Henrietta said suddenly:
“You have been very kind to me.”
“That is because I have admired you always very much.”
“M. Poirot, what are we going to do? About Gerda, I mean.”
Poirot drew the raffia workbag towards him. He turned out its contents, scraps of brown suède and other coloured leathers. There were some pieces of thick shiny brown leather. Poirot fitted them together.
“The holster. I take this. And poor Madame Christow, she was overwrought, her husband’s death was too much for her. It will be brought in that she took her life whilst of unsound mind—”
Henrietta said slowly:
“And no one will ever know what really happened?”
“I think one person will know. Dr. Christow’s son. I think that one day he will come to me and ask me for the truth.”
“But you won’t tell him,” cried Henrietta.
“Yes. I shall tell him.”
“Oh, no!”
“You do not understand. To you it is unbearable that anyone should be hurt. But to some minds there is something more unbearable still—not to know. You heard the poor woman just a little while ago say: ‘Terry always has to know.’ To the scientific mind, truth comes first. Truth, however bitter, can be accepted, and woven into a design for living.”
Henrietta got up.
“Do you want me here, or had I better go?”
“It would be better if you went, I think.”
She nodded. Then she said, more to herself than to him:
“Where shall I go? What shall I do—without John?”
“You are speaking like Gerda Christow. You will know where to go and what to do.”
“Shall I? I’m so tired, M. Poirot, so tired.”
He said gently:
“Go, my child. Your place is with the living. I will stay here with the dead.”
Thirty
As she drove towards London, the two phrases echoed through Henrietta’s mind. “What shall I do? Where shall I go?”
For the last few weeks she had been strung up, excited, never relaxing for a moment. She had had a task to perform—a task laid on her by John. But now that was over—she had failed—or succeeded? One could look at it either way. But however one looked at it, the task was over. And she experienced the terrible weariness of the reaction.
Her mind went back to the words she had spoken to Edward that night on the terrace—the night of John’s death—the night when she had gone along to the pool and into the pavilion and had deliberately, by the light of a match, drawn Ygdrasil upon the iron table. Purposeful, planning—not yet able to sit down and mourn—mourn for her dead. “I should like,” she had said to Edward, “to grieve for John.”
But she had not dared to relax then—not dared to let sorrow take command over her.
But now she could grieve. Now she had all the time there was.
She said under her breath: “John…John.”
Bitterness and black rebellion broke over her.
She thought: “I wish I’d drunk that cup of tea.”
Driving the car soothed her, gave her strength for the moment. But soon she would be in London. Soon she would put the car in the garage and go along to the empty studio. Empty since John would never sit there again bullying her, being angry with her, loving her more than he wanted to love her, telling her eagerly about Ridgeway’s Disease—about his triumphs and despairs, about Mrs. Crabtree and St. Christopher’s.
And suddenly, with a lifting of the dark pall that lay over her mind, she thought:
“Of course. That’s where I will go. To St. Christopher’s.”
Lying in her narrow hospital bed, old Mrs. Crabtree peered up at her visitor out of rheumy, twinkling eyes.
She was exactly as John had described her, and Henrietta felt a sudden warmth, a lifting of the spirit. This was real—this would last! Here, for a little space, she had found John again.
“The pore doctor. Orful, ain’t it?” Mrs. Crabtree was saying. There was relish in her voice as well as regret, for Mrs. Crabtree loved life; and sudden deaths, particularly murders or deaths in childbed, were the richest parts of the tapestry of life. “Getting ’imself bumped off like that! Turned my stomach right over, it did, when I ’eard. I read all about it in the papers. Sister let me ’ave all she could get ’old of. Reely nice about it, she was. There was pictures and everythink. That swimming pool and all. ’Is wife leaving the inquest, pore thing, and that Lady Angkatell what the swimming pool belonged to. Lots of pictures. Real mystery the ’ole thing, weren’t it?”
Henrietta was not repelled by her ghoulish enjoyment. She liked it because she knew that John himself would have liked it. If he had to die he would much prefer old Mrs. Crabtree to get a kick out of it, than to sniff and shed tears.
“All I ’ope is that they catch ’ooever done it and ’ang ’im,” continued Mrs. Crabtree vindictively. “They don’t ’ave ’angings in public like they used to once—more’s the pity. I’ve always thought I’d like to go to an ’anging. And I’d go double quick, if you understand me, to see ’ooever killed the doctor ’anged! Real wicked, ’e must ’ave been. Why, the doctor was one in a thousand. Ever so clever, ’e was! And a nice way with ’im! Got you laughing whether you wanted to or not. The things ’e used to say sometimes! I’d ’ave done anythink for the doctor, I would!”
“Yes,” said Henrietta, “he was a very clever man. He was a great man.”
“Think the world of ’im in the ’orspital, they do! All them nurses. And ’is patients! Always felt you were going to get well when ’e’d been along.”
“So you are going to get well,” said Henrietta.
The little shrewd eyes clouded for a moment.
“I’m not so sure about that, ducks. I’ve got that mealy-mouthed young fellow with the spectacles now. Quite different to Dr. Christow. Never a laugh! ’E was a one, Dr. Christow was—always up to his jokes! Given me some norful times, ’e ’as, with this treatment of ’is. ‘I carn’t stand anymore of in, Doctor,’ I’d say to him, and ‘Yes, you can, Mrs. Crabtree,’ ’e’d say to me. ‘You’re tough, you are. You can take it. Going to make medical ’istory, you and I are.’ And he’d jolly you along like. Do anything for the doctor, I would ’ave! Expected a lot of you, ’e did, but you felt you couldn’t let him down, if you know what I mean.”
“I know,” said Henrietta.
The little sharp eyes peered at her.
“Excuse me, dearie, you’re not the doctor’s wife by any chance?”
“No,” said Henrietta, “I’m just a friend.”
“I see,” said Mrs. Crabtree.
Henrietta thought that she did see.
“What made you come along if you don’t mind me asking?”
“The doctor used to talk to me a lot about you—and about his new treatment. I wanted to see how you were.”
“I’m slipping back—that’s what I’m doing.”
Henrietta cried:
“But you mustn’t slip back! You’ve got to get well.”
Mrs. Crabtree grinned.
“I don’t want to peg out, don’t you think it!”
“Well, fight then! Dr. Christow said you were a fighter.”
“Did ’e now?” Mrs. Crabtree lay still a minute, then she said slowly:
“Ooever shot ’im it’s a wicked shame! There aren’t many of ’is sort.”
We shall not see his like again. The words passed through Henrietta’s mind. Mrs. Crabtree was regarding her keenly.
“Keep your pecker up, dearie,” she said. She added: “’E ’ad a nice funeral, I ’ope.”
“He had a lovely funeral,” said Henrietta obligingly.
“Ar! I wish I could of gorn to it!”
Mrs. Crabtree sighed.
“Be going to me own funeral next, I expect.”
“No,” cried Henrietta. “You mustn’t let go. You said just now that Dr. Christow told you that you and he were going to make medical hist
ory. Well, you’ve got to carry on by yourself. The treatment’s just the same. You’ve got to have the guts for two—you’ve got to make medical history by yourself—for him.”
Mrs. Crabtree looked at her for a moment or two.
“Sounds a bit grand! I’ll do my best, ducks. Carn’t say more than that.”
Henrietta got up and took her hand.
“Good-bye. I’ll come and see you again if I may.”
“Yes, do. It’ll do me good to talk about the doctor a bit.” The bawdy twinkle came into her eye again. “Proper man in every kind of way, Dr. Christow.”
“Yes,” said Henrietta. “He was.”
The old woman said:
“Don’t fret, ducks—what’s gorn’s gorn. You can’t ’ave it back.”
Mrs. Crabtree and Hercule Poirot, Henrietta thought, expressed the same idea in different language.
She drove back to Chelsea, put away the car in the garage and walked slowly to the studio.
“Now,” she thought, “it has come. The moment I have been dreading—the moment when I am alone.
“Now I can put it off no longer. Now grief is here with me.”
What had she said to Edward? “I should like to grieve for John.”
She dropped down on a chair and pushed back the hair from her face.
Alone—empty—destitute. This awful emptiness.
The tears pricked at her eyes, flowed slowly down her cheeks.
Grief, she thought, grief for John. Oh, John—John.
Remembering, remembering—his voice, sharp with pain:
“If I were dead, the first thing you’d do, with the tears streaming down your face, would be to start modelling some damn’ mourning woman or some figure of grief.”
She stirred uneasily. Why had that thought come into her head?
Grief—Grief…A veiled figure—its outline barely perceptible—its head cowled.
Alabaster.
She could see the lines of it—tall, elongated, its sorrow hidden, revealed only by the long, mournful lines of the drapery.
Sorrow, emerging from clear, transparent alabaster.
“If I were dead….”
And suddenly bitterness came over her full tide!
She thought: “That’s what I am! John was right. I cannot love—I cannot mourn—not with the whole of me.
“It’s Midge, it’s people like Midge who are the salt of the earth.”
Midge and Edward at Ainswick.
That was reality—strength—warmth.
“But I,” she thought, “am not a whole person. I belong not to myself, but to something outside me. I cannot grieve for my dead. Instead I must take my grief and make it into a figure of alabaster….”
Exhibit No. 58. “Grief.” Alabaster. Miss Henrietta Savernake….
She said under her breath:
“John, forgive me, forgive me, for what I can’t help doing.”
* * *
The
Agatha Christie
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THE HERCULE POIROT MYSTERIES
Match your wits with the famous Belgian detective.
The Mysterious Affair at Styles
The Murder on the Links
Poirot Investigates
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
The Big Four
The Mystery of the Blue Train
Peril at End House
Lord Edgware Dies
Murder on the Orient Express
Three Act Tragedy
Death in the Clouds
The A.B.C. Murders
Murder in Mesopotamia
Cards on the Table
Murder in the Mews
Dumb Witness
Death on the Nile
Appointment with Death
Hercule Poirot’s Christmas
Sad Cypress
One, Two, Buckle My Shoe
Evil Under the Sun
Five Little Pigs
The Hollow
The Labors of Hercules
Taken at the Flood
The Underdog and Other Stories
Mrs. McGinty’s Dead
After the Funeral
Hickory Dickory Dock
Dead Man’s Folly
Cat Among the Pigeons
The Clocks
Third Girl
Hallowe’en Party
Elephants Can Remember
Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case
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The
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THE MISS MARPLE MYSTERIES
Join the legendary spinster sleuth from St. Mary Mead in solving murders far and wide.
The Murder at the Vicarag
The Body in the Library
The Moving Finger
A Murder Is Announced
They Do It with Mirrors
A Pocket Full of Rye
4:50 From Paddington
The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side
A Caribbean Mystery
At Bertram’s Hotel
Nemesis
Sleeping Murder
Miss Marple: The Complete Short Stories
THE TOMMY AND TUPPENCE MYSTERIES
Jump on board with the entertaining crime-solving
couple from Young Adventurers Ltd.
The Secret Adversary
Partners in Crime
N or M?
By the Pricking of My Thumbs
Postern of Fate
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Don’t miss a single one of Agatha Christie’s
stand-alone novels and short-story collections.
The Man in the Brown Suit
The Secret of Chimneys
The Seven Dials Mystery
The Mysterious Mr. Quin
The Sittaford Mystery
Parker Pyne Investigates
Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?
Murder Is Easy
The Regatta Mystery and Other Stories
And Then There Were None
Towards Zero
Death Comes as the End
Sparkling Cyanide
The Witness for the Prosecution and Other Stories
Crooked House
Three Blind Mice and Other Stories
They Came to Baghdad
Destination Unknown
Ordeal by Innocence
Double Sin and Other Stories
The Pale Horse
Star over Bethlehem: Poems and Holiday Stories
Endless Night
Passenger to Frankfurt
The Golden Ball and Other Stories
The Mousetrap and Other Plays
The Harlequin Tea Set
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About the Author
Agatha Christie is the most widely published author of all time and in any language, outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare. Her books have sold more than a billion copies in English and another billion in a hundred foreign languages. She is the author of eighty crime novels and short-story collections, nineteen plays, two memoirs, and six novels written under the name Mary Westmacott.
She first tried her hand at detective fiction while working in a hospital dispensary during World War I, creating the now legendary Hercule Poirot with her debut novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles. With The Murder in the Vicarage, published in 1930, she introduced another beloved sleuth, Miss Jane Marple. Additional series characters include the husband-and-wife crime-fighting team of Tommy and Tuppence Beresford, private investigator Parker Pyne, and Scotland Yard detectives Superintendent Battle and Inspector Japp.
Many of Christie’s novels and short stories were adapted into plays, films, and television series. The Mousetrap, her most famous play of all, ope
ned in 1952 and is the longest-running play in history. Among her best-known film adaptations are Murder on the Orient Express (1974) and Death on the Nile (1978), with Albert Finney and Peter Ustinov playing Hercule Poirot, respectively. On the small screen Poirot has been most memorably portrayed by David Suchet, and Miss Marple by Joan Hickson and subsequently Geraldine McEwan and Julia McKenzie.
Christie was first married to Archibald Christie and then to archaeologist Sir Max Mallowan, whom she accompanied on expeditions to countries that would also serve as the settings for many of her novels. In 1971 she achieved one of Britain’s highest honors when she was made a Dame of the British Empire. She died in 1976 at the age of eighty-five. Her one hundred and twentieth anniversary was celebrated around the world in 2010.
www.AgathaChristie.com
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THE AGATHA CHRISTIE COLLECTION
The Man in the Brown Suit
The Secret of Chimneys
The Seven Dials Mystery
The Mysterious Mr. Quin
The Sittaford Mystery
Parker Pyne Investigates
Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?
Murder Is Easy
The Regatta Mystery and Other Stories
And Then There Were None
Towards Zero
Death Comes as the End
Sparkling Cyanide
The Witness for the Prosecution and
Other Stories
Crooked House
Three Blind Mice and Other Stories
They Came to Baghdad
Destination Unknown
Ordeal by Innocence
Double Sin and Other Stories
The Pale Horse
Star over Bethlehem: Poems and
Holiday Stories
Endless Night
Passenger to Frankfurt
The Golden Ball and Other Stories
The Mousetrap and Other Plays
The Harlequin Tea Set
The Hercule Poirot Mysteries
The Mysterious Affair at Styles
The Murder on the Links
Poirot Investigates
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
The Big Four
The Mystery of the Blue Train
Peril at End House
The Hollow Page 24