The Hollow (12 page)

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 the servants.”

“Mrs. Christow is going back to London?”

“Yes. There's 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 some time 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 weekends, I believe.”

“Of course. Dovecotes. I liked her in
Lady Rides on Tiger,
but she's a bit highbrow for my taste. Give me Hedy Lamarr.”

He turned away.

“Well, I must get back to the job. So long, M. Poirot.”

II

“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 fingerprints 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, 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 herself. 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 on to 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.”

T
hey 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 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. Leonards.”

Lady Angkatell looked at the last spoonful of caramel custard, seemed to condole with it, and laid it down very gently uneaten.

David, who only liked savouries, looked down gloomily at his empty plate.

Lady Angkatell got up.

“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 reading about these things in the paper how
tiring
they are. I feel, you know, as though I had walked about fifteen miles. Instead of actually having done nothing but sit down—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 working-class 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, my 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
Encyclopædia 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. She was always to him a laughing girl, with dancing eyes full of eager expectation. The woman he saw now seemed to him a stranger, with eyes that were brilliant but cold and which seemed to look at him inimically.

He said earnestly:

“Henrietta, dearest, do believe this—that I do sympathize with you—in—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 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 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—”

“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?”

“Oh, it was nothing. Just 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—thinking of something.”

“Oh, it was nothing. Just the fire.”

The sticks were crackling and some fircones were burning with a bright, clean flame. Edward looked at them. He said:

“It's a nice fire.”

He stretched out his long, thin hands to the blaze, aware of relief from tension.

Midge said: “We always had fircones at Ainswick.”

“I still do. A basket of them is brought 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 September, have some great white sweet-smelling waxy flowers on it. And the pinecones on the fire. And a faintly musty smell from the kind of book that Edward was sure to be reading. He would be sitting in the saddleback chair, and occasionally, perhaps, his eyes would go from the book to the fire, and he would think, just for a minute, of Henrietta.

Midge stirred and asked:

“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: