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 delightful—most attractive. And as for poor Gerda—well, 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 say—but 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. "Yes—and I really do feel that she will be a tower of strength. She always is. Henrietta, you know, is really kind—kind 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 things—if 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: <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 easy—slippery if you know what I mean—and 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 I—light 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: <