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II
The picture broke up, wavered, refocused itself. There were individual reactions now—trivial
happenings. Poirot was conscious of himself as a kind of magnified eyes and ears—recording. Just
that, recording.
He was aware of Lady Angkatell’s hand relaxing its grip on her basket and Gudgeon springing
forward, quickly taking it from her.
“Allow me, my lady.”
Mechanically, quite naturally, Lady Angkatell murmured:
“Thank you, Gudgeon.”
And then, hesitantly, she said:
“Gerda—”
The woman holding the revolver stirred for the first time. She looked round at them all. When
she spoke, her voice held what seemed to be pure bewilderment.
“John’s dead,” she said. “John’s dead.”
With a kind of swift authority, the tall young woman with the leaf-brown hair came swiftly to
her.
“Give that to me, Gerda,” she said.
And dexterously, before Poirot could protest or intervene, she had taken the revolver out of
Gerda Christow’s hand.
Poirot took a quick step forward.
“You should not do that, Mademoiselle—”
The young woman started nervously at the sound of his voice. The revolver slipped through her
fingers. She was standing by the edge of the pool and the revolver fell with a splash into the water.
Her mouth opened and she uttered an “Oh” of consternation, turning her head to look at Poirot
apologetically.
“What a fool I am,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
Poirot did not speak for a moment. He was staring into a pair of clear hazel eyes. They met his
quite steadily and he wondered if his momentary suspicion had been unjust.
He said quietly:
“Things should be handled as little as possible. Everything must be left exactly as it is for the
police to see.”
There was a little stir then—very faint, just a ripple of uneasiness.
Lady Angkatell murmured distastefully: “Of course. I suppose—yes, the police—”
In a quite, pleasant voice, tinged with fastidious repulsion, the man in the shooting coat said:
“I’m afraid, Lucy, it’s inevitable.”
Into that moment of silence and realization there came the sound of footsteps and voices,
assured, brisk footsteps and cheerful, incongruous voices.
Along the path from the house came Sir Henry Angkatell and Midge Hardcastle, talking and
laughing together.
At the sight of the group round the pool, Sir Henry stopped short, and exclaimed in
astonishment:
“What’s the matter? What’s happened?”
His wife answered: “Gerda has—” She broke off sharply. “I mean—John is—”
Gerda said in her flat, bewildered voice:
“John has been shot. He’s dead.”
They all looked away from her, embarrassed.
Then Lady Angkatell said quickly:
“My dear, I think you’d better go and—and lie down. Perhaps we had better all go back to the
house? Henry, you and M. Poirot can stay here and—and wait for the police.”
“That will be the best plan, I think,” said Sir Henry. He turned to Gudgeon. “Will you ring up
the police station, Gudgeon? Just state exactly what has occurred. When the police arrive, bring
them straight out here.”
Gudgeon bent his head a little and said: “Yes, Sir Henry.” He was looking a little white about
the gills, but he was still the perfect servant.
The tall young woman said: “Come, Gerda,” and putting her hand through the other woman’s
arm, she led her unresistingly away and along the path towards the house. Gerda walked as though
in a dream. Gudgeon stood back a little to let them pass, and then followed carrying the basket of
eggs.
Sir Henry turned sharply to his wife. “Now, Lucy, what is all this? What happened exactly?”
Lady Angkatell stretched out vague hands, a lovely helpless gesture. Hercule Poirot felt the
charm of it and the appeal.
“My dear, I hardly know. I was down by the hens. I heard a shot that seemed very near, but I
didn’t really think anything about it. After all,” she appealed to them all, “one doesn’t! And then I
came up the path to the pool and there was John lying there and Gerda standing over him with the
revolver. Henrietta and Edward arrived almost at the same moment—from over there.”
She nodded towards the farther side of the pool, where two paths ran into the woods.
Hercule Poirot cleared his throat.
“Who are they, this John and this Gerda? If I may know,” he added apologetically.
“Oh, of course.” Lady Angkatell turned to him in quick apology. “One forgets—but then one
doesn’t exactly introduce people — not when somebody has just been killed. John is John
Christow, Dr. Christow. Gerda Christow is his wife.”
“And the lady who went with Mrs. Christow to the house?”
“My cousin, Henrietta Savernake.”
There was a movement, a very faint movement from the man on Poirot’s left.
“Henrietta Savernake,” thought Poirot, “and he does not like that she should say it—but it is,
after all, inevitable that I should know….”
(“Henrietta!” the dying man had said. He had said it in a very curious way. A way that
reminded Poirot of something—of some incident…now, what was it? No matter, it would come to
him.)
Lady Angkatell was going on, determined now on fulfilling her social duties.
“And this is another cousin of ours, Edward Angkatell. And Miss Hardcastle.”
Poirot acknowledged the introductions with polite bows. Midge felt suddenly that she wanted to
laugh hysterically; she controlled herself with an effort.
“And now, my dear,” said Sir Henry, “I think that, as you suggested, you had better go back to
the house. I will have a word or two here with M. Poirot.”
Lady Angkatell looked thoughtfully at them.
“I do hope,” she said, “that Gerda is lying down. Was that the right thing to suggest? I really
couldn’t think what to say. I mean, one has no precedent. What does one say to a woman who has
just killed her husband?”
She looked at them as though hoping that some authoritative answer might be given to her
question.
Then she went along the path towards the house. Midge followed her. Edward brought up the
rear.
Poirot was left with his host.
Sir Henry cleared his throat. He seemed a little uncertain what to say.
“Christow,” he observed at last, “was a very able fellow—a very able fellow.”
Poirot’s eyes rested once more on the dead man. He still had the curious impression that the
dead man was more alive than the living.
He wondered what gave him that impression.
He responded politely to Sir Henry.
“Such a tragedy as this is very unfortunate,” he said.
“This sort of thing is more your line than mine,” said Sir Henry. “I don’t think I have ever been
at close quarters with a murder before. I hope I’ve done the right thing so far?”
“The procedure has been quite correct,” said Poirot. “You have summoned the police, and until
they arrive and take charge there is nothing for us to do—except to make sure that nobody disturbs
the body or tampers with the evidence.”
As he said the last word he looked down into the pool where he could see the revolver lying on
the concrete bottom, slightly distorted by the blue water.
The evidence, he thought, had perhaps already been tampered with before he, Hercule Poirot,
had been able to prevent it.
But no—that had been an accident.
Sir Henry murmured distastefully:
“Think we’ve got to stand about? A bit chilly. It would be all right, I should think, if we went
inside the pavilion?”
Poirot, who had been conscious of damp feet and a disposition to shiver, acquiesced gladly. The
pavilion was at the side of the pool farthest from the house, and through its open door they
commanded a view of the pool and the body and the path to the house along which the police
would come.
The pavilion was luxuriously furnished with comfortable settees and gay native rugs. On a
painted iron table a tray was set with glasses and a decanter of sherry.
“I’d offer you a drink,” said Sir Henry, “but I suppose I’d better not touch anything until the
police come—not, I should imagine, that there’s anything to interest them in here. Still, it is better
to be on the safe side. Gudgeon hadn’t brought out the cocktails yet, I see. He was waiting for you
to arrive.”
The two sat down rather gingerly in two wicker chairs near the door so that they could watch
the path from the house.
A constraint settled over them. It was an occasion on which it was difficult to make small talk.
Poirot glanced round the pavilion, noting anything that struck him as unusual. An expensive
cape of platinum fox had been flung carelessly across the back of one of the chairs. He wondered
whose it was. Its rather ostentatious magnificence did not harmonize with any of the people he had
seen up to now. He could not, for instance, imagine it round Lady Angkatell’s shoulders.
It worried him. It breathed a mixture of opulence and self- advertisement — and those
characteristics were lacking in anyone he had seen so far.
“I suppose we can smoke,” said Sir Henry, offering his case to Poirot.
Before taking the cigarette, Poirot sniffed the air.
French perfume—an expensive French perfume.
Only a trace of it lingered, but it was there, and again the scent was not the scent that associated
itself in his mind with any of the occupants of The Hollow.
As he leaned forward to light his cigarette at Sir Henry’s lighter, Poirot’s glance fell on a little
pile of matchboxes—six of them—stacked on a small table near one of the settees.
It was a detail that struck him as definitely odd.
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