The Hollow

"That's the shock, Mrs. Christow."

"Yes, yes-I suppose it is… But you see it was all so sudden. I went out from the house and along the path to the swimming pool-"

"At what time, Mrs. Christow?"

"It was just before one o'clock-about two minutes to one. I know, because I looked at that clock. And when I got there-there was John, lying there-and blood on the edge of the concrete…"

"Did you hear a shot, Mrs. Christow?"

"Yes-no-I don't know. I knew Sir Henry and Mr. Angkatell were out shooting … I-I just saw John-"

"Yes, Mrs. Christow?"

"John-and blood-and a revolver. I picked up the revolver-"

"Why?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Why did you pick up the revolver, Mrs.

Christow?"

"I-I don't know."

"You shouldn't have touched it, you know."

"Shouldn't I?" Gerda was vague, her face vacant. "But I did. I held it in my hand…"

She looked down now at her hands as though she was, in fancy, seeing the revolver lying in them.

She turned sharply to the Inspector. Her voice was suddenly sharp-anguished.

"Who could have killed John? Nobody could have wanted to kill him. He was-he was the best of men. So kind, so unselfish ^he did everything for other people. Everybody loved him. Inspector. He was a wonderful doctor. The best and kindest of husbands. It must have been an accident-it must-it must!" She flung out a hand to the room.

"Ask anyone. Inspector. Nobody could have wanted to kill John, could they?"

She appealed to them all.

Inspector Grange closed up his notebook.

"Thank you, Mrs. Christow," he said in an unemotional voice. "That will be all for the present."

Hercule Poirot and Inspector Grange went together through the chestnut woods to the swimming pool. The thing that had been John Christow but which was now "the body" had been photographed and measured and written about and examined by the police surgeon and had now been taken away to the mortuary. The swimming pool, Poirot thought, looked curiously innocent-Everything about today, he thought, had been strangely fluid. Except John Christow-he had not been fluid. Even in death he had been purposeful and objective. The swimming pool was not now preeminently a swimming pool, it was the place where John Christow's body had lain and where his life blood had welled away over concrete into artificially blue water…

Artificial-for a moment Poirot grasped at the word… Yes, there had been something artificial about it all. As though-A man in a bathing suit came up to the Inspector.

"Here's the revolver, sir," he said.

Grange took the dripping object gingerly.

"No hope of finger-prints now," he remarked, "but luckily it doesn't matter in this case. Mrs. Christow was actually holding the revolver when you arrived, wasn't she, M.

Poirot?"

"Yes."

"Identification of the revolver is the next thing," said Grange. "I should imagine Sir Henry will be able to do that for us. She got it from his study, I should say."

He cast a glance around the pool.

"Now, let's have that again to be quite clear. The path below the pool comes up from the farm and that's the way Lady Angkatell came- The other two, Mr. Edward Angkatell and Miss Savernake, came down from the woods-but not together. He came by the left-hand path, and she by the righthand one which leads out of the long flower walk above the house. But they were both standing on the far side of the pool when you arrived?"

"Yes."

"And this path here beside the pavilion leads on to Fodder's Lane. Right-we'll go along it."

As they walked. Grange spoke, without excitement, just with knowledge and quiet pessimism.

"Never like these cases much," he said.

"Had one last year-down near Ashridge.

Retired military man he was-distinguished career. Wife was the nice, quiet, old-fashioned kind, sixty-five, grey hair-rather pretty hair with a wave in it. Did a lot of gardening. One day she goes up to his room, gets out his service revolver, and walks out into the garden and shoots him. Just like that! A good deal behind it, of course, that one had to dig out. Sometimes they think up some fool story about a tramp! We pretend to accept it, of course, keep things quiet whilst we're making inquiries, but we know what's what."

"You mean," said Poirot, "that you have decided that Mrs. Christow shot her husband?"

Grange gave him a look of surprise.

"Well, don't you think so?" Poirot said slowly, "It could all have happened as she said."

Inspector Grange shrugged his shoulders.

"It could have-yes. But it's a thin story.

And they all think she killed him! They know something we don't." He looked curiously at his companion. "You thought she'd done it all right, didn't you, when you arrived on the scene?"

Poirot half closed his eyes. Coming along the path… Gudgeon stepping aside…

Gerda Christow standing over her husband with the revolver in her hand and that blank look on her face. Yes, as Grange had said, he had thought she had done it… had thought, at least, that that was the impression he was meant to have… Yes, but that was not the same thing…

A scene staged-set to deceive…