The Hollow hp-24

by Agatha Christie

  It was as far as they could go at the moment.

  The thing was remarkable-and beyond that simply did not make sense.

  Sir Henry asked:

  "Have you any reason to believe that the weapon from which the fatal shot was fired comes from my collection?"

  "No reason at all. But I have got to make sure, shall we say, that it doesn't."

  Sir Henry nodded his head in confirmation.

  "I appreciate your point. Well, we will get to work. It will take a little time."

  He opened the desk and took out a leatherbound volume.

  As he opened it he repeated:

  "It will take a little time to check up-"

  Grange's attention was held by something in his voice. He looked up sharply. Sir Henry's shoulders sagged a little-he seemed suddenly an older and more tired man.

  Inspector Grange frowned.

  He thought, Devil if I know what to make of these people down here…

  "Ah-"

  Grange spun round. His eyes noted the time by the clock, thirty minutes-twenty minutes-since Sir Henry had said, "It will take a little time…"

  Grange said sharply:

  "Yes, sir?"

  "A.38 Smith&Wesson is missing. It was in a brown leather holster and was at the end of the rack in this drawer."

  "Ah!" The Inspector kept his voice calm, but he was excited. "And when, sir, to your certain knowledge, did you last see it in its proper place?"

  Sir Henry reflected for a moment or two.

  "That is not very easy to say, Inspector. I last had this drawer open about a week ago and I think-I am almost certain-that if the revolver had been missing then I should have noticed the gap. But I should not like to swear definitely that I saw it there."

  Inspector Grange nodded his head.

  "Thank you, sir, I quite understand… Well, I must be getting on with things-"

  He left the room-a busy, purposeful man.

  Sir Henry stood motionless for a while after the Inspector had gone, then he went out slowly through the French windows onto the terrace. His wife was busy with a gardening basket and gloves. She was trimming some rare shrubs with a pair of scissors.

  She waved to him brightly.

  "What did the Inspector want? I hope he is not going to worry the servants again. You know, Henry, they don't like it. They can't see it as amusing or as a novelty like we do."

  "Do we see it like that?"

  His tone attracted her attention. She smiled up at him sweetly.

  "How tired you look. Henry. Must you let all this worry you so much?"

  "Murder is worrying, Lucy."

  Lady Angkatell considered a moment, absently clipping off some branches, then her face clouded over.

  "Oh, dear-that is the worst of scissors, they are so fascinating-one can't stop and one always clips off more than one means. What was it you were saying-something about murder being worrying? But, really, Henry, I have never seen why. I mean if one has to die, it may be cancer, or tuberculosis in one of those dreadful bright sanatoriums, or a stroke-horrid, with one's face all on one side-or else one is shot or stabbed or strangled perhaps-but the whole thing comes to the same in the end. There one is; I mean, dead! Out of it all. And all the worry over. And the relations have all the difficulties-money quarrels and whether to wear black or not-and who was to have Aunt Selina's writing desk-things like that!"

  Sir Henry sat down on the stone coping.

  He said:

  "This is all going to be more upsetting than we thought, Lucy."

  "Well, darling, we shall have to bear it. And when it's all over we might go away somewhere. Let's not bother about present troubles but look forward to the future. I really am happy about that. I've been wondering whether it would be nice to go to Ainswick for Christmas-or leave it until Easter. What do you think?"

  "Plenty of time to make plans for Christmas."

  "Yes, but I like to see things in my mind. Easter, perhaps…Yes," Lucy smiled happily, "she will certainly have got over it by then."

  "Who?" Sir Henry was startled.

  Lady Angkatell said calmly:

  "Henrietta… I think if they were to have the wedding in October-October of next year, I mean, then we could go and stop for that Christmas. I've been thinking, Henry-"

  "I wish you wouldn't, my dear. You think too much."

  "You know the barn? It will make a perfect studio. And Henrietta will need a studio. She has real talent, you know. Edward, I am sure, will be immensely proud of her. Two boys and a girl would be nice-or two boys and two girls-"

  "Lucy-Lucy! How you run on."

  "But, darling," Lady Angkatell opened wide beautiful eyes, "Edward will never marry anyone but Henrietta-he is very, very obstinate. Rather like my father in that way. He gets an idea in his head! So, of course, Henrietta must marry him-and she will now that John Christow is out of the way. He was really the greatest misfortune that could possibly have happened to her."

  "Poor devil!"

  "Why? Oh, you mean because he's dead? Oh, well, everyone has to die sometime. I never worry over people dying…"

  He looked at her curiously.

  "I always thought you liked Christow, Lucy?"

  "I found him amusing. And he had charm. But I never think one ought to attach too much importance to anybody."

  And gently, with a smiling face, Lady Angkatell clipped remorselessly at a vine.

  Chapter XVIII

  Hercule Poirot looked out of his window and saw Henrietta Savernake walking up the path to the front door. She was wearing the same green tweeds that she had worn on the day of the tragedy. There was a spaniel with her.

  He hastened to the front door and opened it. She stood smiling at him.

  "May I come in and see your house? I like looking at people's houses. I'm just taking the dog for a walk."

  "But most certainly. How English it is to take the dog for a walk!"

  "I know," said Henrietta. "I thought of that. Do you know that nice poem: 'The days passed slowly one by one. I fed the ducks, reproved my wife, played Handel's Largo on the fife. And took the dog a run.'"

  Again she smiled-a brilliant, unsubstantial smile.

  Poirot ushered her into his sitting room.

  She looked round its neat and prim arrangement and nodded her head.

  "Nice," she said, "two of everything. How you would hate my studio."

  "Why should I hate it?"

  "Oh, a lot of clay sticking to things-and here and there just one thing that I happen to like and which would be ruined if there were two of them."

  "But I can understand that, Mademoiselle. You are an artist."

  "Aren't you an artist too, M. Poirot?"

  Poirot put his head on one side.

  "It is a question, that. But, on the whole, I would say no. I have known crimes that were artistic-they were, you understand, supreme exercises of imagination-but the solving of them-no, it is not the creative power that is needed. What is required is a passion for the truth."

  "A passion for the truth," said Henrietta meditatively. "Yes, I can see how dangerous that might make you. Would the truth satisfy you?"

  He looked at her curiously.

  "What do you mean. Miss Savernake?"

  "I can understand that you would want to know. But would knowledge be enough? Would you have to go a step further and translate knowledge into action?"

  He was interested in her approach.

  "You are suggesting that if I knew the truth about Dr. Christow's death-I might be satisfied to keep that knowledge to myself. Do you know the truth about his death?"

  Henrietta shrugged her shoulders.

  "The obvious answer seems to be Gerda. How cynical it is that a wife or a husband is always the first suspect."

  "But you do not agree?"

  "I always like to keep an open mind."

  Poirot said quietly:

  "Why did you come here. Miss Saver - nake?"

  "I must admit that I ha
ven't your passion for truth, M. Poirot. Taking the dog for a walk was such a nice English countryside excuse. But, of course, the Angkatells haven't got a dog-as you may have noticed the other day."

  "The fact had not escaped me."

  "So I borrowed the gardener's spaniel. I am not, you must understand, M. Poirot, very truthful."

  Again that brilliant, brittle smile flashed out. He wondered why he should suddenly find it unendurably moving. He said quietly:

  "No, but you have integrity."

  "Why on earth do you say that?"

  She was startled-almost, he thought, dismayed.

  "Because I believe it to be true."

  "Integrity," Henrietta repeated thoughtfully. "I wonder what that word really means…"

  She sat very still, staring down at the carpet, then she raised her head and looked at him steadily.

  "Don't you want to know why I did come?"

  "You find a difficulty, perhaps, in putting it into words."

  "Yes, I think I do… The inquest, M. Poirot, is tomorrow. One has to make up one's mind just how much-"

  She broke off. Getting up, she wandered across to the mantel piece, displaced one or two of the ornaments and moved a vase of Michaelmas daisies from its position in the middle of a table, to the extreme corner of the mantelpiece. She stepped back, eyeing the arrangement with her head on one side.

  "How do you like that, M. Poirot?"

  "Not at all, Mademoiselle."

  "I thought you wouldn't." She laughed, moved everything quickly and deftly back to their original positions. "Well, if one wants to say a thing one has to say it! You are, somehow, the sort of person one can talk to. Here goes. Is it necessary, do you think, that the police should know that I was John Christow's mistress?"

  Her voice was quite dry and unemotional.

  She was looking, not at him, but at the wall over his head. With one forefinger she was following the curve of the jar that held the purple flowers. He had an idea that in the touch of that finger was her emotional outlet.

  Hercule Poirot said precisely and also without emotion:

  "I see. You were lovers?"

  "If you prefer to put it like that."

  He looked at her curiously.

  "It was not how you put it, Mademoiselle."

  "No."

  "Why not?"

  Henrietta shrugged her shoulders. She came and sat down by him on the sofa. She said slowly:

  "One likes to describe things as-as accurately as possible."

  His interest in Henrietta Savernake grew stronger. He said:

  "You had been Dr. Christow's mistress-for how long?"

  "About six months."

  "The police will have, I gather, no difficulty in discovering the fact?"

  Henrietta considered.

  "I imagine not. That is, if they are looking for something of that kind?"

  "Oh, they will be looking, I can assure you of that."

  "Yes, I rather thought they would." She paused, stretched out her fingers on her knee and looked at them, then gave him a swift friendly glance. "Well, M. Poirot, what does one do? Go to Inspector Grange and say-what does one say to a moustache like that? It's such a domestic family moustache."

  Poirot's hand crawled upwards to his own proudly borne adornment.

  "Whereas mine, Mademoiselle?"

  "Your moustache, M. Poirot, is an artistic triumph. It has no associations with anything but itself. It is, I am sure, unique."

  "Absolutely."

  "And it is probably the reason why I am talking to you as I am. Granted that the police have to know the truth about John and myself, will it necessarily have to be made public?"

  "That depends," said Poirot. "If the police think it has no bearing on the case, they will be quite discreet. You-are very anxious on this point?"

  Henrietta nodded. She stared down at her fingers for a moment or two, then suddenly lifted her head and spoke. Her voice was no longer dry and light.

  "Why should things be made worse than they are for poor Gerda? She adored John and he's dead. She's lost him. Why should she have to bear an added burden?"

  "It is for her that you mind?"

  "Do you think that is hypocritical? I suppose you're thinking that if I cared at all about Gerda's peace of mind, I would never have become John's mistress. But you don't understand-it was not like that. I did not break up his married life. I was only one-of a procession."

  "Ah, it was like that?"

  She turned on him sharply:

  "No, no, no! Not what you are thinking. That's what I mind most of all! The false idea that everybody will have of what John was like. That's why I'm here talking to you-because I've got a vague foggy hope that I can make you understand. Understand, I mean, the sort of person John was!

  I can see so well what will happen-the headlines in the papers-A Doctor's Love Life-Gerda, myself, Veronica Cray. John wasn't like that-he wasn't, actually, a man who thought much about women. It wasn't women who mattered to him most, it was his work! It was in his work that his interest and his excitement-yes, and his sense of adventure really lay! If John had been taken unawares at any moment and asked to name the woman who was most in his mind, do you know who he would have said-Mrs. Crabtree."

  "Mrs. Crabtree?" Poirot was surprised. "Who, then, is this Mrs. Crabtree?"

  There was something between tears and laughter in Henrietta's voice as she went on.

  "She's an old woman-ugly, dirty, wrinkled, quite indomitable. John thought the world of her. She's a patient in St. Christopher's Hospital. She's got Ridgeway's Disease.

  That's a disease that's very rare but if you get it, you're bound to die-there just isn't any cure. But John was finding a cure -I can't explain technically-it was all very complicated-some question of hormone secretion.

  He'd been making experiments and Mrs. Crabtree was his prize patient-you see, she's got guts, she wants to live-and she was fond of John. She and he were fighting on the same side. Ridgeway's Disease and Mrs. Crabtree is what has been uppermost in John's mind for months-night and day-nothing else really counted. That's what being the kind of doctor John was really means-not all the Harley Street stuff and the rich fat women, that was only a sideline-it's the intense scientific curiosity and achievement. I-oh, I wish I could make you understand."

  Her hands flew out in a curiously despairing gesture and Hercule Poirot thought how very lovely and sensitive those hands were.

  He said:

  "You seem to understand very well."

  "Oh, yes, I understood. John used to come and talk, do you see? Not quite to me-partly I think to himself. He got things clear that way. Sometimes he was almost despairing-he couldn't see how to overcome the heightened toxicity-and then he'd get an idea for varying the treatment.

  I can't explain to you what it was like-it was like, yes, a battle. You can't imagine the-the fury of it and the concentration-and yes, sometimes the agony. And sometimes the sheer tiredness…"

  She was silent for a minute or two, her eyes dark with remembrance.

  Poirot said curiously:

  "You must have a certain technical knowledge yourself?"

  She shook her head.

  "Not really. Only enough to understand what John was talking about. I got books and read about it."

  She was silent again, her face softened, her lips half parted. She was, he thought, remembering.

  With a sigh, her mind came back to the present. She looked at him wistfully.

  "If I could only make you see-"

  "But you have, Mademoiselle."

  "Really?"

  "Yes. One recognizes authenticity when one hears it."

  "Thank you. But it won't be so easy to explain to Inspector Grange."

  "Probably not. He will concentrate on the personal angle."

  Henrietta said vehemently:

  "And that was so unimportant-so completely unimportant."

  Poirot's eyebrows rose slowly. She answered his unspoken protest.
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  "But it was! You see-after a while-I got between John and what he was thinking of. I affected him, as a woman… He couldn't concentrate as he wanted to concentrate-because of me. He began to be afraid that he was beginning to love me-he didn't want to love anyone. He-he made love to me because he didn't want to think about me too much. He wanted it to be light, easy, just an affair like other affairs that he had had."

  "And you-" Poirot was watching her closely. "You were content to have it-like that?"

  Henrietta got up. She said and once more it was her dry voice:

  "No, I wasn't-content. After all, one is human…"

  Poirot waited a minute, then he said:

  "Then why, Mademoiselle-"

  "Why?" she whirled round on him. "I wanted John to be satisfied, I wanted John to have what he wanted. I wanted him to be able to go on with the thing he cared about-his work. If he didn't want to be hurt-to be vulnerable again-why-why, then, that was all right by me!"

  Poirot rubbed his nose.

  "Just now, Miss Savernake, you mentioned Veronica Cray. Was she also a friend of John Christow's?"

  "Until last Saturday night, he hadn't seen her for fifteen years."

  "He knew her fifteen years ago?"

  "They were engaged to be married." Henrietta came back and sat down. "I see I've got to make it all clearer. John loved Veronica desperately. Veronica was, and is, a bitch of the first water. She's the supreme egoist.

  Her terms were that John was to chuck everything he cared about and become Miss Veronica Cray's little tame husband. John broke up the whole thing-quite rightly.

  But he suffered like hell. His one idea was to marry someone as unlike Veronica as possible.

  He married Gerda whom you might describe inelegantly as a first class chump.

  That was all very nice and safe, but, as anyone could have told him, the day came when being married to a chump irritated him. He had various affairs-none of them important.

  Gerda, of course, never knew about them. But I think, myself, that for fifteen years there has been something wrong with John-something connected with Veronica.

  He never really got over her. And then last Saturday he met her again."