The Hollow

A dark stain welled up slowly on his left side and trickled slowly onto the concrete of the pool edge and from there dripped red into the blue water…

Chapter XI

Hercule Poirot flicked a last speck of dust from his shoes. He had dressed carefully for his luncheon party and he was satisfied with the result.

He knew well enough the kind of clothes that were worn in the country on a Sunday in England, but he did not choose to conform to English ideas. He preferred his own standards of urban smartness. He was not an English country gentleman and he would not dress like an English country gentleman. He was Hercule Poirot!

He did not, he confessed it to himself, really like the country. The week-end cottage-so many of his friends had extolled it-he had allowed himself to succumb, and had purchased Resthaven, though the only thing he had liked about it was its shape which was quite square like a box. The surrounding landscape he did not care for, though it was, he knew, supposed to be a beauty spot. It was, however, too wildly asymmetrical to appeal to him. He did not care much for trees at any time-they had that untidy habit of shedding their leaves!

He could endure poplars and he approved of a monkey puzzle-but this riot of beech and oak left him unmoved. Such a landscape was best enjoyed from a car on a fine afternoon.

You exclaimed, "Quel beau pay sage!" and drove back to a good hotel.

The best thing about Resthaven, he considered, was the small vegetable garden neatly laid out in rows by his Belgian gardener, Victor. Meanwhile, Francoise, Victor's wife, devoted herself with tenderness to the care of her employer's stomach.

Hercule Poirot passed through the gate, sighed, glanced down once more at his shining black shoes, adjusted his pale grey Hornburg hat, and looked up and down the road.

He shivered slightly at the aspect of

Dovecotes. Dovecotes and Resthaven had been erected by rival builders, each of whom had acquired a small piece of land. Further enterprise on their part had been swiftly curtailed by a National Trust for preserving the beauties of the countryside. The two houses remained representative of two schools of thought. Resthaven was a box with a roof, severely modern and a little dull. Dovecotes was a riot of half-timbering and Olde Worlde packed into as small a space as possible.

Hercule Poirot debated within himself as to how he should approach The Hollow.

There was, he knew, a little higher up the lane, a small gate and a path. This, the unofficial way, would save a half mile detour by the road. Nevertheless, Hercule Poirot, a stickler for etiquette, decided to take the longer way round and approach the house correctly by the front entrance.

This was his first visit to Sir Henry and Lady Angkatell. One should not, he considered, take short cuts uninvited, especially when one was the guest of people of social importance. He was, it must be admitted, pleased by their invitation.

"Je suis un peu snob," he murmured to himself.

He had retained an agreeable impression of the Angkatells from the time in Baghdad, particularly of Lady Angkatell. "Une originate!" he thought to himself.

His estimation of the time required for walking to The Hollow by road was accurate.

It was exactly one minute to one when he rang the front door bell. He was glad to have arrived and felt slightly tired. He was not fond of walking.

The door was opened by the magnificent Gudgeon of whom Poirot approved. His reception, however, was not quite as he had hoped.

"Her ladyship is in the pavilion by the swimming pool, sir. Will you come this way?"

The passion of the English for sitting out of doors irritated Hercule Poirot. Though one had to put up with this whimsy in the height of Summer, surely, Poirot thought, one should be safe from it by the end of September! The day was mild, certainly, but it had, as Autumn days always had, a certain dampness. How infinitely pleasanter to have been ushered into a comfortable drawingroom with, perhaps, a small fire in the grate.

But no, here he was being led out through French windows across a slope of lawn, past a rockery and then, through a small gate and along a narrow track between closely planted young chestnuts.

It was the habit of the Angkatells to invite guests for one o'clock, and on fine days they had cocktails and sherry in the small pavilion by the swimming pool. Lunch itself was scheduled for one-thirty, by which time, the most unpunctual of guests should have managed to arrive, which permitted Lady AngkatelFs excellent cook to embark on souffles and such accurately timed delicacies without too much trepidation.

To Hercule Poirot, the plan did not commend itself.

"In a little minute," he thought, "I shall be almost back where I started."

With an increasing awareness of his feet in his shoes he followed Gudgeon's tall figure.