The Hollow

She would always love Edward and Edward would always love Henrietta and life was just plain unadulterated hell…

She said, with a little catch in her voice:

"It's a lovely ring, Edward."

"I wish you'd keep it. Midge. I'd like you to have it."

She shook her head.

"I couldn't do that."

He said, with a faint humorous twist of the lips:

"I shan't give it to anyone else, you know."

It was all quite friendly. He didn't know -he would never know-just what she was feeling… Heaven on a plate-and the plate was broken and Heaven had slipped between her fingers or had, perhaps, never been there.

That afternoon, Poirot received his third visitor.

He had been visited by Henrietta Savernake and by Veronica Cray. This time it was Lady Angkatell. She came floating up the path with her usual appearance of insubstantiality.

He opened the door and she stood smiling at him.

"I have come to see you," she announced.

So might a fairy confer a favour on a mere mortal.

"I am enchanted, Madame."

He led the way into the sitting room. She sat down on the sofa and once more, she smiled.

Hercule Poirot thought: "She is old-her hair is grey-there are lines in her face. Yet she has magic-she will always have magic

"

±\^

Lady Angkatell said softly:

"I want you to do something for me."

"Yes, Madame?"

"To begin with, I must talk to you-about John Christow."

"About Dr. Christow?"

"Yes. It seems to me that the only thing to do is to put a full stop to the whole thing.

You understand what I mean, don't you?"

"I am not sure that I do know what you mean. Lady Angkatell."

She gave him her lovely dazzling smile again and she put one long white hand on his sleeve.

"Dear M. Poirot, you know perfectly. The police will have to hunt about for the owner of those finger-prints and they won't find him and in the end they'll have to let the whole thing drop. But I'm afraid, you know, that you won't let it drop."

"No, I shall not let it drop," said Hercule Poirot.

"That is just what I thought… And that is why I came. It's the truth you want, isn't it?"

"Certainly I want the truth."

"I see I haven't explained myself very well. I'm trying to find out just why you won't let things drop. It isn't because of your prestige-or because you want to hang a murderer (such an unpleasant kind of death, I've always thought-so medieval). It's just, I think, that you want to know. You do see what I mean, don't you? If you were to know the truth-if you were to be told the truth, I think-I think perhaps that might satisfy you? Would it satisfy you, M. Poirot?"

"You are offering to tell me the truth,

Lady Angkatell?"

She nodded:

"You yourself know the truth, then?"

Her eyes opened very wide.

"Oh, yes, I've known for a long time. I'd like to tell you. And then we could agree that-well, that it was all over and done with."

She smiled at him.

"Is it a bargain, M. Poirot?"

It was quite an effort for Hercule Poirot to say:

"No, Madame, it is not a bargain."

He wanted-he wanted, very badly, to let the whole thing drop… simply because Lucy Angkatell asked him to do so.

Lady Angkatell sat very still for a moment.

Then she raised her eyebrows.

"I wonder," she said… "I wonder if you really know what you are doing?"

Chapter XXVIII

Midge, lying dry eyed and awake in the darkness, turned restlessly on her pillows.

She heard a door unlatch, a footstep in the corridor outside passing her door…

It was Edward's door and Edward's step…

She switched on the lamp by her bed and looked at the clock that stood by the lamp on the table.

It was ten minutes to three.

Edward passing her door and going down the stairs at this hour in the morning. It was odd.

They had all gone to bed early, at half past ten. She herself had not slept, had lain there with burning eyelids and with a dry aching misery racking her feverishly.

She had heard the clock strike downstairs-had heard owls hoot outside her bedroom window. Had felt that depression that reaches ^s nadir at 2:00 a.m. Had thought to herself "i can't bear it-1 can't bear it.

Tomorrow coming-another day… Day after day to be got through."

Banis^d by ^er own act from Ainswick -from ^11 ^e loveliness and dearness of Amswic^ which might have been her very own possession.

But b^ner banishment, better loneliness, better a ^ab and uninteresting life, than life with Edward and Henrietta's ghost. Until that day ^ ^e wood she had not known her own cap^ity for bitter jealousy.

And after all, Edward had never told her that he l^yed her. Affection, kindliness, he had nev^ pretended to more than that. She had accepted the limitation, and not until she had realized what it would mean to live at close quarters with an Edward whose mind and heart had Henrietta as a permanent gu^t, did she know that for her Edward s affection was not enough-.

Edward walking past her door, down the front sta^s It was odd-very odd-where was he going?

Uneasiness grew upon her. It was all part and parc^ of the uneasiness that The Hollow gave her nowadays. What was Edward doing downstairs in the small hours of the morning?

Had he gone out?