The Hollow hp-24

by Agatha Christie

  Midge said:

  "Poor Gerda. The only thing John's death has done for her is to set her free from your terrifying hospitality, Lucy."

  "How unkind you are, Midge. Nobody could say I didn't try."

  "You are much worse when you try, Lucy."

  "Well, it's very nice to think it's all over, isn't it?" said Lady Angkatell, beaming at them. "Except, of course, for poor Inspector Grange. I do feel so sorry for him. Would it cheer him up, do you think, if we asked him back to lunch? As a friend, I mean."

  "I should let well alone, Lucy," said Sir Henry.

  "Perhaps you are right," said Lady Angkatell meditatively. "And anyway it isn't the right kind of lunch today. Partridges au Choux-and that delicious souffle surprise that Mrs. Medway makes so well. Not at all Inspector Grange's kind of lunch. A really good steak, a little underdone, and a good oldfashioned apple tart with no nonsense about it-or perhaps apple dumplings-that's what I should order for Inspector Grange."

  "Your instincts about food are always very sound, Lucy. I think we had better get home to those partridges-they sound delicious."

  "Well, I thought we ought to have some celebration! It's wonderful, isn't it, how everything always seems to turn out for the best?"

  "Yees-"

  "I know what you're thinking. Henry, but don't worry. I shall attend to it this afternoon."

  "What are you up to now, Lucy?"

  Lady Angkatell smiled at him.

  "It's quite all right, darling. Just tucking in a loose end."

  Sir Henry looked at her doubtfully.

  When they reached The Hollow, Gudgeon came out to open the door of the car.

  "Everything went off very satisfactorily, Gudgeon," said Lady Angkatell. "Please tell Mrs. Medway and the others. I know how unpleasant it has been for you all, and I should like to tell you now how much Sir Henry and I have appreciated the loyalty you have all shown."

  "We have been deeply concerned for you, m'lady," said Gudgeon.

  "Very sweet of Gudgeon," said Lucy as she went into the drawing-room, "but really quite wasted. I have really almost enjoyed it all-so different, you know, from what one is accustomed to. Don't you feel, David, that an experience like this has broadened your mind? It must be so different from Cambridge."

  "I am at Oxford," said David coldly.

  Lady Angkatell said vaguely, "The dear boat race. So English, don't you think?" and went towards the telephone.

  She picked up the receiver and holding it in her hand she went on:

  "I do hope, David, that you will come and stay with us again. It's so difficult, isn't it, to get to know people when there is a murder?

  And quite impossible to have any really intellectual conversation."

  "Thank you," said David. "But when I come down I am going to Athens-to the British School."

  Lady Angkatell turned to her husband.

  "Who's got the Embassy now? Oh, of course-Hope-Remmington. No, I don't think David would like them. Those girls of theirs are so terribly hearty. They play hockey and cricket and the funny game where you catch the thing in a net."

  She broke off, looking down at the telephone receiver.

  "Now what am I doing with this thing?"

  "Perhaps you were going to ring someone up," said Edward.

  "I don't think so." She replaced it. "Do you like telephones, David?"

  It was the sort of question, David reflected irritably, that she would ask; one to which there could be no intelligent answer. He replied coldly that he supposed they were useful.

  "You mean," said Lady Angkatell, "like mincing machines? Or elastic bands? All the same, one wouldn't-"

  She broke off as Gudgeon appeared in the doorway to announce lunch.

  "But you like partridges," said Lady Angkatell to David anxiously.

  David admitted that he liked partridges.

  "Sometimes I think Lucy really is a bit touched," said Midge, as she and Edward strolled over from the house and up towards the woods.

  The partridges and the souffle surprise had been excellent and with the inquest over a weight had lifted from the atmosphere.

  Edward said thoughtfully:

  "I always think Lucy has a brilliant mind that expresses itself like a missing word competition.

  To mix metaphors-the hammer jumps from nail to nail and never fails to hit each one squarely on the head."

  "All the same," Midge said soberly, "Lucy frightens me sometimes." She added, with a tiny shiver, "This place has frightened me lately."

  "The Hollow?"

  Edward turned an astonished face to her.

  "It always reminds me a little of Ainswick," he said. "It's not, of course, the real thing-"

  Midge interrupted:

  "That's just it, Edward-I'm frightened of things that aren't the real thing… You don't know, you see, what's behind them…

  It's like-oh, it's like a mask."

  "You mustn't be fanciful, little Midge."

  It was the old tone, the indulgent tone he had used years ago. She had liked it then, but now it disturbed her. She struggled to make her meaning clearer-to show him that behind what he called fancy, was some shape of dimly apprehended reality.

  "I got away from it in London, but now I get back here it all comes over me again. I feel that everyone knows who killed John Christow… That the only person who doesn't know-is me."

  Edward said irritably:

  "Must we think and talk about John Christow? He's dead. Dead and gone."

  Midge murmured:

  "He is dead and gone, lady,

  He is dead and gone;

  At his head a grass-green turf

  At his heels a stone."

  She put her hand on Edward's arm. "Who did kill him, Edward? We thought it was Gerda-but it wasn't Gerda. Then who was it? Tell me what you think? Was it someone we've never heard of?"

  He said irritably:

  "All this speculation seems to me quite unprofitable. If the police can't find out, or can't get sufficient evidence, then the whole thing will have to be allowed to drop-and we shall be rid of it."

  "Yes-but it's the not knowing-"

  "Why should we want to know? What has John Christow to do with us?"

  With us, she thought, with Edward and me? Nothing! Comforting thought-she and Edward, linked, a dual entity. And yet- and yet-John Christow, for all that he had been laid in his grave and the words of the burial service read over him, was not buried deep enough. He is dead and gone, lady…

  But John Christow was not dead and gone -for all that Edward wished him to be…

  John Christow was still here at The Hollow.

  Edward said, "Where are we going?"

  Something in his tone surprised her. She said:

  "Let's walk up onto the top of the ridge. Shall we?"

  "If you like."

  For some reason, he was unwilling. She wondered why. It was usually his favourite walk. He and Henrietta used nearly always - Her thought snapped and broke off…

  He and Henrietta- She said, "Have you been this way yet this Autumn?"

  He said stiffly:

  "Henrietta and I walked up here that first afternoon."

  They went on in silence.

  They came at last to the top and sat on the fallen tree.

  Midge thought: "He and Henrietta sat here, perhaps…"

  She turned the ring on her finger round and round. The diamond flashed coldly at her… ("Not emeralds," he had said.) She said with a slight effort:

  "It will be lovely to be at Ainswick again for Christmas."

  He did not seem to hear her. He had gone far away.

  She thought. He is thinking of Henrietta and of John Christow.

  Sitting here he had said something to Henrietta or she had said something to him…

  Henrietta might know what she didn't want but he belonged to Henrietta still. He always would, Midge thought, belong to Henrietta. …

  Pain swooped down upon her. The happy bubble w
orld in which she had lived for the last week quivered and broke.

  She thought, I can't live like that-with Henrietta always there in his mind. I can't face it. I can't bear it…

  The wind sighed through the trees-the leaves were falling fast now-there were hardly any gold ones left, only brown.

  She said, "Edward!"

  The urgency of her voice aroused him. He turned his head.

  "Yes?"

  "I'm sorry, Edward." Her lips were trembling but she forced her voice to be quiet and self-controlled. "I've got to tell you. It's no use. I can't marry you. It wouldn't work, Edward."

  He said, "But, Midge-surely Ainswick-"

  She interrupted:

  "I can't marry you just for Ainswick, Edward. You-you must see that."

  He sighed then, a long, gentle sigh. It was like an echo of the dead leaves slipping gently off the branches of the trees.

  "I see what you mean," he said. "Yes, I suppose you are right."

  "It was dear of you to ask me, dear and sweet. But it wouldn't do, Edward. It wouldn't work."

  She had had a faint hope, perhaps, that he would argue with her, that he would try to persuade her-but he seemed, quite simply, to feel just as she did about it. Here, with the ghost of Henrietta close beside him, he, too, apparently, saw that it couldn't work…

  "No," he said, echoing her words, "it wouldn't work."

  She slipped the ring off her finger and held it out to him.

  She would always love Edward and Edward would always love Henrietta and life was just plain unadulterated hell…

  She said, with a little catch in her voice:

  "It's a lovely ring, Edward."

  "I wish you'd keep it. Midge. I'd like you to have it."

  She shook her head.

  "I couldn't do that."

  He said, with a faint humorous twist of the lips:

  "I shan't give it to anyone else, you know."

  It was all quite friendly. He didn't know -he would never know-just what she was feeling… Heaven on a plate-and the plate was broken and Heaven had slipped between her fingers or had, perhaps, never been there.

  That afternoon, Poirot received his third visitor.

  He had been visited by Henrietta Savernake and by Veronica Cray. This time it was Lady Angkatell. She came floating up the path with her usual appearance of insubstantiality.

  He opened the door and she stood smiling at him.

  "I have come to see you," she announced.

  So might a fairy confer a favour on a mere mortal.

  "I am enchanted, Madame."

  He led the way into the sitting room. She sat down on the sofa and once more, she smiled.

  Hercule Poirot thought: "She is old-her hair is grey-there are lines in her face. Yet she has magic-she will always have magic."

  Lady Angkatell said softly:

  "I want you to do something for me."

  "Yes, Madame?"

  "To begin with, I must talk to you-about John Christow."

  "About Dr. Christow?"

  "Yes. It seems to me that the only thing to do is to put a full stop to the whole thing. You understand what I mean, don't you?"

  "I am not sure that I do know what you mean, Lady Angkatell."

  She gave him her lovely dazzling smile again and she put one long white hand on his sleeve.

  "Dear M. Poirot, you know perfectly. The police will have to hunt about for the owner of those finger-prints and they won't find him and in the end they'll have to let the whole thing drop. But I'm afraid, you know, that you won't let it drop."

  "No, I shall not let it drop," said Hercule Poirot.

  "That is just what I thought… And that is why I came. It's the truth you want, isn't it?"

  "Certainly I want the truth."

  "I see I haven't explained myself very well. I'm trying to find out just why you won't let things drop. It isn't because of your prestige-or because you want to hang a murderer (such an unpleasant kind of death, I've always thought-so medieval). It's just, I think, that you want to know. You do see what I mean, don't you? If you were to know the truth-if you were to be told the truth, I think-I think perhaps that might satisfy you? Would it satisfy you, M. Poirot?"

  "You are offering to tell me the truth, Lady Angkatell?"

  She nodded:

  "You yourself know the truth, then?"

  Her eyes opened very wide.

  "Oh, yes, I've known for a long time. I'd like to tell you. And then we could agree that-well, that it was all over and done with."

  She smiled at him.

  "Is it a bargain, M. Poirot?"

  It was quite an effort for Hercule Poirot to say:

  "No, Madame, it is not a bargain."

  He wanted-he wanted, very badly, to let the whole thing drop… simply because Lucy Angkatell asked him to do so.

  Lady Angkatell sat very still for a moment.

  Then she raised her eyebrows.

  "I wonder," she said… "I wonder if you really know what you are doing?"

  Chapter XXVIII

  Midge, lying dry eyed and awake in the darkness, turned restlessly on her pillows.

  She heard a door unlatch, a footstep in the corridor outside passing her door…

  It was Edward's door and Edward's step…

  She switched on the lamp by her bed and looked at the clock that stood by the lamp on the table.

  It was ten minutes to three.

  Edward passing her door and going down the stairs at this hour in the morning. It was odd.

  They had all gone to bed early, at half past ten. She herself had not slept, had lain there with burning eyelids and with a dry aching misery racking her feverishly.

  She had heard the clock strike downstairs-had heard owls hoot outside her bedroom window. Had felt that depression that reaches its nadir at 2:00 a.m. Had thought to herself "I can't bear it-I can't bear it.

  Tomorrow coming-another day… Day after day to be got through."

  Banished by her own act from Ainswick -from all the loveliness and dearness of Ainswick which might have been her very own possession.

  But better banishment, better loneliness, better a drab and uninteresting life, than life with Edward and Henrietta's ghost. Until that day in the wood she had not known her own capability for bitter jealousy.

  And after all, Edward had never told her that he loved her. Affection, kindliness, he had never pretended to more than that. She had accepted the limitation, and not until she had realized what it would mean to live at close quarters with an Edward whose mind and heart had Henrietta as a permanent guest, did she know that for her Edward s affection was not enough-.

  Edward walking past her door, down the front stairs... It was odd-very odd-where was he going?

  Uneasiness grew upon her. It was all part and parc^ of the uneasiness that The Hollow gave her nowadays. What was Edward doing downstairs in the small hours of the morning?

  Had he gone out?

  Inactivity at last became too much for her.

  She got up, slipped on her dressing gown and taking a flashlight, she opened her door and came out into the passage.

  It was quite dark, no lights had been switched on. Midge turned to the left and came to the head of the staircase. Below all was dark too. She ran down the stairs and after a moment's hesitation switched on the light in the hall. Everything was silent. The front door was closed and locked. She tried the side door but that too was locked.

  Edward, then, had not gone out. Where could he be?

  And suddenly she raised her head and sniffed.

  A whiff-a very faint whiff of gas.

  The baize door to the kitchen quarters was just ajar. She went through it-a faint light was shining from the open kitchen door. The smell of gas was much stronger.

  Midge ran along the passage and into the kitchen. Edward was lying on the floor with his head inside the gas oven which was turned on full- Midge was a quick practical girl. Her first act was to swing open the shutters. S
he could not unlatch the window and winding a glass cloth round her arm, she smashed it. Then, holding her breath, she stooped down and tugged and pulled Edward out of the gas oven and switched off the taps.

  He was unconscious and breathing queerly, but she knew that he could not have been unconscious long. He could only just have gone under. The wind sweeping through from the window to the open door was fast dispelling the gas fumes. Midge dragged Edward to a spot near the window where the air would have full play. She sat down and gathered him into her strong young arms.

  She said his name, first softly, then with increasing desperation:

  "Edward, Edward, Edward, Edward. …"

  He stirred, groaned, opened his eyes and looked up at her.

  He said very faintly, "Gas oven…" and his eyes went round to the gas stove.

  "I know, darling, but why-why?"

  He was shivering now, his hands were cold and lifeless.

  He said, "Midge?"

  There was a kind of wondering surprise and pleasure in his voice.

  She said, "I heard you pass my door… nI didn't know… I came down."

  He sighed-a very long sigh as though from very far away.

  "Best way out," he said. And then, inexplicably, until she remembered Lucy's conversation on the night of the tragedy, "News of the World."

  "But, Edward, why-why?"

  He looked up at her and the blank, cold darkness of his stare frightened her.

  "Because I know now I've never been any good. Always a failure. Always ineffectual.

  It's men like Christow who do things. They get there and women admire them. I'm nothing-I'm not even quite alive. I inherited Ainswick and I've enough to live on-otherwise I'd have gone under. No good at a career-never much good as a writer. Henrietta didn't want me. No one wanted me.

  That day-at the Berkeley-I thought-but it was the same story. You couldn't care either, Midge. Even for Ainswick you couldn't put up with me… So I thought better get out altogether."

  Her words came with a rush.

  "Darling, darling. You don't understand.

  It was because of Henrietta-because I thought you still loved Henrietta so much."

  "Henrietta?" He murmured it vaguely, as though speaking of someone infinitely remote.

  "Yes, I loved her very much."

  And from even farther away she heard him murmur: