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Sixteen
Gerda Christow pulled the black dress up over her head and let it fall on a chair.
Her eyes were piteous with uncertainty.
She said: “I don’t know—I really don’t know. Nothing seems to matter.”
“I know, dear, I know.” Mrs. Patterson was kind but firm. She knew exactly how to treat people
who had had a bereavement. “Elsie is wonderful in a crisis,” her family said of her.
At the present moment she was sitting in her sister Gerda’s bedroom in Harley Street being
wonderful. Elsie Patterson was tall and spare with an energetic manner. She was looking now at
Gerda with a mixture of irritation and compassion.
Poor dear Gerda—tragic for her to lose her husband in such an awful way. And really, even
now, she didn’t seem to take in the—well, the implications, properly. Of course, Mrs. Patterson
reflected, Gerda always was terribly slow. And there was shock, too, to take into account.
She said in a brisk voice: “I think I should decide on that black marocain at twelve guineas.”
One always did have to make up Gerda’s mind for her.
Gerda stood motionless, her brow puckered. She said hesitantly:
“I don’t really know if John liked mourning. I think I once heard him say he didn’t.”
“John,” she thought. “If only John were here to tell me what to do.”
But John would never be there again. Never—never—never…Mutton getting cold—congealing
on the table…the bang of the consulting room door, John running up two steps at a time, always in
a hurry, so vital, so alive….
Alive.
Lying on his back by the swimming pool…the slow drip of blood over the edge…the feel of the
revolver in her hand….
A nightmare, a bad dream, presently she would wake up and none of it would be true.
Her sister’s crisp voice came cutting through her nebulous thoughts.
“You must have something black for the inquest. It would look most odd if you turned up in
bright blue.”
Gerda said: “That awful inquest!” and half-shut her eyes.
“Terrible for you, darling,” said Elsie Patterson quickly. “But after it is all over you will come
straight down to us and we shall take great care of you.”
The nebulous blur of Gerda Christow’s thoughts hardened. She said, and her voice was
frightened, almost panic-stricken:
“What am I going to do without John?”
Elsie Patterson knew the answer to that one. “You’ve got your children. You’ve got to live for
them.”
Zena, sobbing and crying, “My Daddy’s dead!” Throwing herself on her bed. Terry, pale,
inquiring, shedding no tears.
An accident with a revolver, she had told them—poor Daddy has had an accident.
Beryl Collins (so thoughtful of her) had confiscated the morning papers so that the children
should not see them. She had warned the servants too. Really, Beryl had been most kind and
thoughtful.
Terence coming to his mother in the dim drawing room, his lips pursed close together, his face
almost greenish in its odd pallor.
“Why was Father shot?”
“An accident, dear. I—I can’t talk about it.”
“It wasn’t an accident. Why do you say what isn’t true? Father was killed. It was murder. The
paper says so.”
“Terry, how did you get hold of a paper? I told Miss Collins—”
He had nodded—queer repeated nods like a very old man.
“I went out and bought one, of course. I knew there must be something in them that you weren’t
telling us, or else why did Miss Collins hide them?”
It was never any good hiding truth from Terence. That queer, detached, scientific curiosity of
his had always to be satisfied.
“Why was he killed, Mother?”
She had broken down then, becoming hysterical.
“Don’t ask me about it—don’t talk about it—I can’t talk about it…it’s all too dreadful.”
“But they’ll find out, won’t they? I mean, they have to find out. It’s necessary.”
So reasonable, so detached. It made Gerda want to scream and laugh and cry. She thought: “He
doesn’t care—he can’t care—he just goes on asking questions. Why, he hasn’t cried, even.”
Terence had gone away, evading his Aunt Elsie’s ministrations, a lonely little boy with a stiff,
pinched face. He had always felt alone. But it hadn’t mattered until today.
Today, he thought, was different. If only there was someone who would answer questions
reasonably and intelligently.
Tomorrow, Tuesday, he and Nicholson Minor were going to make nitroglycerine. He had been
looking forward to it with a thrill. The thrill had gone. He didn’t care if he never made
nitroglycerine.
Terence felt almost shocked at himself. Not to care any more about scientific experiment. But
when a chap’s father had been murdered…He thought: “My father—murdered.”
And something stirred—took root—grew…a slow anger.
Beryl Collins tapped on the bedroom door and came in. She was pale, composed, efficient. She
said:
“Inspector Grange is here.” And as Gerda gasped and looked at her piteously, Beryl went on
quickly: “He said there was no need for him to worry you. He’ll have a word with you before he
goes, but it is just routine questions about Dr. Christow’s practice and I can tell him everything he
wants to know.”
“Oh thank you, Collie.”
Beryl made a rapid exit and Gerda sighed out:
“Collie is such a help. She’s so practical.”
“Yes, indeed,” said Mrs. Patterson. “An excellent secretary, I’m sure. Very plain, poor girl, isn’t
she? Oh, well, I always think that’s just as well. Especially with an attractive man like John.”
Gerda flamed out at her:
“What do you mean, Elsie? John would never—he never—you talk as though John would have
flirted or something horrid if he had had a pretty secretary. John wasn’t like that at all.”
“Of course not, darling,” said Mrs. Patterson. “But after all, one knows what men are like!”
In the consulting room Inspector Grange faced the cool, belligerent glance of Beryl Collins. It
was belligerent, he noted that. Well, perhaps that was only natural.
“Plain bit of goods,” he thought. “Nothing between her and the doctor, I shouldn’t think. She
may have been sweet on him, though. It works that way sometimes.”
But not this time, he came to the conclusion, when he leaned back in his chair a quarter of an
hour later. Beryl Collins’s answers to his questions had been models of clearness. She replied
promptly, and obviously had every detail of the doctor’s practice at her fingertips. He shifted his
ground and began to probe gently into the relations existing between John Christow and his wife.
They had been, Beryl said, on excellent terms.
“I suppose they quarrelled every now and then like most married couples?” The inspector
sounded easy and confidential.
“I do not remember any quarrels. Mrs. Christow was quite devoted to her husband—really quite
slavishly so.”
There was a faint edge of contempt in her voice. Inspector Grange heard it.
“Bit of a feminist, this girl,” he thought.
Aloud he said:
“Didn’t stand up for herself at all?”
“No. Everything revolved round Dr. Christow.”
“Tyrannical, eh?”
Beryl considered.
“No, I wouldn’t say that. But he was what I should call a very selfish man. He took it for
granted that Mrs. Christow would always fall in with his ideas.”
“Any difficulties with patients—women, I mean? You needn’t think about being frank, Miss
Collins. One knows doctors have their difficulties in that line.”
“Oh, that sort of thing!” Beryl’s voice was scornful. “Dr. Christow was quite equal to dealing
with any difficulties in that line. He had an excellent manner with patients.” She added, “He was
really a wonderful doctor.”
There was an almost grudging admiration in her voice.
Grange said: “Was he tangled up with any woman? Don’t be loyal, Miss Collins, it’s important
that we should know.”
“Yes, I can appreciate that. Not to my knowledge.”
A little too brusque, he thought. She doesn’t know, but perhaps she guesses.
He said sharply, “What about Miss Henrietta Savernake?”
Beryl’s lips closed tightly.
“She was a close friend of the family’s.”
“No—trouble between Dr. and Mrs. Christow on her account?”
“Certainly not.”
The answer was emphatic. (Overemphatic?)
The inspector shifted his ground.
“What about Miss Veronica Cray?”
“Veronica Cray?”
There was pure astonishment in Beryl’s voice.
“She was a friend of Dr. Christow’s, was she not?”
“I never heard of her. At least, I seem to know the name—”
“The motion picture actress.”
Beryl’s brow cleared.
“Of course! I wondered why the name was familiar. But I didn’t even know that Dr. Christow
knew her.”
She seemed so positive on the point that the inspector abandoned it at once. He went on to
question her about Dr. Christow’s manner on the preceding Saturday. And here, for the first time,
the confidence of Beryl’s replies wavered. She said slowly:
“His manner wasn’t quite as usual.”
“What was the difference?”
“He seemed distrait. There was quite a long gap before he rang for his last patient—and yet
normally he was always in a hurry to get through when he was going away. I thought—yes, I
definitely thought he had something on his mind.”
But she could not be more definite.
Inspector Grange was not very satisfied with his investigations. He’d come nowhere near
establishing motive—and motive had to be established before there was a case to go to the Public
Prosecutor.
He was quite certain in his own mind that Gerda Christow had shot her husband. He suspected
jealousy as the motive—but so far he had found nothing to go on. Sergeant Coombes had been
working on the maids but they all told the same story. Mrs. Christow worshipped the ground her
husband walked on.
Whatever happened, he thought, must have happened down at The Hollow. And remembering
The Hollow he felt a vague disquietude. They were an odd lot down there.
The telephone on the desk rang and Miss Collins picked up the receiver.
She said: “It’s for you, Inspector,” and passed the instrument to him.
“Hallo, Grange here. What’s that?” Beryl heard the alteration in his tone and looked at him
curiously. The wooden-looking face was impassive as ever. He was grunting—listening.
“Yes…yes, I’ve got that. That’s absolutely certain, is it? No margin of error. Yes…yes…yes,
I’ll be down. I’ve about finished here. Yes.”
He put the receiver back and sat for a moment motionless. Beryl looked at him curiously.
He pulled himself together and asked in a voice that was quite different from the voice of his
previous questions:
“You’ve no ideas of your own, I suppose, Miss Collins, about this matter?”
“You mean—”
“I mean no ideas as to who it was killed Dr. Christow?”
She said flatly:
“I’ve absolutely no idea at all, Inspector.”
Grange said slowly:
“When the body was found, Mrs. Christow was standing beside it with the revolver in her hand
—”
He left it purposely as an unfinished sentence.
Her reaction came promptly. Not heated, cool and judicial.
“If you think Mrs. Christow killed her husband, I am quite sure you are wrong. Mrs. Christow is
not at all a violent woman. She is very meek and submissive, and she was entirely under the
doctor’s thumb. It seems to me quite ridiculous that anyone could imagine for a moment that she
shot him, however much appearances may be against her.”
“Then if she didn’t, who did?” he asked sharply.
Beryl said slowly, “I’ve no idea.”
The inspector moved to the door. Beryl asked:
“Do you want to see Mrs. Christow before you go?”
“No—yes, perhaps I’d better.”
Again Beryl wondered; this was not the same man who had been questioning her before the
telephone rang. What news had he got that had altered him so much?
Gerda came into the room nervously. She looked unhappy and bewildered. She said in a low,
shaky voice:
“Have you found out any more about who killed John?”
“Not yet, Mrs. Christow.”
“It’s so impossible—so absolutely impossible.”
“But it happened, Mrs. Christow.”
She nodded, looking down, screwing a handkerchief into a little ball.
He said quietly:
“Had your husband any enemies, Mrs. Christow?”
“John? Oh, no. He was wonderful. Everyone adored him.”
“You can’t think of anyone who had a grudge against him”—he paused—“or against you?”
“Against me?” She seemed amazed. “Oh, no, Inspector.”
Inspector Grange sighed.
“What about Miss Veronica Cray?”
“Veronica Cray? Oh, you mean the one who came that night to borrow matches?”
“Yes, that’s the one. You knew her?”
Gerda shook her head.
“I’d never seen her before. John knew her years ago—or so she said.”
“I suppose she might have had a grudge against him that you didn’t know about.”
Gerda said with dignity:
“I don’t believe anybody could have had a grudge against John. He was the kindest and most
unselfish—oh, and one of the noblest men.”
“H’m,” said the inspector. “Yes. Quite so. Well, good morning, Mrs. Christow. You understand
about the inquest? Eleven o’clock Wednesday in Market Depleach. It will be very simple —
nothing to upset you—probably be adjourned for a week so that we can make further inquiries.”
“Oh, I see. Thank you.”
She stood there staring after him. He wondered whether, even now, she had grasped the fact that
she was the principal suspect.
He hailed a taxi—justifiable expense in view of the piece of information he had just been given
over the telephone. Just where that piece of information was leading him, he did not know. On the
face of it, it seemed completely irrelevant—crazy. It simply did not make sense. Yet in some way
he could not yet see, it must make sense.
The only inference to be drawn from it was that the case was not quite the simple,
straightforward one that he had hitherto assumed it to be.
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