The Hollow hp-24

by Agatha Christie

  The ugly raucous voice was screaming angrily:

  "Who are thethe friendth ofyourth? What thort of people are they to have the poleeth there and a man shot. I've a good mind not to have you back at all! I can't have the tone of my ethtablishment lowered."

  Midge made a few submissive noncommittal replies. She replaced the receiver at last, with a sigh of relief. She felt sick and shaken.

  "It's the place I work," she explained. "I had to let them know that I wouldn't be back until Thursday because of the inquest and the-the police."

  "I hope they were decent about it? What is it like, this dress shop of yours? Is the woman who runs it pleasant and sympathetic to work for?"

  "I should hardly describe her as that! She's a Whitechapel Jewess with dyed hair and a voice like a corncrake."

  "But, my dear Midge-"

  Edward's face of consternation almost made Midge laugh. He was so concerned.

  "But, my dear child-you can't put up with that sort of thing. If you must have a job, you must take one where the surroundings are harmonious and where you like the people you are working with."

  Midge looked at him for a moment without answering.

  How explain, she thought, to a person like Edward? What did Edward know of the labour market, of jobs?

  And suddenly a tide of bitterness rose in her. Lucy, Henry, Edward-yes, even Henrietta-they were all divided from her by an impassable gulf-the gulf that separates the leisured from the working.

  They had no conception of the difficulties of getting a job, and, once you had got it, of keeping it! One might say, perhaps, that there was no need, actually, for her to earn her living. Lucy and Henry would gladly give her a home-they would with equal gladness have made her an allowance. Edward would also willingly have done the latter.

  But something in Midge rebelled against the acceptance of ease offered her by her well-to-do relations. To come on rare occasions and sink into the well-ordered luxury of Lucy's life was delightful. She could revel in that. But some sturdy independence of spirit held her back from accepting that life as a gift. The same feeling had prevented her from starting a business on her own with money borrowed from relations and friends.

  She had seen too much of that.

  She would borrow no money-use no influence.

  She had found a job for herself at four pounds a week and if she had actually been given the job because Madame Alfrege hoped that Midge would bring her "smart" friends to buy, Madame Alfrege was disappointed.

  Midge sternly discouraged any such notion on the part of her friends.

  She had no particular illusions about working. She disliked the shop, she disliked Madame Alfrege, she disliked the eternal subservience to ill-tempered and impolite customers, but she doubted very much whether she could obtain any other job which she would like better, since she had none of the necessary qualifications.

  Edward's assumption that a wide range of choice was open to her was simply unbearably irritating this morning. What right had Edward to live in a world so divorced from reality?

  They were Angkatells, all of them! And she-was only half an Angkatell! And sometimes, like this morning, she did not feel like an Angkatell at all! She was all her father's daughter.

  She thought of her father with the usual pang of love and compunction, a greyhaired, middle-aged man with a tired face.

  A man who had struggled for years, running a small family business that was bound, for all his care and efforts, to go slowly down the hill. It was not incapacity on his part-it was the march of progress.

  Strangely enough, it was not to her brilliant Angkatell mother but to her quiet tired father that Midge's devotion had always been given. Each time, when she came back, from those visits to Ainswick, which were the wild delight other life, she would answer the faint deprecating question in her father's tired face flinging her arms round his neck and saying, "I'm glad to be home-I'm glad to be home."

  Her mother had died when Midge was thirteen. Sometimes, Midge realized that she knew very little about her mother. She had been vague, charming, gay. Had she regretted her marriage, the marriage that had taken her outside the circle of the Angkatell clan? Midge had no idea. Her father had grown greyer and quieter after his wife's death. His struggles against the extinction of his business had grown more unavailing.

  He had died quietly and inconspicuously when Midge was eighteen.

  Midge had stayed with various Angkatell relations, had accepted presents from the Angkatells, had had good times with the Angkatells, but she had refused to be financially dependent on their good will. And much as she loved them, there were times such as these, when she felt suddenly and violently divergent from them.

  She thought with rancour, they don't know anything!

  Edward, sensitive as always, was looking at her with a puzzled face. He asked gently:

  "I've upset you? Why?"

  Lucy drifted into the room. She was in the middle of one of her conversations. "-you see, one doesn't really know whether she'd prefer the White Hart to us or not."

  Midge looked at her blankly-then at Edward.

  "It's no use looking at Edward," said Lady Angkatell. "Edward simply wouldn't know; you, Midge, are always so practical."

  "I don't know what you are talking about, Lucy."

  Lucy looked surprised.

  "The inquest, darling. Gerda has to come down for it. Should she stay here? Or go to the White Hart? The associations here are painful, of course-but then at the White Hart there will be people who will stare and quantities of reporters… Wednesday, you know, at eleven, or is it eleven-thirty?" A smile lit up Lady Angkatell's face. "I have never been to an inquest! I thought my grey -and a hat, of course, like church-but not gloves-"You know," went on Lady Angkatell, crossing the room and picking up the telephone receiver and gazing down at it earnestly, "I don't believe I've got any gloves except gardening gloves nowadays! And, of course, lots of long evening ones put away from the Government House days. Gloves are rather stupid, don't you think so?"

  "Their only use is to avoid fingerprints in crimes," said Edward, smiling.

  "Now, it's very interesting that you should say that, Edward- Very interesting-what am I doing with this thing?" Lady Angkatell looked at the telephone receiver with faint distaste.

  "Were you going to ring up someone?"

  "I don't think so." Lady Angkatell shook her head vaguely and put the receiver back on its stand very gingerly.

  She looked from Edward to Midge.

  "I don't think, Edward, that you ought to upset Midge. Midge minds sudden deaths more than we do."

  "My dear Lucy," exclaimed Edward. "I was only worrying about this place where Midge works. It sounds all wrong to me."

  "Edward thinks I ought to have a delightful, sympathetic employer who would appreciate me," said Midge drily.

  "Dear Edward," said Lucy with complete appreciation.

  She smiled at Midge and went out again.

  "Seriously, Midge," said Edward, "I am worried-"

  She interrupted him:

  "The damned woman pays me four pounds a week. That's all that matters."

  She brushed past him and went out into the garden.

  Sir Henry was sitting in his usual place on the low wall but Midge turned away and walked up towards the flower walk.

  Her relatives were charming but she had no use for their charm this morning.

  David Angkatell was sitting on the seat at the top of the path.

  There was no overdone charm about David and Midge made straight for him and sat down by him, noting with malicious pleasure his look of dismay.

  How extraordinarily difficult it was, thought David, to get away from people.

  He had been driven from his bedroom by the brisk incursion of housemaids, purposeful with mops and dusters.

  The library (and the Encyclopaedia Britannica) had not been the sanctuary he had hoped optimistically it might be. Twice Lady Angkatell had drifted in and out, addressing h
im kindly with remarks to which there seemed no possible intelligent reply.

  He had come out here to brood upon his position. The mere week-end, to which he had unwillingly committed himself, had now lengthened out, owing to the exigencies connected with sudden and violent death.

  David, who preferred the contemplation of an Academic Past or the earnest discussion of a Left Wing Future, had no aptitude for dealing with a violent and realistic present.

  As he had told Lady Angkatell, he did not read the News of the World. But now the News of the World seemed to have come to The Hollow.

  Murder! David shuddered distastefully.

  What would his friends think? How did one, so to speak, take murder? What was one's attitude? Bored? Disgusted? Lightly amused?

  Trying to settle these problems in his mind, he was by no means pleased to be disturbed by Midge. He looked at her uneasily as she sat beside him.

  He was rather startled by the defiant stare with which she returned his look. A disagreeable girl of no intellectual value.

  She said, "How do you like your relations?"

  David shrugged his shoulders. He said:

  "Does one really think about relations?"

  Midge said:

  "Does one really think about anything?"

  Doubtless, David thought, she didn't. He said almost graciously:

  "I was analyzing my reactions to murder."

  "It is certainly odd," said Midge, "to be in one."

  David sighed and said:

  "Wearisome…" That was quite the best attitude. "All the cliches that one thought existed only in the pages of detective fiction!"

  "You must be sorry you came," said Midge.

  David sighed.

  "Yes, I might have been staying with a friend of mine in London." He added: "He keeps a Left Wing bookshop."

  "I expect it's more comfortable here," said Midge.

  "Does one really care about being comfortable?"

  David asked scornfully.

  "There are times," said Midge, "when I feel I don't care about anything else."

  "The pampered attitude to life," said David. "If you were a worker-"

  Midge interrupted him.

  "I am a worker. That's just why being comfortable is so attractive. Box beds, down pillows-early morning tea softly deposited beside the bed-a porcelain bath with lashings of hot water-and delicious bath salts. The kind of easy chair you really sink into…"

  Midge paused in her catalogue.

  "The workers," said David, "should have all these things."

  But he was a little doubtful about the softly deposited early morning tea which sounded impossibly sybaritic for an earnestly organised world.

  "I couldn't agree with you more," said Midge heartily.

  Chapter XV

  Hercule Poirot, enjoying a midmorning cup of chocolate, was interrupted by the ringing of the telephone. He got up and lifted the receiver.

  "Allo?"

  "M. Poirot?"

  "Lady Angkatell?"

  "How nice of you to know my voice. Am I disturbing you?"

  "But not at all. You are, I hope, none the worse for the distressing events of yesterday?"

  "No, indeed. Distressing, as you say, but one feels, I find, quite detached. I rang you up to know if you could possibly come over-an imposition, I know, but I am really in great distress…"

  "But certainly. Lady Angkatell. Did you mean now?"

  "Well, yes, I did mean now. As quickly as you can. That's very sweet of you."

  "Not at all. I will come by the woods, then?"

  "Oh, of course-the shortest way. Thank you so much, dear M. Poirot."

  Pausing only to brush a few specks of dust off the lapels of his coat and to slip on a thin overcoat, Poirot crossed the lane and hurried along the path through the chestnuts. The swimming pool was deserted-the police had finished their work and gone. It looked innocent and peaceful in the soft, misty Autumnal light.

  Poirot took a quick look into the pavilion.

  The platinum fox cape, he noted, had been removed. But the six boxes of matches still stood upon the table by the settee. He wondered more than ever about those matches.

  "It is not a place to keep matches-here in the damp. One box, for convenience, perhaps-but not six."

  He frowned down on the painted iron table.

  The tray of glasses had been removed.

  Someone had scrawled with a pencil on the table-a rough design of a nightmarish tree.

  It pained Hercule Poirot. It offended his tidy mind.

  He clicked his tongue, shook his head, and hurried on towards the house, wondering at the reason for this urgent summons.

  Lady Angkatell was waiting for him at the French windows and swept him into the empty drawing-room.

  "It was nice of you to come, M. Poirot."

  She clasped his hand warmly.

  "Madame, I am at your service."

  Lady AngkatelFs hands floated out expressively.

  Her wide beautiful eyes opened.

  "You see, it's all so difficult. The Inspector person is interviewing, no, questioning -taking a statement-what is the term they use?-Gudgeon. And really, our whole life here depends on Gudgeon, and one does so sympathize with him. Because, naturally, it is terrible for him to be questioned by the police-even Inspector Grange, who I do feel is really nice and probably a family man-boys, I think, and he helps them with Meccano in the evenings-and a wife who has everything spotless but a little overcrowded …"

  Hercule Poirot blinked as Lady Angkatell developed her imaginary sketch of Inspector Grange's home life.

  "By the way his moustache droops," went on Lady Angkatell-"I think that a home that is too spotless might be sometimes depressing-like soap on hospital nurses' faces. Quite a shine! But that is more abroad where things lag behind-in London nursing homes they have lots of powder and really vivid lipstick. But I was saying, M. Poirot, that you really must come to lunch properly when all this ridiculous business is over."

  "You are very kind."

  "I do not mind the police myself," said Lady Angkatell. "I really find it all quite interesting. 'Do let me help you in any way I can,' I said to Inspector Grange. He seems rather a bewildered sort of person, but methodical.

  "Motive seems so important to policemen," she went on. "Talking of hospital nurses just now, I believe that John Christow-a nurse with red hair and an upturned nose-quite attractive. But, of course, it was a long time ago and the police might not be interested. One doesn't really know how much poor Gerda had to put up with. She is the loyal type, don't you think? Or possibly she believes what is told her. I think if one has not a great deal of intelligence, it is wise to do that."

  Quite suddenly, Lady Angkatell flung open the study door and ushered Poirot in, crying brightly, "Here is M. Poirot." She swept round him and out, shutting the door.

  Inspector Grange and Gudgeon were sitting by the desk. A young man with a notebook was in a corner. Gudgeon rose respectfully to his feet.

  Poirot hastened into apologies.

  "I retire immediately. I assure you I had no idea that Lady Angkatell-"

  "No, no, you wouldn't have." Grange's moustache looked more pessimistic than ever this morning. Perhaps, thought Poirot, fascinated by Lady Angkatell's recent sketch of Grange, there has been too much cleaning or perhaps a Benares brass table has been purchased so that the good Inspector he really cannot have space to move.

  Angrily he dismissed these thoughts. Inspector Grange's clean but overcrowded home, his wife, his boys and their addiction to Meccano were all figments of Lady Angkatell's busy brain.

  But the vividness with which they assumed concrete reality interested him. It was quite an accomplishment.

  "Sit down, M. Poirot," said Grange.

  "There's something I want to ask you about, and I've nearly finished here."

  He turned his attention back to Gudgeon, who deferentially and almost under protest resumed his seat and turned an expressionle
ss face towards his interlocutor.

  "And that's all you can remember?"

  "Yes, sir. Everything, sir, was very much as usual. There was no unpleasantness of any kind."

  "There's a fur cape thing-out in that summer house by the pool. Which of the ladies did it belong to?"

  "Are you referring, sir, to a cape of platinum fox? I noticed it yesterday when I took out the glasses to the pavilion. But it is not the property of anyone in this house, sir."

  "Whose is it, then?"

  "It might possibly belong to Miss Cray, sir. Miss Veronica Cray, the motion picture actress. She was wearing something of the kind."

  "When?"

  "When she was here the night before last, sir."

  "You didn't mention her as having been a guest here."

  "She was not a guest, sir. Miss Cray lives at Dovecotes, the-er-cottage up the lane, and she came over after dinner, having run out of matches, to borrow some."

  "Did she take away six boxes?" asked Poirot.

  Gudgeon turned to him.

  "That is correct, sir. Her ladyship, after having inquired if we had plenty, insisted on Miss Cray's taking half a dozen boxes."

  "Which she left in the pavilion," said

  Poirot.

  "Yes, sir, I observed them there yesterday morning."

  "There is not much that that man does not observe," remarked Poirot as Gudgeon departed, closing the door softly and deferentially behind him.

  Inspector Grange merely remarked that servants were the devil!

  "However," he said with a little renewed cheerfulness, "there's always the kitchen maid. Kitchen maids talk-not like these stuck-up upper servants."

  "I've put a man on to make inquiries at Harley Street," he went on, "and I shall be there myself later in the day. We ought to get something there. Daresay, you know, that wife of Christow's had a good bit to put up with. Some of these fashionable doctors and their lady patients-well, you'd be surprised!

  And I gather from Lady Angkatell that there was some trouble over a hospital nurse. Of course, she was very vague about it."

  "Yes," Poirot agreed. "She would be vague…"

  A skilfully built up picture… John Christow and amorous intrigues with hospital nurses… the opportunities of a doctor's life… plenty of reasons for Gerda Christow's jealousy which had culminated at last in murder…