The Hollow (19 page)

I
n the study Lady Angkatell flitted about touching things here and there with a vague forefinger. Sir Henry sat back in his chair watching her. He said at last:

“Why did you take the pistol, Lucy?”

Lady Angkatell came back and sank down gracefully into a chair.

“I'm not really quite sure, Henry. I suppose I had some vague ideas of an accident.”

“Accident?”

“Yes. All those roots of trees, you know,” said Lady Angkatell vaguely, “sticking out—so easy, just to trip over one. One might have had a few shots at the target and left one shot in the magazine—careless, of course—but then people
are
careless. I've always thought, you know, that accident would be the simplest way to do a thing of that kind. One would be dreadfully sorry, of course, and blame oneself….”

Her voice died away. Her husband sat very still without taking his eyes off her face. He spoke again in the same quiet, careful voice.

“Who was to have had—the accident?”

Lucy turned her head a little, looking at him in surprise.

“John Christow, of course.”

“Good God, Lucy—” He broke off.

She said earnestly:

“Oh, Henry, I've been so dreadfully worried. About Ainswick.”

“I see. It's Ainswick. You've always cared too much about Ainswick, Lucy. Sometimes I think it's the only thing you do care for.”

“Edward and David are the last—the last of the Angkatells. And David won't do, Henry. He'll never marry—because of his mother and all that. He'll get the place when Edward dies, and he won't marry, and you and I will be dead long before he's even middle-aged. He'll be the last of the Angkatells and the whole thing will die out.”

“Does it matter so much, Lucy?”

“Of course it matters!
Ainswick!
”

“You should have been a boy, Lucy.”

But he smiled a little—for he could not imagine Lucy being anything but feminine.

“It all depends on Edward's marrying—and Edward's so obstinate—that long head of his, like my father's. I hoped he'd get over Henrietta and marry some nice girl—but I see now that that's hopeless. Then I thought that Henrietta's affair with John would run the usual course. John's affairs were never, I imagine, very permanent. But I saw him looking at her the other evening. He really
cared
about her. If only John were out of the way I felt that Henri
etta would marry Edward. She's not the kind of person to cherish a memory and live in the past. So, you see, it all came to that—get rid of John Christow.”

“Lucy. You didn't—What did you do, Lucy?”

Lady Angkatell got up again. She took two dead flowers out of a vase.

“Darling,” she said. “You don't imagine for a moment, do you, that
I
shot John Christow? I did have that silly idea about an accident. But then, you know, I remembered that we'd
asked
John Christow here—it's not as though he proposed himself. One can't ask someone to be your guest and then arrange accidents. Even Arabs are most particular about hospitality. So don't worry, will you, Henry?”

She stood looking at him with a brilliant, affectionate smile. He said heavily:

“I always worry about you, Lucy.”

“There's no need, darling. And you see, everything has actually turned out all right. John has been got rid of without our doing anything about it. It reminds me,” said Lady Angkatell reminiscently, “of that man in Bombay who was so frightfully rude to me. He was run over by a tram three days later.”

She unbolted the french windows and went out into the garden.

Sir Henry sat still, watching her tall, slender figure wander down the path. He looked old and tired, and his face was the face of a man who lives at close quarters with fear.

In the kitchen a tearful Doris Emmott was wilting under the stern reproof of Mr. Gudgeon. Mrs. Medway and Miss Simmons acted as a kind of Greek chorus.

“Putting yourself forward and jumping to conclusions in a way only an inexperienced girl would do.”

“That's right,” said Mrs. Medway.

“If you see me with a pistol in my hand, the proper thing to do is to come to me and say: ‘Mr. Gudgeon, will you be so kind as to give me an explanation?'”

“Or you could have come to me,” put in Mrs. Medway. “
I'm
always willing to tell a young girl what doesn't know the world what she ought to think.”

“What you should
not
have done,” said Gudgeon severely, “is to go babbling off to a policeman—and only a sergeant at that! Never get mixed up with the police more than you can help. It's painful enough having them in the house at all.”

“Inexpressibly painful,” murmured Miss Simmons.

“Such a thing never happened to
me
before.”

“We all know,” went on Gudgeon, “what her ladyship is like. Nothing her ladyship does would ever surprise me—but the police don't know her ladyship the way we do, and it's not to be thought of that her ladyship should be worried with silly questions and suspicions just because she wanders about with firearms. It's the sort of thing she would do, but the police have the kind of mind that just sees murder and nasty things like that. Her ladyship is the kind of absentminded lady who wouldn't hurt a fly, but there's no denying that she puts things in funny places. I shall never forget,” added Gudgeon with feeling, “when she brought back a live lobster and put it in the card tray in the hall. Thought I was seeing things!”

“That must have been before my time,” said Simmons with curiosity.

Mrs. Medway checked these revelations with a glance at the erring Doris.

“Some other time,” she said. “Now then, Doris, we've only been speaking to you for your own good. It's
common
to be mixed up with the police, and don't you forget it. You can get on with the vegetables now, and be more careful with the runner beans than you were last night.”

Doris sniffed.

“Yes, Mrs. Medway,” she said, and shuffled over to the sink.

Mrs. Medway said forebodingly:

“I don't feel as I'm going to have a light hand with my pastry. That nasty inquest tomorrow. Gives me a turn every time I think of it. A thing like that—happening to
us.
”

T
he latch of the gate clicked and Poirot looked out of the window in time to see the visitor who was coming up the path to the front door. He knew at once who she was. He wondered very much what brought Veronica Cray to see him.

She brought a delicious faint scent into the room with her, a scent that Poirot recognized. She wore tweeds and brogues as Henrietta had done—but she was, he decided, very different from Henrietta.

“M. Poirot.” Her tone was delightful, a little thrilled. “I've only just discovered who my neighbour is. And I've always wanted to know you so much.”

He took her outstretched hands, bowed over them.

“Enchanted, Madame.”

She accepted the homage smilingly, refused his offer of tea, coffee or cocktail.

“No, I've just come to talk to you. To talk seriously. I'm worried.”

“You are worried? I am sorry to hear that.”

Veronica sat down and sighed.

“It's about John Christow's death. The inquest's tomorrow. You know that?”

“Yes, yes, I know.”

“And the whole thing has really been so extraordinary—”

She broke off.

“Most people really wouldn't believe it. But you would, I think, because you know something about human nature.”

“I know a little about human nature,” admitted Poirot.

“Inspector Grange came to see me. He'd got it into his head that I'd quarrelled with John—which is true in a way though not in the way he meant. I told him that I hadn't seen John for fifteen years—and he simply didn't believe me. But it's true, M. Poirot.”

Poirot said: “Since it is true, it can easily be proved, so why worry?”

She returned his smile in the friendliest fashion.

“The real truth is that I simply haven't dared to tell the inspector what actually happened on Saturday evening. It's so absolutely fantastic that he certainly wouldn't believe it. But I felt I must tell someone. That's why I have come to you.”

Poirot said quietly: “I am flattered.”

That fact, he noted, she took for granted. She was a woman, he thought, who was very sure of the effect she was producing. So sure that she might, occasionally, make a mistake.

“John and I were engaged to be married fifteen years ago. He was very much in love with me—so much so that it rather alarmed
me sometimes. He wanted me to give up acting—to give up having any mind or life of my own. He was so possessive and masterful that I felt I couldn't go through with it, and I broke off the engagement. I'm afraid he took that very hard.”

Poirot clicked a discreet and sympathetic tongue.

“I didn't see him again until last Saturday night. He walked home with me. I told the inspector that we talked about old times—that's true in a way. But there was far more than that.”

“Yes?”

“John went mad—quite mad. He wanted to leave his wife and children, he wanted me to get a divorce from my husband and marry him. He said he'd never forgotten me—that the moment he saw me time stood still.”

She closed her eyes, she swallowed. Under her makeup her face was very pale.

She opened her eyes again and smiled almost timidly at Poirot.

“Can you believe that a—a feeling like that is possible?” she asked.

“I think it is possible, yes,” said Poirot.

“Never to forget—to go on waiting—planning—hoping. To determine with all one's heart and mind to get what one wants in the end. There are men like that, M. Poirot.”

“Yes—and women.”

She gave him a hard stare.

“I'm talking about men—about John Christow. Well, that's how it was. I protested at first, laughed, refused to take him seriously. Then I told him he was mad. It was quite late when he went back to the house. We'd argued and argued. He was still—just as determined.”

She swallowed again.

“That's why I sent him a note the next morning. I couldn't leave things like that. I had to make him realize that what he wanted was—impossible.”

“It
was
impossible?”

“Of course it was impossible! He came over. He wouldn't listen to what I had to say. He was just as insistent. I told him that it was no good, that I didn't love him, that I hated him…” She paused, breathing hard. “I had to be brutal about it. So we parted in anger…And now—he's dead.”

He saw her hands creep together, saw the twisted fingers and the knuckles stand out. They were large, rather cruel hands.

The strong emotion that she was feeling communicated itself to him. It was not sorrow, not grief—no, it was anger. The anger, he thought, of a baffled egoist.

“Well, M. Poirot?” Her voice was controlled and smooth again. “What am I to do? Tell the story, or keep it to myself? It's what happened—but it takes a bit of believing.”

Poirot looked at her, a long, considering gaze.

He did not think that Veronica Cray was telling the truth, and yet there was an undeniable undercurrent of sincerity. It happened, he thought, but it did not happen like that.

And suddenly he got it. It was a true story, inverted. It was she who had been unable to forget John Christow. It was she who had been baffled and repulsed. And now, unable to bear in silence the furious anger of a tigress deprived of what she considered her legitimate prey, she had invented a version of the truth that should satisfy her wounded pride and feed a little the aching hunger for a man who had gone beyond the reach of her clutching hands. Impossible
to admit that she, Veronica Cray, could not have what she wanted! So she had changed it all round.

Poirot drew a deep breath and spoke.

“If all this had any bearing on John Christow's death, you would have to speak out, but if it has not—and I cannot see why it should have—then I think you are quite justified in keeping it to yourself.”

He wondered if she was disappointed. He had a fancy that in her present mood she would like to hurl her story into the printed page of a newspaper. She had come to him—why? To try out her story? To test his reactions? Or to use him—to induce him to pass the story on?

If his mild response disappointed her, she did not show it. She got up and gave him one of those long, well-manicured hands.

“Thank you, M. Poirot. What you say seems eminently sensible. I'm so glad I came to you. I—I felt I wanted somebody to know.”

“I shall respect your confidence, Madame.”

When she had gone, he opened the windows a little. Scents affected him. He did not like Veronica's scent. It was expensive but cloying, overpowering like her personality.

He wondered, as he flapped the curtains, whether Veronica Cray had killed John Christow.

She would have been willing to kill him—he believed that. She would have enjoyed pressing the trigger—would have enjoyed seeing him stagger and fall.

But behind that vindictive anger was something cold and shrewd, something that appraised chances, a cool, calculating intelligence. However much Veronica Cray wished to kill John Christow, he doubted whether she would have taken the risk.

T
he inquest was over. It had been the merest formality of an affair, and though warned of this beforehand, yet nearly everyone had a resentful sense of anticlimax.

Adjourned for a fortnight at the request of the police.

Gerda had driven down with Mrs. Patterson from London in a hired Daimler. She had on a black dress and an unbecoming hat, and looked nervous and bewildered.

Preparatory to stepping back into the Daimler, she paused as Lady Angkatell came up to her.

“How are you, Gerda dear? Not sleeping too badly, I hope. I think it went off as well as we could hope for, don't you? So sorry we haven't got you with us at The Hollow, but I quite understand how distressing that would be.”

Mrs. Patterson said in her bright voice, glancing reproachfully at her sister for not introducing her properly:

“This was Miss Collins's idea—to drive straight down and back. Expensive, of course, but we thought it was worth it.”

“Oh, I do so agree with you.”

Mrs. Patterson lowered her voice.

“I am taking Gerda and the children straight down to Bexhill. What she needs is rest and quiet. The reporters! You've no idea! Simply swarming round Harley Street.”

A young man snapped off a camera, and Elsie Patterson pushed her sister into the car and they drove off.

The others had a momentary view of Gerda's face beneath the unbecoming hat brim. It was vacant, lost—she looked for the moment like a half-witted child.

Midge Hardcastle muttered under her breath: “Poor devil.”

Edward said irritably:

“What did everybody see in Christow? That wretched woman looks completely heartbroken.”

“She was absolutely wrapped up in him,” said Midge.

“But why? He was a selfish sort of fellow, good company in a way, but—” He broke off. Then he asked: “What did you think of him, Midge?”

“I?” Midge reflected. She said at last, rather surprised at her own words: “I think I respected him.”

“Respected him? For what?”

“Well, he knew his job.”

“You're thinking of him as a doctor?”

“Yes.”

There was no time for more.

Henrietta was driving Midge back to London in her car. Ed
ward was returning to lunch at The Hollow and going up by the afternoon train with David. He said vaguely to Midge: “You must come out and lunch one day,” and Midge said that that would be very nice but that she couldn't take more than an hour off. Edward gave her his charming smile and said:

“Oh, it's a special occasion. I'm sure they'll understand.”

Then he moved towards Henrietta. “I'll ring you up, Henrietta.”

“Yes, do, Edward. But I may be out a good deal.”

“Out?”

She gave him a quick, mocking smile.

“Drowning my sorrow. You don't expect me to sit at home and mope, do you?”

He said slowly: “I don't understand you nowadays, Henrietta. You are quite different.”

Her face softened. She said unexpectedly: “Darling Edward,” and gave his arm a quick squeeze.

Then she turned to Lucy Angkatell. “I can come back if I want to, can't I, Lucy?”

Lady Angkatell said: “Of course, darling. And anyway there will be the inquest again in a fortnight.”

Henrietta went to where she had parked the car in the market square. Her suitcases and Midge's were already inside.

They got in and drove off.

The car climbed the long hill and came out on the road over the ridge. Below them the brown and golden leaves shivered a little in the chill of a grey autumn day.

Midge said suddenly: “I'm glad to get away—even from Lucy. Darling as she is, she gives me the creeps sometimes.”

Henrietta was looking intently into the small driving mirror.

She said rather inattentively:

“Lucy has to give the coloratura touch—even to murder.”

“You know, I'd never thought about murder before.”

“Why should you? It isn't a thing one thinks about. It's a six-letter word in a crossword, or a pleasant entertainment between the covers of a book. But the real thing—”

She paused. Midge finished:

“
Is
real. That is what startles one.”

Henrietta said:

“It needn't be startling to you.
You
are outside it. Perhaps the only one of us who is.”

Midge said:

“We're all outside it now. We've got away.”

Henrietta murmured: “Have we?”

She was looking in the driving mirror again. Suddenly she put her foot down on the accelerator. The car responded. She glanced at the speedometer. They were doing over fifty. Presently the needle reached sixty.

Midge looked sideways at Henrietta's profile. It was not like Henrietta to drive recklessly. She liked speed, but the winding road hardly justified the pace they were going. There was a grim smile hovering round Henrietta's mouth.

She said: “Look over your shoulder, Midge. See that car way back there?”

“Yes?”

“It's a Ventnor 10.”

“Is it?” Midge was not particularly interested.

“They're useful little cars, low petrol consumption, keep the road well, but they're not fast.”

“No?”

Curious, thought Midge, how fascinated Henrietta always was by cars and their performance.

“As I say, they're not fast—but that car, Midge, has managed to keep its distance although we've been going over sixty.”

Midge turned a startled face to her.

“Do you mean that—”

Henrietta nodded. “The police, I believe, have special engines in very ordinary-looking cars.”

Midge said:

“You mean they're still keeping an eye on us all?”

“It seems rather obvious.”

Midge shivered.

“Henrietta, can you understand the meaning of this second gun business?”

“No, it lets Gerda out. But beyond that it just doesn't seem to add up to anything.”

“But, if it was one of Henry's guns—”

“We don't know that it was. It hasn't been found yet, remember.”

“No, that's true. It could be someone outside altogether. Do you know who I'd like to think killed John, Henrietta? That woman.”

“Veronica Cray?”

“Yes.”

Henrietta said nothing. She drove on with her eyes fixed sternly on the road ahead of her.

“Don't you think it's possible?” persisted Midge.

“
Possible,
yes,” said Henrietta slowly.

“Then you don't think—”

“It's no good thinking a thing because you
want
to think it. It's the perfect solution—letting all of us out!”

“Us? But—”

“We're in it—all of us. Even you, Midge darling—though they'd be hard put to it to find a motive for your shooting John. Of course I'd
like
it to be Veronica. Nothing would please me better than to see her giving a lovely performance, as Lucy would put it, in the dock!”

Midge shot a quick look at her.

“Tell me, Henrietta, does it all make you feel vindictive?”

“You mean”—Henrietta paused a moment—“because I loved John?”

“Yes.”

As she spoke, Midge realized with a slight sense of shock that this was the first time the bald fact had been put into words. It had been accepted by them all, by Lucy and Henry, by Midge, by Edward even, that Henrietta loved John Christow, but nobody had ever so much as hinted at the fact in words before.

There was a pause whilst Henrietta seemed to be thinking. Then she said in a thoughtful voice:

“I can't explain to you what I feel. Perhaps I don't know myself.”

They were driving now over Albert Bridge.

Henrietta said:

“You'd better come to the studio, Midge. We'll have tea, and I'll drive you to your digs afterwards.”

Here in London the short afternoon light was already fading. They drew up at the studio door and Henrietta put her key into the door. She went in and switched on the light.

“It's chilly,” she said. “We'd better light the gas fire. Oh, bother—I meant to get some matches on the way.”

“Won't a lighter do?”

“Mine's no good, and anyway it's difficult to light a gas fire with one. Make yourself at home. There's an old blind man stands on the corner. I usually get my matches off him. I shan't be a minute or two.”

Left alone in the studio, Midge wandered round looking at Henrietta's work. It gave her an eerie feeling to be sharing the empty studio with these creations of wood and bronze.

There was a bronze head with high cheekbones and a tin hat, possibly a Red Army soldier, and there was an airy structure of twisted ribbonlike aluminium which intrigued her a good deal. There was a vast static frog in pinkish granite, and at the end of the studio she came to an almost life-sized wooden figure.

She was staring at it when Henrietta's key turned in the door and Henrietta herself came in slightly breathless.

Midge turned.

“What's this, Henrietta? It's rather frightening.”

“That? That's The Worshipper. It's going to the International Group.”

Midge repeated, staring at it:

“It's frightening.”

Kneeling to light the gas fire, Henrietta said over her shoulder:

“It's interesting your saying that. Why do you find it frightening?”

“I think—because it hasn't any face.”

“How right you are, Midge.”

“It's very good, Henrietta.”

Henrietta said lightly:

“It's a nice bit of pearwood.”

She rose from her knees. She tossed her big satchel bag and her furs on to the divan, and threw down a couple of boxes of matches on the table.

Midge was struck by the expression on her face—it had a sudden quite inexplicable exultation.

“Now for tea,” said Henrietta, and in her voice was the same warm jubilation that Midge had already glimpsed in her face.

It struck an almost jarring note—but Midge forgot it in a train of thought aroused by the sight of the two boxes of matches.

“You remember those matches Veronica Cray took away with her?”

“When Lucy insisted on foisting a whole half-dozen on her? Yes.”

“Did anyone ever find out whether she had matches in her cottage all the time?”

“I expect the police did. They're very thorough.”

A faintly triumphant smile was curving Henrietta's lips. Midge felt puzzled and almost repelled.

She thought: “Can Henrietta really have cared for John? Can she? Surely not.”

And a faint desolate chill struck through her as she reflected:

“Edward will not have to wait very long….”

Ungenerous of her not to let that thought bring warmth. She wanted Edward to be happy, didn't she? It wasn't as though she could have Edward herself. To Edward she would be always “little Midge.” Never more than that. Never a woman to be loved.

Edward, unfortunately, was the faithful kind. Well, the faithful kind usually got what they wanted in the end.

Edward and Henrietta at Ainswick…that was the proper ending to the story. Edward and Henrietta living happy ever afterwards.

She could see it all very clearly.

“Cheer up, Midge,” said Henrietta. “You mustn't let murder get you down. Shall we go out later and have a spot of dinner together?”

But Midge said quickly that she must get back to her rooms. She had things to do—letters to write. In fact, she'd better go as soon as she'd finished her cup of tea.

“All right. I'll drive you there.”

“I could get a taxi.”

“Nonsense. Let's use the car, as it's there.”

They went out into damp evening air. As they drove past the end of the Mews Henrietta pointed out a car drawn in to the side.

“A Ventnor 10. Our shadow. You'll see. He'll follow us.”

“How beastly it all is!”

“Do you think so? I don't really mind.”

Henrietta dropped Midge at her rooms and came back to the Mews and put her car away in the garage.

Then she let herself into the studio once more.

For some minutes she stood abstractedly drumming with her fingers on the mantelpiece. Then she sighed and murmured to herself:

“Well—to work. Better not waste time.”

She threw off her tweeds and got into her overall.

An hour and a half later she drew back and studied what she
had done. There were dabs of clay on her cheek and her hair was dishevelled, but she nodded approval at the model on the stand.

It was the rough similitude of a horse. The clay had been slapped on in great irregular lumps. It was the kind of horse that would have given the colonel of a cavalry regiment apoplexy, so unlike was it to any flesh and blood horse that had ever been foaled. It would also have distressed Henrietta's Irish hunting forebears. Nevertheless it was a horse—a horse conceived in the abstract.

Henrietta wondered what Inspector Grange would think of it if he ever saw it, and her mouth widened a little in amusement as she pictured his face.