The Hollow

"I knew you'd ask me that," said Lady Angkatell. Her tone, unexpectedly, was almost triumphant. "And, of course, there must be some reason. Don't you think so, Henry?" She turned to her husband. "Don't you think I must have had a reason for taking a pistol out that morning?"

"I should certainly have thought so, my dear," said Sir Henry stiffly.

"One does things," said Lady Angkatell, gazing thoughtfully in front of her, "and then one doesn't remember why one has done them. But I think, you know. Inspector, that there always is a reason if one can only get at it. I must have had some idea in my head when I put the Mauser into my egg basket." She appealed to him. "What do you think it can have been?"

Grange stared at her. She displayed no embarrassment-just a childlike eagerness.

It beat him. He had never yet met anyone like Lucy Angkatell and just for the moment he didn't know what to do about it.

"My wife," said Sir Henry, "is extremely absentminded, Inspector.'' "So it seems, sir," said Grange. He did not say it very nicely.

"Why do you think I took that pistol?"

Lady Angkatell asked him confidentially.

"I have no idea, Lady Angkatell."

«I came in here," mused Lady Angkatell.

"I had been talking to Simmons about the pillow cases-and I dimly remember crossing over to the fireplace-and thinking we must get a new poker-the curate, not the rector-"

Inspector Grange stared. He felt his head going round.

"And I remember picking up the Mauser-it was a nice handy little gun, I've always liked it-and dropping it into the basket-I'd just got the basket from the flower room-But there were so many things in my head-Simmons, you know, and the bindweed in the Michaelmas daisies-and hoping Mrs. Medway would make a really rich Nigger in his Shirt-"

"A nigger in his shirt?" Inspector Grange had to break in.

"Chocolate, you know, and eggs-and then covered with whipped cream. Just the sort of sweet a foreigner would like for lunch."

Inspector Grange spoke fiercely and brusquely, feeling like a man who brushes away fine spiders' webs which are impairing his vision.

"Did you load the pistol?"

He had hoped to startle her-perhaps even to frighten her a little;, but Lady Angkatell only considered the question with a kind of desperate thoughtfulness.

"Now did I? That's so stupid. I can't remember.

But I should think I must have, don't you. Inspector? I mean, what's the good of a pistol without ammunition? I wish I could remember exactly what was in my head at the time."

"My dear Lucy," said Sir Henry. "What goes on or does not go on in your head has been for years the despair of everyone who knows you well."

She flashed him a very sweet smile.

"I am trying to remember. Henry dear.

One does such curious things. I picked up the telephone receiver the other morning and found myself looking down at it quite bewildered.

I couldn't imagine what I wanted with it."

"Presumably you were going to ring someone up," said the Inspector coldly.

"No, funnily enough, I wasn't. I remembered afterwards-I'd been wondering why Mrs. Mears, the gardener's wife, held her baby in such an odd way, and I picked up the telephone receiver to try, you know, just how one would hold a baby and of course I

Chapter XXI

In the study. Lady Angkatell flitted about, touching things here and there with a vague forefinger. Sir Henry sat back in his chair watching her. He said at last:

"Why did you take the pistol, Lucy?"

Lady Angkatell came back and sank down gracefully into a chair.

"I'm not really quite sure. Henry. I suppose I had some vague ideas of an accident."

"Accident?"

"Yes. All those roots of trees, you know," said Lady Angkatell vaguely, "sticking out -so easy, just to trip over one… One might have had a few shots at the target and left one shot in the magazine-careless, of course-but then people are careless. I've always thought, you know, that accident would be the simplest way to do a thing of that kind. One would be dreadfully sorry, of course, and blame oneself…"

Her voice died away. Her husband sat very still without taking his eyes off her face.

He spoke again in the same quiet careful voice:

"Who was to have had-the accident?"

Lucy turned her head a little, looking at him in surprise.

"John Christow, of course."

"Good God, Lucy-" He broke off.

She said earnestly:

"Oh, Henry, I've been so dreadfully worried.

About Ainswick."

"I see. It's Ainswick. You've always cared too much about Ainswick, Lucy. Sometimes I think it's the only thing you do care for…"

"Edward and David are the last-the last of the Angkatells. And David won't do, Henry. He'll never marry-because of his mother and all that. He'll get the place when Edward dies, and he won't marry, and you and I will be dead long before he's even middle-aged.

He'll be the last of the Angkatells and the whole thing will die out."

"Does it matter so much, Lucy?"

"Of course it matters! Ainswick r) "You should have been a boy, Lucy."

But he smiled a little-for he could not imagine Lucy being anything but feminine.