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Twenty-five
“But, darling, I am so delighted!”
Lady Angkatell stretched out a fragile hand to Edward and touched Midge softly with the other.
“You did quite right, Edward, to make her leave that horrid shop and bring her right down here.
She’ll stay here, of course, and be married from here. St. George’s, you know, three miles by the
road, though only a mile through the woods, but then one doesn’t go to a wedding through woods.
And I suppose it will have to be the vicar—poor man, he has such dreadful colds in the head every
autumn. The curate, now, has one of those high Anglican voices, and the whole thing would be far
more impressive—and more religious, too, if you know what I mean. It is so hard to keep one’s
mind reverent when somebody is saying things through their noses.”
It was, Midge decided, a very Lucyish reception. It made her want to both laugh and cry.
“I’d love to be married from here, Lucy,” she said.
“Then that’s settled, darling. Off-white satin, I think, and an ivory prayer book—not a bouquet.
Bridesmaids?”
“No. I don’t want a fuss. Just a very quiet wedding.”
“I know what you mean, darling, and I think perhaps you are right. With an autumn wedding
it’s nearly always chrysanthemums—such an uninspiring flower, I always think. And unless one
takes a lot of time to choose them carefully bridesmaids never match properly, and there’s nearly
always one terribly plain one who ruins the whole effect—but one has to have her because she’s
usually the bridegroom’s sister. But of course—” Lady Angkatell beamed, “Edward hasn’t got any
sisters.”
“That seems to be one point in my favour,” said Edward, smiling.
“But children are really the worst at weddings,” went on Lady Angkatell, happily pursuing her
own train of thought. “Everyone says: ‘How sweet!’ but, my dear, the anxiety! They step on the
train, or else they howl for Nannie, and quite often they’re sick. I always wonder how a girl can go
up the aisle in a proper frame of mind, while she’s so uncertain about what is happening behind
her.”
“There needn’t be anything behind me,” said Midge cheerfully. “Not even a train. I can be
married in a coat and skirt.”
“Oh, no, Midge, that’s so like a widow. No, off-white satin and not from Madame Alfrege’s.”
“Certainly not from Madame Alfrege’s,” said Edward.
“I shall take you to Mireille,” said Lady Angkatell.
“My dear Lucy, I can’t possibly afford Mireille.”
“Nonsense, Midge. Henry and I are going to give you your trousseau. And Henry, of course,
will give you away. I do hope the band of his trousers won’t be too tight. It’s nearly two years
since he last went to a wedding. And I shall wear—”
Lady Angkatell paused and closed her eyes.
“Yes, Lucy?”
“Hydrangea blue,” announced Lady Angkatell in a rapt voice. “I suppose, Edward, you will
have one of your own friends for best man, otherwise, of course, there is David. I cannot help
feeling it would be frightfully good for David. It would give him poise, you know, and he would
feel we all liked him. That, I am sure, is very important with David. It must be disheartening, you
know, to feel you are clever and intellectual and yet nobody likes you any the better for it! But of
course it would be rather a risk. He would probably lose the ring, or drop it at the last minute. I
expect it would worry Edward too much. But it would be nice in a way to keep it to the same
people we’ve had here for the murder.”
Lady Angkatell uttered the last few words in the most conversational of tones.
“Lady Angkatell has been entertaining a few friends for a murder this autumn,” Midge could
not help saying.
“Yes,” said Lucy meditatively. “I suppose it did sound like that. A party for the shooting. You
know, when you come to think of it, that’s just what it has been!”
Midge gave a faint shiver and said:
“Well, at any rate, it’s over now.”
“It’s not exactly over—the inquest was only adjourned. And that nice Inspector Grange has got
men all over the place simply crashing through the chestnut woods and startling all the pheasants,
and springing up like jacks in the box in the most unlikely places.”
“What are they looking for?” asked Edward. “The revolver that Christow was shot with?”
“I imagine that must be it. They even came to the house with a search warrant. The inspector
was most apologetic about it, quite shy, but of course I told him we should be delighted. It was
really most interesting. They looked absolutely everywhere. I followed them round, you know, and
I suggested one or two places which even they hadn’t thought of. But they didn’t find anything. It
was most disappointing. Poor Inspector Grange, he is growing quite thin and he pulls and pulls at
that moustache of his. His wife ought to give him specially nourishing meals with all this worry he
is having—but I have a vague idea that she must be one of those women who care more about
having the linoleum really well polished than in cooking a tasty little meal. Which reminds me, I
must go and see Mrs. Medway. Funny how servants cannot bear the police. Her cheese soufflé last
night was quite uneatable. Soufflés and pastry always show if one is off balance. If it weren’t for
Gudgeon keeping them all together I really believe half the servants would leave. Why don’t you
two go and have a nice walk and help the police look for the revolver?”
Hercule Poirot sat on the bench overlooking the chestnut groves above the pool. He had no
sense of trespassing since Lady Angkatell had very sweetly begged him to wander where he would
at any time. It was Lady Angkatell’s sweetness which Hercule Poirot was considering at this
moment.
From time to time he heard the cracking of twigs in the woods above or caught sight of a figure
moving through the chestnut groves below him.
Presently Henrietta came along the path from the direction of the lane. She stopped for a
moment when she saw Poirot, then she came and sat down by him.
“Good morning, M. Poirot. I have just been to call upon you. But you were out. You look very
Olympian. Are you presiding over the hunt? The inspector seems very active. What are they
looking for, the revolver?”
“Yes, Miss Savernake.”
“Will they find it, do you think?”
“I think so. Quite soon now, I should say.”
She looked at him inquiringly.
“Have you an idea, then, where it is?”
“No. But I think it will be found soon. It is time for it to be found.”
“You do say odd things, M. Poirot!”
“Odd things happen here. You have come back very soon from London, Mademoiselle.”
Her face hardened. She gave a short, bitter laugh.
“The murderer returns to the scene of the crime? That is the old superstition, isn’t it? So you do
think that I—did it! You don’t believe me when I tell you that I wouldn’t—that I couldn’t kill
anybody?”
Poirot did not answer at once. At last he said thoughtfully:
“It has seemed to me from the beginning that either this crime was very simple—so simple that
it was difficult to believe its simplicity (and simplicity, Mademoiselle, can be strangely baffling) or
else it was extremely complex. That is to say, we were contending against a mind capable of
intricate and ingenious inventions, so that every time we seemed to be heading for the truth, we
were actually being led on a trail that twisted away from the truth and led us to a point which—
ended in nothingness. This apparent futility, this continual barrenness, is not real—it is artificial, it
is planned. A very subtle and ingenious mind is plotting against us the whole time — and
succeeding.”
“Well?” said Henrietta. “What has that to do with me?”
“The mind that is plotting against us is a creative mind, Mademoiselle.”
“I see—that’s where I come in?”
She was silent, her lips set together bitterly. From her jacket pocket she had taken a pencil and
now she was idly drawing the outline of a fantastic tree on the white painted wood of the bench,
frowning as she did so.
Poirot watched her. Something stirred in his mind—standing in Lady Angkatell’s drawing room
on the afternoon of the crime, looking down at a pile of bridge markers, standing by a painted iron
table in the pavilion the next morning, and a question that he had put to Gudgeon.
He said:
“That is what you drew on your bridge marker—a tree.”
“Yes.” Henrietta seemed suddenly aware of what she was doing. “Ygdrasil, M. Poirot.” She
laughed.
“Why do you call it Ygdrasil?”
She explained the origin of Ygdrasil.
“And so, when you ‘doodle’ (that is the word, is it not?) it is always Ygdrasil you draw?”
“Yes. Doodling is a funny thing, isn’t it?”
“Here on the seat—on the bridge marker on Saturday evening—in the pavilion on Sunday
morning….”
The hand that held the pencil stiffened and stopped. She said in a tone of careless amusement:
“In the pavilion?”
“Yes, on the round iron table there.”
“Oh, that must have been on—on Saturday afternoon.”
“It was not on Saturday afternoon. When Gudgeon brought the glasses out to the pavilion about
twelve o’clock on Sunday morning, there was nothing drawn on the table. I asked him and he is
quite definite about that.”
“Then it must have been”—she hesitated for just a moment—“of course, on Sunday afternoon.”
But still smiling pleasantly, Hercule Poirot shook his head.
“I think not. Grange’s men were at the pool all Sunday afternoon, photographing the body,
getting the revolver out of the water. They did not leave until dusk. They would have seen anyone
go into the pavilion.”
Henrietta said slowly:
“I remember now. I went along there quite late in the evening—after dinner.”
Poirot’s voice came sharply:
“People do not ‘doodle’ in the dark, Miss Savernake. Are you telling me that you went into the
pavilion at night and stood by a table and drew a tree without being able to see what you were
drawing?”
Henrietta said calmly: “I am telling you the truth. Naturally you don’t believe it. You have your
own ideas. What is your idea, by the way?”
“I am suggesting that you were in the pavilion on Sunday morning after twelve o’clock when
Gudgeon brought the glasses out. That you stood by that table watching someone, or waiting for
someone, and unconsciously took out a pencil and drew Ygdrasil without being fully aware of
what you were doing.”
“I was not in the pavilion on Sunday morning. I sat out on the terrace for a while, then I got the
gardening basket and went up to the dahlia border and cut off heads and tied up some of the
Michaelmas daisies that were untidy. Then just on one o’clock I went along to the pool. I’ve been
through it all with Inspector Grange. I never came near the pool until one o’clock, just after John
had been shot.”
“That,” said Hercule Poirot, “is your story. But Ygdrasil, Mademoiselle, testifies against you.”
“I was in the pavilion and I shot John, that’s what you mean?”
“You were there and you shot Dr. Christow, or you were there and you saw who shot Dr.
Christow—or someone else was there who knew about Ygdrasil and deliberately drew it on the
table to put suspicion on you.”
Henrietta got up. She turned on him with her chin lifted.
“You still think that I shot John Christow. You think that you can prove I shot him. Well, I will
tell you this. You will never prove it. Never!”
“You think that you are cleverer than I am?”
“You will never prove it,” said Henrietta, and, turning, she walked away down the winding path
that led to the swimming pool.
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