The Hollow

If his mild response disappointed her, she did not show it. She got up and gave him one of those long, well-manicured hands.

"Thank you, M. Poirot. What you say seems eminently sensible. I'm so glad I came to you. I-I felt I wanted somebody to know."

"I shall respect your confidence, Madame."

When she had gone, he opened the windows a little. Scents affected him. He did not like Veronica's scent. It was expensive but cloying, overpowering like her personality.

He wondered, as he flapped the curtains, whether Veronica Cray had killed John Christow.

She would have been willing to kill him -he believed that. She would have enjoyed pressing the trigger-would have enjoyed seeing him stagger and fall.

But behind that vindictive anger was something cold and shrewd, something that appraised chances, a cool, calculating intelligence.

However much Veronica Cray wished to kill John Christow, he doubted whether she would have taken the risk.

Chapter XXIII

The inquest was over. It had been the merest formality of an affair, and though warned of this beforehand, yet nearly everyone had a resentful sense of anticlimax.

Adjourned for a fortnight at the request of the police.

Gerda had driven down with Mrs. Patterson from London in a hired Daimler. She had on a black dress and an unbecoming hat and looked nervous and bewildered.

Preparatory to stepping back into the Daimler, she paused as Lady Angkatell came up to her.

"How are you, Gerda dear? Not sleeping too badly, I hope. I think it went off as well as we could hope for, don't you? So sorry we haven't got you with us at The Hollow, but I quite understand how distressing that would be."

Mrs. Patterson said in her bright voice, glancing reproachfully at her sister for not introducing her properly:

"This was Miss Collier's idea-to drive straight down and back. Expensive, of course, but we thought it was worth it."

"Oh, I do so agree with you."

Mrs. Patterson lowered her voice.

"I am taking Gerda and the children straight down to Bexhill. What she needs is rest and quiet. The reporters! You've no idea! Simply swarming round Harley Street."

A young man snapped off a camera, and Elsie Patterson pushed her sister into the car and they drove off.

The others had a momentary view of Gerda's face beneath the unbecoming hat brim.

It was vacant, lost-she looked for the moment like a half-witted child.

Midge Hardcastle muttered under her breath, "Poor devil."

Edward said irritably:

"What did everybody see in Christow?

That wretched woman looks completely heartbroken."

"She was absolutely wrapped up in him," said Midge.

"But why? He was a selfish sort of fellow, good company in a way-but-" He broke off. Then he asked, "What did you think of him. Midge?"

"I?" Midge reflected. She said at last, rather surprised at her own words, "I think I respected him."

"Respected him? For what?"

"Well, he knew his job."

"You're thinking of him as a doctor?"

"Yes."

There was no time for more.

Henrietta was driving Midge back to London in her car. Edward was returning to lunch at The Hollow and going up by the afternoon train with David. He said vaguely to Midge, "You must come out and lunch one day?" and Midge said that that would be very nice but that she couldn't take more than an hour off. Edward gave her his charming smile and said:

"Oh, it's a special occasion. I'm sure they'll understand."

Then he moved towards Henrietta. "I'll ring you up, Henrietta."

"Yes, do, Edward. But I may be out a good deal."

"Out?"

She gave him a quick mocking smile.

"Drowning my sorrow. You don't expect me to sit at home and mope, do you?"

He said slowly, "I don't understand you nowadays, Henrietta. You are quite different."

Her face softened. She said unexpectedly, "Darling Edward," and gave his arm a quick squeeze.

Then she turned to Lucy Angkatell. «I can come back if I want to, can't I, Lucy?"

Lady Angkatell said, "Of course, darling.

And anyway there will be the inquest again in a fortnight."

Henrietta went to where she had parked the car in the market square. Her suitcases and Midge's were already inside.

They got in and drove off.

The car climbed the long hill and came out on the road over the ridge. Below them the brown and golden leaves shivered a little in the chill of a grey Autumn day.

Midge said suddenly, "I'm glad to get away-even from Lucy. Darling as she is, she gives me the creeps sometimes."

Henrietta was looking intently into the small driving mirror.

She said rather inattentively:

"Lucy has to give the coloratura touch-even to murder."

"You know, I'd never thought about murder before." '» 1 A "Why should you? It isn't a thing one thinks about. It's a six-letter word in a crossword, or a pleasant entertainment between the covers of a book. But the real thing-"

She paused. Midge finished:

"Is real! That is what startles one."

Henrietta said:

"It needn't be startling to you. You are outside it. Perhaps the only one of us who is."

Midge said:

"We're all outside it now. We've got away." | Henrietta murmured, "Have we?"