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II
“But of course, Inspector,” said Veronica. “I’m only too anxious to help you.”
“Thank you, Miss Cray.”
Veronica Cray was not, somehow, at all what the inspector had imagined.
He had been prepared for glamour, for artificiality, even possibly for heroics. He would not
have been at all surprised if she had put on an act of some kind.
In fact, she was, he shrewdly suspected, putting on an act. But it was not the kind of act he had
expected.
There was no overdone feminine charm—glamour was not stressed.
Instead he felt that he was sitting opposite to an exceedingly good-looking and expensively
dressed woman who was also a good businesswoman. Veronica Cray, he thought, was no fool.
“We just want a clear statement, Miss Cray. You came over to The Hollow on Saturday
evening?”
“Yes, I’d run out of matches. One forgets how important these things are in the country.”
“You went all the way to The Hollow? Why not to your next-door neighbour, M. Poirot?”
She smiled—a superb, confident camera smile.
“I didn’t know who my next-door neighbour was—otherwise I should have. I just thought he
was some little foreigner and I thought, you know, he might become a bore—living so near.”
“Yes,” thought Grange, “quite plausible.” She’d worked that one out ready for the occasion.
“You got your matches,” he said. “And you recognized an old friend in Dr. Christow, I
understand?”
She nodded.
“Poor John. Yes, I hadn’t seen him for fifteen years.”
“Really?” There was polite disbelief in the inspector’s tone.
“Really.” Her tone was firmly assertive.
“You were pleased to see him?”
“Very pleased. It’s always delightful, don’t you think, Inspector, to come across an old friend?”
“It can be on some occasions.”
Veronica Cray went on without waiting for further questioning:
“John saw me home. You’ll want to know if he said anything that could have a bearing on the
tragedy, and I’ve been thinking over our conversation very carefully—but really there wasn’t a
pointer of any kind.”
“What did you talk about, Miss Cray?”
“Old days. ‘Do you remember this, that and the other?’” She smiled pensively. “We had known
each other in the South of France. John had really changed very little—older, of course, and more
assured. I gather he was quite well-known in his profession. He didn’t talk about his personal life
at all. I just got the impression that his married life wasn’t perhaps frightfully happy—but it was
only the vaguest impression. I suppose his wife, poor thing, was one of those dim, jealous women
—probably always making a fuss about his better-looking lady patients.”
“No,” said Grange. “She doesn’t really seem to have been that way.”
Veronica said quickly:
“You mean — it was all underneath? Yes — yes, I can see that that would be far more
dangerous.”
“I see you think Mrs. Christow shot him, Miss Cray?”
“I oughtn’t to have said that. One mustn’t comment—is that it—before a trial? I’m extremely
sorry, Inspector. It was just that my maid told me she’d been found actually standing over the
body with the revolver still in her hand. You know how in these quiet country places everything
gets so exaggerated and servants do pass things on.”
“Servants can be very useful sometimes, Miss Cray.”
“Yes, I suppose you get a lot of your information that way?”
Grange went on stolidly:
“It’s a question, of course, of who had a motive—”
He paused. Veronica said with a faint, rueful smile:
“And a wife is always the first suspect? How cynical! But there’s usually what’s called ‘the
other woman.’ I suppose she might be considered to have a motive too?”
“You think there was another woman in Dr. Christow’s life?”
“Well—yes, I did rather imagine there might be. One just gets an impression, you know.”
“Impressions can be very helpful sometimes,” said Grange.
“I rather imagined—from what he said—that that sculptress woman was, well, a very close
friend. But I expect you know all about that already?”
“We have to look into all these things, of course.”
Inspector Grange’s voice was strictly noncommittal, but he saw, without appearing to see, a
quick, spiteful flash of satisfaction in those large blue eyes.
He said, making the question very official:
“Dr. Christow saw you home, you say. What time was it when you said good night to him?”
“Do you know, I really can’t remember! We talked for some time, I do know that. It must have
been quite late.”
“He came in?”
“Yes, I gave him a drink.”
“I see. I imagined your conversation might have taken place in the—er—pavilion by the
swimming pool.”
He saw her eyelids flicker. There was hardly a moment’s hesitation before she said:
“You really are a detective, aren’t you? Yes, we sat there and smoked and talked for some time.
How did you know?”
Her face bore the pleased, eager expression of a child asking to be shown a clever trick.
“You left your furs behind there, Miss Cray.” He added just without emphasis: “And the
matches.”
“Yes, of course I did.”
“Dr. Christow returned to The Hollow at 3 a.m.,” announced the inspector, again without
emphasis.
“Was it really as late as that?” Veronica sounded quite amazed.
“Yes, it was, Miss Cray.”
“Of course, we had so much to talk over—not having seen each other for so many years.”
“Are you sure it was quite so long since you had seen Dr. Christow?”
“I’ve just told you I hadn’t seen him for fifteen years.”
“Are you quite sure you’re not making a mistake? I’ve got the impression you might have been
seeing quite a lot of him.”
“What on earth makes you think that?”
“Well, this note for one thing.” Inspector Grange took out a letter from his pocket, glanced
down at it, cleared his throat and read:
Please come over this morning. I must see you.
Veronica.
“Ye-es.” She smiled. “It is a little peremptory, perhaps. I’m afraid Hollywood makes one—well,
rather arrogant.”
“Dr. Christow came over to your house the following morning in answer to that summons. You
had a quarrel. Would you care to tell me, Miss Cray, what that quarrel was about?”
The inspector had unmasked his batteries. He was quick to seize the flash of anger, the ill-
tempered tightening of the lips. She snapped out:
“We didn’t quarrel.”
“Oh, yes, you did, Miss Cray. Your last words were: ‘I think I hate you more than I believed I
could hate anyone.’”
She was silent now. He could feel her thinking—thinking quickly and warily. Some women
might have rushed into speech. But Veronica Cray was too clever for that.
She shrugged her shoulders and said lightly:
“I see. More servants’ tales. My little maid has rather a lively imagination. There are different
ways of saying things, you know. I can assure you that I wasn’t being melodramatic. It was really
a mildly flirtatious remark. We had been sparring together.”
“The words were not intended to be taken seriously?”
“Certainly not. And I can assure you, Inspector, that it was fifteen years since I had last seen
John Christow. You can verify that for yourself.”
She was poised again, detached, sure of herself.
Grange did not argue or pursue the subject. He got up.
“That’s all for the moment, Miss Cray,” he said pleasantly.
He went out of Dovecotes and down the lane, and turned in at the gate of Resthaven.
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