The Hollow hp-24

by Agatha Christie

  What have you been telling them about that pistol. Gudgeon?"

  Gudgeon said with respectful emphasis:

  "The pistol was in the hall, m'lady, on the centre table. I have no idea where it came from. I brought it in here and put it away in its proper place. That is what I have just told the Inspector and he quite understands."

  Lady Angkatell shook her head. She said gently:

  "You really shouldn't have said that. Gudgeon.

  I'll talk to the Inspector myself."

  Gudgeon made a slight movement and Lady Angkatell said very charmingly:

  "I do appreciate your motives. Gudgeon.

  I know how you always try to save us trouble and annoyance." She added in gentle dismissal, "That will be all now."

  Gudgeon hesitated, threw a fleeting glance towards Sir Henry and then at the Inspector, then bowed and moved towards the door.

  Grange made a motion as though to stop him, but for some reason he was not able to define to himself, he let his arm fall again.

  Gudgeon went out and closed the door.

  Lady Angkatell dropped into a chair and smiled at the two men. She said conversationally:

  "You know, I really do think that was very charming of Gudgeon. Quite feudal, if you know what I mean. Yes, feudal is the right word."

  Grange said stiffly:

  "Am I to understand, Lady Angkatell, that you yourself have some further knowledge about the matter?"

  "Of course. Gudgeon didn't find it in the hall at all. He found it when he took the eggs out."

  "The eggs?" Inspector Grange stared at her.

  "Out of the basket," said Lady Angkatell.

  She seemed to think that everything was now quite clear. Sir Henry said gently:

  "You must tell us a little more, my dear. Inspector Grange and I are still at sea."

  "Oh!" Lady Angkatell set herself to be explicit. "The pistol you see was in the basket, under the eggs."

  "What basket and what eggs, Lady Angkatell?"

  "The basket I took down to the farm. The pistol was in it, and then I put the eggs in on top of the pistol and forgot all about it.

  And when we found poor John Christow dead by the pool, it was such a shock I let go of the basket and Gudgeon just caught it in time (because of the eggs, I mean. If I'd dropped it they would have been broken), and he brought it back to the house. And later I asked him about writing the date on the eggs-a thing I always do-otherwise one eats the fresher eggs sometimes before the older ones-and he said all that had been attended to-and now that I remember, he was rather emphatic about it. And that is what I mean by being feudal. He found the pistol and put it back in here-I suppose really because there were police in the house.

  Servants are always so worried by police, I find. Very nice and loyal-but also quite stupid, because, of course. Inspector, it's the truth you want to hear, isn't it?"

  And Lady Angkatell finished up by giving the Inspector a beaming smile.

  "The truth is what I mean to get," said Grange rather grimly.

  Lady Angkatell sighed.

  "It all seems such a fuss, doesn't it?" she said. "I mean, all this hounding people down. I don't suppose whoever it was that shot John Christow really meant to shoot him-not seriously, I mean. If it was Gerda, I'm sure she didn't. In fact, I'm really surprised that she didn't miss-it's the sort of thing that one would expect of Gerda. And I she's really a very nice, kind creature. And if you go and put her in prison and hang her, what on earth is going to happen to the children? If she did shoot John, she's probably dreadfully sorry about it now. It's bad enough for children to have a father who's that you yourself have some further knowledge about the matter?"

  "We are not contemplating arresting anyone at present, Lady Angkatell."

  "Well, that's sensible at any rate. But I have thought all along, Inspector Grange, that you were a very sensible sort of man."

  Again that charming, almost dazzling smile.

  Inspector Grange blinked a little. He could not help it, but he came firmly to the point at issue.

  "As you said just now, Lady Angkatell, it's the truth I want to get at. You took the pistol from here-which gun was it, by the way?"

  Lady Angkatell nodded her head towards the shelf by the mantelpiece. "The second from the end. The Mauser.25." Something in the crisp, technical way she spoke jarred on Grange. He had not, somehow, expected Lady Angkatell, whom up to now he had labelled in his own mind as "vague" and "just a bit batty," to describe a firearm with such technical precision.

  "You took the pistol from here and put it in your basket. Why?"

  "I knew you'd ask me that," said Lady Angkatell. Her tone, unexpectedly, was almost triumphant. "And, of course, there must be some reason. Don't you think so, Henry?" She turned to her husband. "Don't you think I must have had a reason for taking a pistol out that morning?"

  "I should certainly have thought so, my dear," said Sir Henry stiffly.

  "One does things," said Lady Angkatell, gazing thoughtfully in front of her, "and then one doesn't remember why one has done them. But I think, you know. Inspector, that there always is a reason if one can only get at it. I must have had some idea in my head when I put the Mauser into my egg basket." She appealed to him. "What do you think it can have been?"

  Grange stared at her. She displayed no embarrassment-just a childlike eagerness.

  It beat him. He had never yet met anyone like Lucy Angkatell and just for the moment he didn't know what to do about it.

  "My wife," said Sir Henry, "is extremely absentminded, Inspector."

  "So it seems, sir," said Grange. He did not say it very nicely.

  "Why do you think I took that pistol?" Lady Angkatell asked him confidentially.

  "I have no idea, Lady Angkatell."

  "I came in here," mused Lady Angkatell. "I had been talking to Simmons about the pillow cases-and I dimly remember crossing over to the fireplace-and thinking we must get a new poker-the curate, not the rector-"

  Inspector Grange stared. He felt his head going round.

  "And I remember picking up the Mauser-it was a nice handy little gun, I've always liked it-and dropping it into the basket-I'd just got the basket from the flower room-But there were so many things in my head-Simmons, you know, and the bindweed in the Michaelmas daisies-and hoping Mrs. Medway would make a really rich Nigger in his Shirt-"

  "A nigger in his shirt?" Inspector Grange had to break in.

  "Chocolate, you know, and eggs-and then covered with whipped cream. Just the sort of sweet a foreigner would like for lunch."

  Inspector Grange spoke fiercely and brusquely, feeling like a man who brushes away fine spiders' webs which are impairing his vision.

  "Did you load the pistol?"

  He had hoped to startle her-perhaps even to frighten her a little, but Lady Angkatell only considered the question with a kind of desperate thoughtfulness.

  "Now did I? That's so stupid. I can't remember. But I should think I must have, don't you. Inspector? I mean, what's the good of a pistol without ammunition? I wish I could remember exactly what was in my head at the time."

  "My dear Lucy," said Sir Henry. "What goes on or does not go on in your head has been for years the despair of everyone who knows you well."

  She flashed him a very sweet smile.

  "I am trying to remember, Henry dear. One does such curious things. I picked up the telephone receiver the other morning and found myself looking down at it quite bewildered.

  I couldn't imagine what I wanted with it."

  "Presumably you were going to ring someone up," said the Inspector coldly.

  "No, funnily enough, I wasn't. I remembered afterwards-I'd been wondering why Mrs. Mears, the gardener's wife, held her baby in such an odd way, and I picked up the telephone receiver to try, you know, just how one would hold a baby and of course I...

  Chapter XXI

  In 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 (? missing part ?)

  "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 imagined, 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 Henrietta 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 a 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 window 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 minds that just see 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 put 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."

  Chapter XXII

  The 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 delighted, a little thrilled. "I've only just discovered who my neighbour is. And I've always wanted so much to know you."

  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."

&n
bsp; 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 make-up 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."