that
you wouldn't know were horses--"
Poirot stirred a little.
"Horses, you say?"
"Well, a horse. If you'd call it a horse! If
people want to model a horse why don't they
go and look at a horse!"
"A horse," repeated Poirot.
Grange turned his head.
"What is there about that that interests
you so, M. Poirot? I don't get it."
"Association--a point of the psychology."

"Word association? Horse and cart. Rocking
horse? Clothes-horse. No, I don't get it.
Anyway, after a day or two. Miss Savernake
packs up and comes down here again. You
know that?"
"Yes, I have talked with her and I have
seen her walking in the woods."
"Restless, yes. Well, she was having an
affair with the doctor all right, and his saying 'Henrietta' as he died is pretty near to an
accusation. But it's not quite near enough, M. Poirot."
"No," said Poirot thoughtfully, "it is not
near enough."
Grange said heavily:
"There's something in the atmosphere
here--it gets you all tangled up! It's as
though they all knew something. Lady Angkatell
now--she's never been able to put out
a decent reason why she took out a gun with
her that day. It's a crazy thing to do--sometimes
I think she is crazy."
Poirot shook his head very gently.
"No," he said, "she is not crazy."
"Then there's Edward Angkatell. I
thought I was getting something on him. Lady Angkatell said--no, hinted--that he'd
been in love with Miss Savernake for years.
Well, that gives him a motive. And now I
find it's the other girl--Miss Hardcastle--
that he's engaged to. So bang goes the case
against him." Poirot gave a sympathetic murmur.
"Then there's the young fellow," pursued
the Inspector. "Lady Angkatell let slip
something about him--his mother, it seems, died in an asylum--persecution mania--
thought 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. Christow--might 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 Super--Super-something--that
was Christow's line. But if the
boy was a bit touched, he might imagine
Christow was here to keep him under observation.
He's got an extraordinary manner, that young fellow, nervous as a cat."
Grange sat unhappily for a moment or
two.
"You see what I mean? All vague
suspicions--leading nowhere." Poirot stirred again. He murmured softly:
"Away--not towards. From, not to. Nowhere instead of somewhere. . . . Yes, of
course, that must be it."
Grange stared at him. He said:
"They're queer, all these Angkatells. I'd
swear, sometimes, that they know all about

it.
??


Poirot said quietly:
"They do."
"You mean, they know, all of them, who
did it?" the Inspector asked incredulously.
Poirot nodded.
"Yes--they know. I have thought so for
some time. I am quite sure now."
"I see." The Inspector's face was grim.
"And they're hiding it up among them?
Well, I'll beat them yet. Pm going to find that
gun"
It was, Poirot reflected, quite the Inspector's
theme song.
Grange went on with rancour:
"I'd give anything to get even with
them--"
"With--"
"All of them! Muddling me up! Suggesting
things! Hinting! Helping my men--helping them! All gossamer and spiders' webs;
nothing tangible. What I want is a good solid fact!"
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:
"You want a solid fact? Eh bien, unless I
am much mistaken there is a solid fact in the
hedge by my gate."
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: "It's a revolver all right."
Just for a moment his eye rested doubtfully
on Poirot.
"No, no, my friend," said Poirot. "I did
not shoot Dr. Christow and I did not put the
revolver in my own hedge."
"Of course you didn't, M. Poirot! Sorry!
Well, we've got it. Looks like the one missing
from Sir Henry's study. We can verify
that as soon as we get the number. Then
we'll see if it was the gun that shot Christow.
Easy does it now."
With infinite care and the use of a silk
handkerchief, he eased the gun out of the
hedge.
"To give us a break, we want fingerprints.
I've a feeling, you know, that our
luck's changed at last."
"Let me know--"
"Of course I will, M. Poirot. I'll ring you
up."
Poirot received two telephone calls. The
first came through that same evening.
The Inspector was jubilant.
"That you, M. Poirot? Well, here's the
dope. It's the gun all right. The gun missing
from Sir Henry's collection and the gun that
shot John Christow! That's definite. And
there is a good set of prints on it. Thumb,
first finger, part of the middle finger. Didn't
I tell you our luck had changed?"
"You have identified the fingerprints?"
"Not yet. They're certainly not Mrs.
Christow's. We took hers. They look more
like a man's than a woman's for size. Tomorrow
I'm 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!"
"I hope so, I am sure," 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:
"Want to hear the latest? Those fingerprints
aren't the prints of anybody connected
with the case! No, sir! They're not Edward
Angkatell's, nor David's, nor Sir Henry's.
They're not Gerda Christow's, nor the Savernake's, nor our Veronica's, nor her ladyship's, nor the little dark girl's! They're not
even the kitchen maid's--let alone any of
the other servants!"
Poirot made condoling noises. The sad
voice of Inspector Grange went on:
"So 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
don't 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!"
"Would you like my finger-prints, my
friend?"
"I don't mind if I do! It strikes me, M.
Poirot, that you were on the spot, and that
taking it all round you're far and away the
most suspicious character in the case!"
Chapter XXVII
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 Adam's apple
wagged up and down excitedly. He read out
in a careful voice:
"We find that the deceased came to his
death by wilful murder by some person or
persons unknown."
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 speak to Gerda and her sister. Gerda
was wearing the same black clothes as before.
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 Gerda's hand,
murmured:
"You must keep in touch with us, my
dear. A little lunch, perhaps, one day in London?
I expect you'll come up to do shopping
occasionally?"
"II don't know," said Gerda.
Elsie Patterson said:
"We must hurry, dear, our train," and
Gerda turned away with an expression of
relief.
Midge said:
"Poor Gerda. The only thing John's death
has done for her is to set her free from your
terrifying hospitality, Lucy."
"How unkind you are. Midge. Nobody
could say I didn't try."
"You are much worse when you try, Lucy."
"Well, it's very nice to think it's all over,
isn't it?" said Lady Angkatell, beaming at
them. "Except, 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."
"I should let well alone, Lucy," said Sir
Henry.
"Perhaps you are right," said Lady Ang-
katell meditatively. "And anyway it isn't the
right kind of lunch today. Partridges au
Choux--and that delicious souffle surprise
that Mrs. Medway makes so well. Not at all
Inspector Grange's kind of lunch. A really
good steak, a little underdone, and a good oldfashioned
apple tart with no nonsense about
it--or perhaps apple dumplings--that's what
I should order for Inspector Grange."
"Your instincts about food are always very sound, Lucy. I think we had better get home
to those partridges--they sound delicious."
"Well, I thought we ought to have some celebration! It's wonderful, isn't it, how
everything always seems to turn out for the
best?"
"Yees--"
"I know what you're thinking. Henry, but
don't worry. I shall attend to it this afternoon."
"What are you up to now, Lucy?"
Lady Angkatell smiled at him.
"It's quite all right, darling. Just tucking
in a loose end."
Sir Henry looked at her doubtfully.
When they reached The Hollow, Gudgeon
came out to open the door of the car.
"Everything went off very satisfactorily,
Gudgeon," said Lady Angkatell. "Please 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."
"We have been deeply concerned for you, m'lady," said Gudgeon.
"Very sweet of Gudgeon," said Lucy as
she went into the drawing-room, "but really
quite wasted. I have really almost enjoyed it
all--so different, you know, from what one
is accustomed to. Don't you feel, David, that
an experience like this has broadened your
mind? It must be so different from Cambridge."
"I
am at Oxford," said David coldly.
Lady Angkatell said vaguely, "The dear
boat race. So English, don't you think?" and
went towards the telephone.
She picked up the receiver and holding it
in her hand she went on:
"I do hope, David, that you will come and
stay with us again. It's so difficult, isn't it, to get to know people when there is a murder?
And quite impossible to have any really
intellectual conversation."
"Thank you," said David. "But when I
come down I am going to Athens--to the
British School."
Lady Angkatell turned to her husband.
"Who's got the Embassy now? Oh, of
course--Hope-Remmington. No, I don't
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."
She broke off, looking down at the telephone
receiver.
"Now what am I doing with this thing?"
"Perhaps you were going to ring someone
up," said Edward.
"I don't think so." She replaced it. "Do
you like telephones, David?"
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.
"You mean," said Lady Angkatell, "like
mincing machines? Or elastic bands? All the
same, one wouldn't--"
She broke off as Gudgeon appeared in the
doorway to announce lunch.
"But you like partridges," said Lady Angkatell
to David anxiously.
David admitted that he liked partridges.
"Sometimes I think Lucy really is a bit
touched," said Midge, as she and Edward
strolled over from the house and up towards
the woods.
The partridges and the souffle surprise
had been excellent and with the inquest over
a weight had lifted from the atmosphere.
Edward said thoughtfully:
"I always think Lucy has a brilliant mind
that expresses itself like a missing word competition.
To mix metaphors--the hammer
jumps from nail to nail and never fails to hit
each one squarely on the head."
"All the same," Midge said soberly, "Lucy frightens me sometimes." She added, with a tiny shiver, "This place has frightened
me lately."
"The Hollow?"
Edward turned an astonished face to her.
"It always reminds me a little of Ainswick,"
he said. "It's not, of course, the real
thing--"
Midge interrupted:
"That's just it, Edward--I'm frightened
of things that aren't the real thing . . . You
don't know, you see, what's behind them . . .
It's like--oh, it's like a mask."
"You mustn't be fanciful, little Midge."
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 clearerto show him that
behind what he called fancy, was some shape
of dimly apprehended reality.
"I got away from it in London, but now
I get back here it all comes over me again.
I feel that everyone knows who killed John
Christow. . . . That the only person who
doesn't knowis me."
Edward said irritably:
"Must we think and talk about John
Christow? He's dead. Dead and gone."
Midge murmured:
"He is dead and gone, lady,
He is dead and gone;
At his head a grass-green turf
At his heels a stone."
She put her hand on Edward's arm. "Who
did kill him, Edward? We thought it was
Gerdabut it wasn't Gerda. Then who was
it? Tell me what you think? Was it someone
we've never heard of?"
He said irritably:
"All this speculation seems to me quite
unprofitable. If the police can't find out, or
can't get sufficient evidence, then the whole
thing will have to be allowed to dropand
we shall be rid of it."
"Yesbut it's the not knowing"
"Why should we want to know? What has
John Christow to do with us?"
With us, she thought, with Edward and
me? Nothing! Comforting thoughtshe and
Edward, linked, a dual entity. And yet
and yetJohn 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, lady . . .
But John Christow was not dead and gone
for all that Edward wished him to be ...
John Christow was still here at The Hollow.
Edward said, "Where are we going?"
Something in his tone surprised her. She
said:
"Let's walk up onto the top of the ridge.
Shall we?"
"If you like."
For some reason, he was unwilling. She
wondered why. It was usually his favourite
walk. He and Henrietta used nearly always
 Her thought snapped and broke off ...
He and Henrietta She said, "Have you
been this way yet this Autumn?"
He said stiffly:
"Henrietta and I walked up here that first
afternoon."
They went on in silence.
They came at last to the top and sat on
the fallen tree.
Midge thought: "He and Henrietta sat here,
perhaps ..."
She turned the ring on her finger round
and round. The diamond flashed coldly at
her . . . ("Not emeralds," he had said.)
She said with a slight effort:
"It will be lovely to be at Ainswick again
for Christmas."
He did not seem to hear her. He had gone
far away.
She thought. He is thinking of Henrietta
and of John Christow.
Sitting here he had said something to Henrietta
or she had said something to him . . .
Henrietta might know what she didn't want
but he belonged to Henrietta still. He always
would. Midge thought, belong to Henrietta.
. . .
Pain swooped down upon her. The happy
bubble world in which she had lived for the
last week quivered and broke.
She thought, I can't live like that--with
Henrietta always there in his mind. I can't
face it. I can't bear it ...
The wind sighed through the trees--the
leaves were falling fast now--there were
hardly any gold ones left, only brown.
She said, "Edward!"
The urgency of her voice aroused him. He
turned his head.
"Yes?"
"I'm sorry, Edward." Her lips were trembling
but she forced her voice to be quiet
and self-controlled. "I've got to tell you. It's
no use. I can't marry you. It wouldn't work, Edward."
He said, "But, Midge--surely Ainswick--"
She
interrupted:
"I can't marry you just for Ainswick, Edward.
You--you must see that."
He sighed then, a long, gentle sigh. It was
like an echo of the dead leaves slipping gently
off the branches of the trees.
"I see what you mean," he said. "Yes, I
suppose you are right."
"It was dear of you to ask me, dear and
sweet. But it wouldn't do, Edward. It
wouldn't work."
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 couldn't
work . . .
"No," he said, echoing her words, "it
wouldn't work."
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:
"It's a lovely ring, Edward."
"I wish you'd keep it. Midge. I'd like you
to have it."
She shook her head.
"I couldn't do that."
He said, with a faint humorous twist of
the lips:
"I shan't give it to anyone else, you
know."
It was all quite friendly. He didn't know
--he would never know--just what she was
feeling. . . Heaven on a plate--and the plate
was broken and Heaven had slipped between
her fingers or had, perhaps, never been
there.
That afternoon, Poirot received his third visitor.

He had been visited by Henrietta Savernake
and by 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.
"I have come to see you," she announced.
So might a fairy confer a favour on a mere
mortal.
"I am enchanted, Madame."
He led the way into the sitting room. She
sat down on the sofa and once more, she
smiled.
Hercule Poirot thought: "She is old--her
hair is grey--there are lines in her face. Yet
she has magic--she will always have magic
"
\^
Lady Angkatell said softly:
"I want you to do something for me."
"Yes, Madame?"
"To begin with, I must talk to you--about
John Christow."
"About Dr. Christow?"
"Yes. 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, don't you?"
"I am not sure that I do know what you
mean. Lady Angkatell."
She gave him her lovely dazzling smile
again and she put one long white hand on
his sleeve.
"Dear M. Poirot, you know perfectly. The
police will have to hunt about for the owner
of those finger-prints and they won't find
him and in the end they'll have to let the
whole thing drop. But I'm afraid, you know,
that you won't let it drop."
"No, I shall not let it drop," said Hercule
Poirot.
"That is just what I thought. . . And that
is why I came. It's the truth you want, isn't
it?"
"Certainly I want the truth."
"I see I haven't explained myself very
well. I'm trying to find out just why you
won't let things drop. It isn't because of your
prestigeor because you want to hang a
murderer (such an unpleasant kind of death,
I've always thoughtso medieval). It's just,
I think, that you want to know. You do see
what I mean, don't you? If you were to know
the truthif you were to be told the truth,
I thinkI think perhaps that might satisfy
you? Would it satisfy you, M. Poirot?"
"You are offering to tell me the truth,
Lady Angkatell?"
She nodded:
"You yourself know the truth, then?"
Her eyes opened very wide.
"Oh, yes, I've known for a long time. I'd
like to tell you. And then we could agree
that--well, that it was all over and done
with."
She smiled at him.
"Is it a bargain, M. Poirot?"
It was quite an effort for Hercule Poirot
to say:
"No, Madame, it is not a bargain."
He wanted--he wanted, very badly, to let
the whole thing drop . . . simply because
Lucy Angkatell asked him to do so.
Lady Angkatell sat very still for a moment.
Then she raised her eyebrows.
"I wonder," she said. ... "I wonder if
you really know what you are doing?"
Chapter XXVIII
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 Edward's door and Edward's
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 downstairs--had
heard owls hoot outside her bedroom
window. Had felt that depression that
reaches ^s nadir at 2:00 a.m. Had thought
to herself "i can't bear it--1 can't bear it.
Tomorrow coming--another day . . . Day
after day to be got through."
Banis^d by ^er own act from Ainswick
--from ^11 ^e loveliness and dearness of
Amswic^ which might have been her very
own possession.
But b^ner banishment, better loneliness, better a ^ab and uninteresting life, than life
with Edward and Henrietta's ghost. Until
that day ^ ^e wood she had not known her
own cap^ity for bitter jealousy.
And after all, Edward had never told her
that he l^yed her. Affection, kindliness, he
had nev^ 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
gu^t, did she know that for her Edward
s affection was not enough-.
Edward walking past her door, down the
front sta^s
It was odd--very odd--where was he
going?
Uneasiness grew upon her. It was all part
and parc^ 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 flashlight, she opened her door
and came out into the passage.
It was quite dark, no lights 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 moment's 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 it--a faint light
was shining from the open kitchen door. The
smell of gas ^as 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 on full- 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:
"Edward, Edward, Edward, Edward.
..."
He
stirred, groaned, opened his eyes and
looked up at her.
He said very faintly, "Gas oven ..." and
his eyes went round to the gas stove.
"I know, darling, but whywhy?"
He was shivering now, his hands were cold
and lifeless.
He said, "Midge?"
There was a kind of wondering surprise
and pleasure in his voice.
She said, "I heard you pass my door . . .
I didn't know ... I came down."
He sighed--a very long sigh as though
from very far away.
"Best way out," he said. And then, inexplicably, until she remembered Lucy's
conversation on the night of the tragedy, "News of the World."
"But, Edward, why--why?"
He looked up at her and the blank, cold
darkness of his stare frightened her.
"Because I know now I've never been any
good. Always a failure. Always ineffectual.
It's men like Christow who do things. They
get there and women admire them. I'm
nothing--I'm not even quite alive. I inherited
Ainswick and I've enough to live on--
otherwise I'd have gone under. No good at
a career--never much good as a writer. Henrietta
didn't want me. No one wanted me.
That day--at the Berkeley--I thought--but
it was the same story. You couldn't care either, Midge. Even for Ainswick you couldn't
put up with me ... So I thought better get
out altogether."
Her words came with a rush.
"Darling, darling. You don't understand.
It was because of Henrietta--because I
thought you still loved Henrietta so much."
"Henrietta?" He murmured it vaguely, as
though speaking of someone infinitely remote.
"Yes, I loved her very much."
And from even farther away she heard him
murmur:
"It's so cold ..."
"Edward--my darling."
Her arms closed round him firmly. He
smiled at her, murmuring:
"You're so warm. Midge--you're so
warm. ..."
Yes, she thought, that was what despair
was. A cold thing--a thing of infinite coldness
and loneliness. She'd 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
despair--this 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, "You're so warm, Midge." And suddenly, with a glad proud
confidence, she thought. But that's what he wants--that's what I can give him! They
were all cold, the Angkatells; even Henrietta
had something in her of the will-o'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. What Edward needs is someone
to light a fire on his hearth--and / am
the person to do that.
Edward looked up. He saw Midge's 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 seventeenyear-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
schoolgirl 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. . . .
Midge, he thought, is real . . . the only
real thing I have ever known . . . He felt the
warmth of her, and the strength--dark, positive, alive, real! Midge, he thought, is the
rock on which I can build my life . . .
He said, "Darling Midge, I love you so, never leave me again ..."
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--
"Look, Edward, a black beetle has come
out to look at us. Isn't he a nice black beetle?
I never thought I could like a black beetle
so much!"
She added dreamily:
"How 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
it's heaven."
He murmured dreamily:
"I could stay here forever."
"We'd better go and get some sleep. It's
four o'clock. How on earth are we to explain
that broken window to Lucy?"
Fortunately, Midge reflected, Lucy was
an extraordinarily easy person to explain
things to.
Taking a leaf out of Lucy's own book, Midge went into her room at six o'clock.
She made a bald statement of fact:
"Edward went down and put his head in
the gas oven in the night," she said. "Fortunately
I heard him and went down after
him. I broke the window because I couldn't
get it open quickly."
Lucy, Midge had to admit, was wonderful.

She smiled sweetly with no sign of surprise.

"Dear Midge," she said, "you are always
so practical. I'm sure you will always be the
greatest comfort to Edward."
After Midge had gone Lady Angkatell lay
thinking. Then she got up and went into her
husband's room, which for once was unlocked.

"Henry."
"My dear Lucy! It's not cock-crow yet."
"No, but listen. Henry, this is really important.
We must have electricity installed
to cook by and get rid of that gas stove."
"Why, it's quite satisfactory, isn't it?"
"Oh, yes, dear. But it's the sort of thing
that gives people ideas, and everybody mightn't be as practical as dear Midge."
She flitted elusively away. Sir Henry
turned over with a grunt. Presently he awoke
with a start just as he was dozing off.
"Did I dream it," he murmured, "or did
Lucy come in and start talking about gas
stoves?"
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 selfapproval,
she returned to bed and lay back
on her pillows, pleased with life and with
herself.
Edward and Midge at Ainswick--the inquest
over-- She would go and talk to M.
Poirot again. A nice little man . . .
Suddenly another idea flashed into her
head. She sat upright in bed.
"I wonder now," she speculated, "if she
has thought of that?"
She got out of bed and drifted along the
passage to Henrietta's room, beginning her
remarks as usual long before she was within
earshot.
"--and it suddenly came to me, dear, that
you might have overlooked that."
Henrietta murmured sleepily:
"For heaven's sake, Lucy, the birds aren't
up yet!"
"Oh, I know, dear, it is rather early, but
it seems to have been a very disturbed
night--Edward and the gas stove, and
Midge and the kitchen window--and thinking
of what to say to M. Poirot and
everything--"
"I'm sorry 3 Lucy, but everything you say
sounds like complete gibberish . . . Can't it
wait?"
"It was only the holster, dear. I thought, you know, that you might not have thought
about the holster."
"Holster?" Henrietta sat up in bed. She
was suddenly wide awake. "What's this
about a holster?"
"That revolver of Henry's was in a holster, you know. And the holster hasn't been
found. And, of course, nobody may think
of it--but on the other hand somebody
might--"
Henrietta swung herself out of bed. She
said:
"One always forgets something--that's
what they say! And it's true!"
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 . . .
Chapter XXIX
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 hadn't 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 kind--very
kind--especially 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 hadn't wanted to
think, or to feel, or to remember.
But now, every day, she felt it coming
nearer--she'd have to start living again, to
decide what to do, where to live. Already
Elsie was showing a shade of impatience in
her manner. "Oh, Gerda, don't be so slow!"
It was all the same as it had beenlong
ago, before John came and took her away.
They all thought her slow and stupid. There
was nobody to say, as John had said, "I'll
look after you."
Her head ached and Gerda thought, I'll
make myself some tea.
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 Henrietta's rakishlooking
car drawn up to the curb and Henrietta
herself standing on the doorstep.
"Why, Henrietta!" she exclaimed. She fell
back a step or two. "Come in. I'm afraid my
sister and the children are out but"
Henrietta cut her short.
"Good. I'm glad. I wanted to get you
alone. Listen, Gerda, what did you do with
the holster?"
Gerda stopped. Her eyes looked suddenly
vacant and uncomprehending. She said,
"Holster?"
Then she opened a door on the right of
the hall.
"You'd better come in here. I'm afraid it's
rather dusty. You see, we haven't had much
time this morning"
Henrietta interrupted again urgently.
She said, "Listen, Gerda, you've got to
tell me. Apart from the holster everything's
all rightabsolutely watertight. There's
nothing to connect you with the business. I
found the revolver where you'd shoved it
into that thicket by the pool. I hid it in a
place where you couldn't possibly have put
itand there are finger-prints on it which
they'll never identify. So there's only the
holster; I must know what you did with
that?"
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 followedshe 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 further 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.
"If you've still got it, Gerda, you must
give it to me. I'll get rid of it somehow. It's
the only possible thing, you see, that can
connect you now with John's death. Have you got it?"
There was a pause and then Gerda slowly
nodded her head.
"Didn't you know it was madness to keep
it?" Henrietta could hardly conceal her impatience.

"I forgot about it. It was up in my room."
She added, "When the police came up to
| Harley Street I cut it in two and put it in
the bag with my leather work."
Henrietta said, "That was clever of you."
Gerda said, "I'm not quite so stupid as
everybody thinks."
She put her hand up to her throat. She
said, "John--John--" Her voice broke.
Henrietta said, "I know, my dear, I
know."
Gerda said, "But you can't know . . . John
wasn't--he wasn't--" She stood there,
dumb and strangely pathetic. She raised her
eyes suddenly to Henrietta's face. "It was all
a lie--everything! All the things I thought
he was! I saw his face when he followed that
woman out that evening. Veronica Cray! I
knew he'd cared for her, of course, years ago,
before he married me, but I thought it was
all over."
Henrietta said gently:
"But it was all over."
Gerda shook her head.
"No. She came there and pretended that
she hadn't seen John for yearsbut I saw
John's face ... He went out with her. I went
up to bed. I lay there trying to readI tried
to read that detective story that John was
reading. And John didn't come. And at last
I went out ..."
Her eyes seemed to be turning inwards
seeing the scene.
"It was moonlight. I went along the path
to the swimming pool. There was a light in
the pavilion. They were thereJohn and that
woman ..."
Henrietta made a faint sound.
Gerda's face had changedit had none of
its usual slightly vacant amiability. It was
remorseless, implacable.
"I'd trusted John. I'd believed in him
as though he were God. I thought he was the
noblest man in the worldI thought he was
everything that was fine and noble . . . And
it was all a lie! I was left with nothing--
nothing at all. I--I'd worshipped John!"
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, "I couldn't bear it! I had to
kill him! I had to--you do see that, Henrietta?"
She
said it quite conversationally, in an
almost friendly tone.
"And I knew I must be careful because
the police are very clever. But then I'm not
really as stupid as people think! If you're
very slow and just stare, people think you
don't take things in--and sometimes, underneath, you're laughing at them! I knew
I could kill John and nobody would know
because I'd 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. I'd take two revolvers. I'd
shoot John with one and then hide it and let
people find me holding the other and first
they'd think Fd shot him and then they'd
find he couldn't have been killed with that
revolver and so they'd say I hadn't done it
after all!"
She nodded her head triumphantly.
"But I forgot about the leather thing. It
was in the drawer in my bedroom. What do
you call it, a holster? Surely the police won't
bother about that now?"
"They might," said Henrietta. "You'd
better give it to me, and I'll take it away with
me. Once it's out of your hands, you're quite
safe."
She sat down. She felt suddenly unutterably
weary.
Gerda said, "You don't look well. I was
just making tea."
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 overfull. Gerda
put the tray down and poured out a cup of
tea and handed it to Henrietta.
"Oh, dear," she said, dismayed, "I don't
believe the kettle can have been boiling."
"It's quite all right," said Henrietta. "Go
and get that holster, Gerda."
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 it was nearly done now. 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.
"The front door was open," he remarked
as he advanced to the table, "so I took the
liberty of walking in."
"You!" said Henrietta. "How did you get
here?"
"When you left The Hollow so suddenly, naturally I knew where you would go. I hired
a very fast car and came straight here."
"I see." Henrietta sighed. "You would."
"You should not drink that tea," said
Poirot, taking the cup from her and replacing
it on the tray. "Tea that has not been
made with boiling water is not good to
drink."
"Does a little thing like boiling water
really matter?"
Poirot said gently, "Everything matters."
There was a sound behind him and Gerda
came into the room. She had a workbag in
her hands. Her eyes went from Poirot's face
to Henrietta's.
Henrietta said quickly:
"I'm afraid, Gerda, I'm rather a suspicious
character. M. Poirot seems to have been
shadowing me. He thinks that I killed
John--but he can't prove it."
She spoke slowly and deliberately. So long
as Gerda did not give herself away--
Gerda said vaguely, "I'm so sorry. Will
you have some tea, M. Poirot?"
"No, thank you, Madame."
Gerda sat down behind the tray. She began
to talk in her apologetic conversational
way.
"I'm so sorry that everybody is out. My
sister and the children have all gone for a
picnic. I didn't feel very well, so they left
me behind."
"I am sorry, Madame."
Gerda lifted a teacup and drank.
"It is all so very worrying. Everything is so
worrying. . . . You see, John always arranged everything and now John is gone ..." Her
voice tailed off. "Now John is gone ..."
Her gaze, piteous, bewildered, went from
one to the other.
"I don't know what to do without John.
John looked after me ... He took care of
me. Now he is gone, everything is gone . . .
And the children--they ask me questions
and I can't answer them properly. I don't
know what to say to Terry. He keeps saying,
'Why was Father killed?5 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!"
Gerda leaned back in her chair. Her lips
were very blue.
She said stiffly:
"I feel--not very well--if John--John--"
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.
"An easy and comparatively painless
death."
Henrietta stared at him.
"Heart? No." Her mind leaped forward.
"Something in the tea ... Something she
put there herself. She chose that way out?"
Poirot shook his head gently.
"Oh, no, it was meant for you. It was in your teacup."
"For me?" Henrietta's voice was incredulous.
"But I was trying to help her."
"That did not matter. Have you not seen
a dog caught in a trap--it sets its teeth into
anyone who touches it. She saw only that \ you knew her secret and so you too must
die."
Henrietta said slowly:
"And you made me put the cup back on
the tray--you meant--you meant her--"
Poirot interrupted her quietly:
"No, 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 other--if you
call it chance. I say myself that an end such
as this is merciful. For her--and for two
innocent children ..."
He said gently to Henrietta, "You are very
tired, are you not?"
She nodded. She asked him, "When did
you guess?"
"I 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
Christow--that her attitude was stagy 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
396
understood what you wanted done!" He
paused and added, "Why did you want it
done?"
"Because John asked me to! That's what
he meant when he said 'Henrietta.9 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
she'd done, I could-- And he knew that I
would do anything he wanted, because I
loved him."
"And you started at once," said Poirot
grimly.
"Yes, 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 Grange's
men."
She paused and then went on:
397
"I 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
find it."
"The clay horse," murmured Poirot.
"How 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 couldn't very well
destroy an artist's masterpiece, could they?
What made you know where it was?"
"The fact that you chose to model a horse.
The horse of Troy was the unconscious
association in your mind. But the fingerprints--How
did you manage the fingerprints?"

"An old blind man who sells matches in
the street. He didn't know what it was I
asked him to hold for a moment while I got
some money out!"
Poirot looked at her for a moment.
"C'est formidable!" he murmured. "You
are one of the best antagonists. Mademoiselle, that I have ever had."
"It's been dreadfully tiring always trying
to keep one move ahead of you!"
"I 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 everyone--other 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.
"Yes, 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."
Henrietta looked at the figure huddled pathetically
in the chair. She said, "Poor
Gerda."
"Is that what you have felt all along?"
"I think so ... Gerda loved John
terribly--but she didn't 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, there's nothing left ..." She
paused and then went on. "But 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 doctor--yes, a great doctor!
And he's dead, and the world has lost a
very great man. And I have lost the only
man I shall ever love ..."
Poirot put his hand gently on her shoulder.
He said:
"But you are of those who can live with a
sword in their hearts--who can go on and
smile--"
Henrietta looked up at him. Her lips
twisted into a bitter smile. "That's a little
melodramatic, isn't it?"
"It is because I am a foreigner and I like
to use fine words."
Henrietta said suddenly:
"You have been very kind to me. ..."
"That is because I have admired you always
very much."
"M. Poirot, what are we going to do?
About Gerda, I mean."
Poirot drew the raffia workbag towards
him. He turned out its contents, scraps of
brown suede and other coloured leathers.
There were three fragments of thick, shiny
brown leather. Poirot fitted them together.
"The holster. I take this. And poor Madame
Christow, she was overwrought, her
husband's death was too much for her. It
will be brought in that she took her life whilst
of unsound mind--"
Henrietta said slowly:
"And no one will ever know what really
happened?"
"I think one person will know. Dr. Christow's
son. I think that one day he will come
to me and ask me for the truth."
"But you won't tell him," cried Henrietta.
"Yes, I shall tell him."
"Oh, no!"
"You do not understand. To you it is unbearable
that anyone should be hurt. But to
some minds there is something more unbearable
still--not to know. You heard that
poor woman just a little while ago say, Terry
always has to know. . . .'To the scientific
mind, truth comes first. Truth, however bitter, can be accepted, and woven into a design
for living."
Henrietta got up.
"Do you want me here, or had I better
go?"
"It would be better if you went, I think."
She nodded. Then she said, more to herself
than to him:
"Where shall I go? What shall I do--without
John?"
"You are speaking like Gerda Christow.
You will know where to go and what to do."
"Shall I? I'm so tired, M. Poirot, so
tired. ..."
He said gently:
"Go, my child. Your place is with the living.
I will stay here with the dead ..."
Chapter XXX
As she drove towards London, the two
phrases echoed through Henrietta's mind--
What shall I do? Where shall I go?
For the last few weeks she had been strung
up, excited, never relaxing for a moment.
She had had a task to perform--a task laid
on her by John. But now that was over--
had she failed--or 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 terrace
--the night of John's death--the 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, planning--not yet able to
sit down and mourn--mourn for her dead.
"I should like," she had said to Edward, "to
grieve for John ..."
But she had not dared to relax then--
not 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, "John . . .
John ..."
Bitterness and black rebellion broke over
her . . .
She thought, I wish I'd drunk that cup of
tea ...
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
Ridgeway's Disease--about his triumphs and
despairs, about Mrs. Crabtree and St. Christopher's
. . .
And suddenly, with a lifting of the dark
pall that lay over her mind, she said aloud:
"Of course. That's where I will go. To St.
Christopher's ..."
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 real--this would last!
Here, for a little space, she had found John
again . . .
"The pore doctor. Orful, ain't it?" 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. "Getting 'imself
bumped off like that! Turned my
stomach right over it did, when I "card. I
read all about it in the papers--Sister let me
'ave all she could get 'old of--reely nice about
it, she was. There was pictures and everythink
. . . That swimming pool and all. Ts
wife leaving the inquest, pore thing, and that
Lady Angkatell what the swimming pool belonged
to! Lots of pictures. Real mystery the "ole thing, weren't it?"
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.
"All I 'ope is that they catch 'ooever done
it and 'ang 'im," continued Mrs. Crabtree
vindictively. "They don't 'ave 'angings in
public like they used to once--more's the
pity. I've always thought I'd like to go to an
'anging . . . And I'd go double quick, if you
understand me, to see 'ooever killed the doctor
'anged! Real wicked, 'e must 'ave been.
Why, the doctor was one in a thousand! Ever
so clever, 'e was! And a nice way with 'im!
Got you laughing whether you wanted to or
not. The things 'e used to say sometimes!
I'd 'ave done anythink for the doctor, I
would!"
"Yes," said Henrietta. "He was a very
clever man. He was a great man."
"Think the world of 'im in the 'orspital, they do! All them nurses. And 'is patients!
Always felt you were going to get well when
'e'd been along."
"So you are going to get well," said Henrietta.
The
little shrewd eyes clouded for a moment.

"I'm not so sure about that, ducky. I've
got that mealy-mouthed young fellow with
the spectacles now. Quite different to Dr.
Christow. Never a laugh! 'E was a one. Dr.
Christow was--always up to 'is jokes! Given
me some norful times, 'e 'as, with this. treatment
of "is. 'I carn't stand any more of it, doctor,5 I'd say to 'im and, 'Yes, you can, Mrs. Crabtree,' 'e'd say to me. 'You're
tough, you are. You can take it. Going to
make medical 'istory, you and I are.' And
'e'd jolly me along like. Do anythink for the
doctor, I would 'ave! Expected a lot of you, 'e did, but you felt you couldn't let 'im down, if you know what I mean."
"I know," said Henrietta.
The little sharp eyes peered at her.
"Excuse me, dearie, you're not the doctor's
wife by any chance?"
?^
"No," said Henrietta, "I'm just a friend." "I see," said Mrs. Crabtree.
Henrietta thought that she did see.
"What made you come along if you don't
mind me arsking?"
"The doctor used to talk to me a lot about
you--and about his new treatment. I wanted
to see how you were."
"I'm slipping back--that's what I'm
doing."
Henrietta cried:
"But you mustn't slip back! You've got to
get well."
Mrs. Crabtree grinned.
<<I don't want to peg out, don't you think it!"
"Well, fight then! Dr. Christow said you
were a fighter."
"Did 'e now?" Mrs. Crabtree lay still a
minute, then she said slowly:
"'Ooever shot 'im it's a wicked shame!
There aren't many of 'is sort. ..."
We shall not see his like again. . . the words
passed through Henrietta's mind. Mrs.
Crabtree was regarding her keenly.
"Keep your pecker up, dearie," she said.
She added, " 'E 'ad a nice funeral, I 'ope."
"He had a lovely funeral," said Henrietta
obligingly.
"Ar! Wish I could of gorn to it!"
Mrs. Crabtree sighed.
"Be going to me own funeral next, I expect."

"No," cried Henrietta. "You mustn't let
go. You said just now that Dr. Christow told
you that you and he were going to make
medical history. Well, you've got to carry
on by yourself. The treatment's just the
same. You've got to have the guts for two
--you've got to make medical history by
yourself--for him."
A f\Ct
Mrs. Crabtree looked at her for a moment
or two.
"Sounds a bit grand! I'll do my best, ducky. Carn't say more than that."
Henrietta got up and took her hand.
"Good-bye. I'll come and see you again if
I may."
"Yes, do. It'll do me good to talk about
the doctor a bit." The bawdy twinkle came
into her eye again. "Proper man in every
kind of way. Dr. Christow."
"Yes," said Henrietta. "He was ..."
The old woman said:
"Don't fret, ducky--what's gorn's gorn.
You can't 'ave it back ..."
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.
Now, she thought, it has come. The moment
I have been dreading--the moment
when I am alone . . .
Now I can put it off no longer . . . Now
grief is here with me.
What had she said to Edward? "I should
like to grieve for John ..."
She dropped down on a chair and pushed
back the hair from her face.
Alone--empty--destitute . . .
This awful emptiness.
The tears pricked at her eyes, flowed
slowly down her cheeks.
Grief, she thought, grief for John . . .
Oh, John--John. . . .
Remembering--remembering. . . . His
voice, sharp with pain:
/// were dead, the first thing you'd do, with
the tears streaming down your face, would be
to start modelling some damned mourning
woman or some figure of grief.
She stirred uneasily . . . Why had that
thought come into her head?
Grief. . . . Grief. ... A veiled figure . . .
its outline barely perceptible--its head
cowled . . .
Alabaster . . .
She could see the lines of it--tall, elongated
... its sorrow hidden, revealed only
by the long mournful lines of the drapery
. . .
Sorrow, emerging from clear transparent
alabaster.
If I were dead . . .
And suddenly bitterness came over her
full tide!
She thought, Thafs what I am! John was
right. I cannot loveI cannot mournnot
with the whole of me ... It's Midge, it's
people like Midge who are the salt of the
earth.
Midge and Edward at Ainswick . . .
That was realitystrengthwarmth . . .
But I, she thought, am 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 alabaster . . .
"Exhibit N. 58 Grief, Alabaster. Miss
Henrietta Savernake."
She said under her breath:
"John, forgive me ... forgive me ... for
what I can't help doing ..."
