The Hollow

"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 down as she did so.

Poirot watched her. Something stirred in his mind-standing in Lady AngkatelFs 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 5 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.

Chapter XXVI

Grange came into Resthaven to drink a cup of tea with Hercule Poirot. The tea was exactly what he had had apprehensions it might be-extremely weak and China tea at that.

"These foreigners," thought Grange,

"don't know how to make tea-you can't teach 'em." But he did not mind much. He was in a condition of pessimism when one more thing that was unsatisfactory actually afforded him a kind of grim satisfaction.