The Hollow - Agatha Christie [55]
They had been, Beryl said, on excellent terms.
‘I suppose they quarrelled every now and then like most married couples?’ The inspector sounded easy and confidential.
‘I do not remember any quarrels. Mrs Christow was quite devoted to her husband–really quite slavishly so.’
There was a faint edge of contempt in her voice. Inspector Grange heard it.
‘Bit of a feminist, this girl,’ he thought.
Aloud he said:
‘Didn’t stand up for herself at all?’
‘No. Everything revolved round Dr Christow.’
‘Tyrannical, eh?’
Beryl considered.
‘No, I wouldn’t say that. But he was what I should call a very selfish man. He took it for granted that Mrs Christow would always fall in with his ideas.’
‘Any difficulties with patients–women, I mean? You needn’t think about being frank, Miss Collins. One knows doctors have their difficulties in that line.’
‘Oh, that sort of thing!’ Beryl’s voice was scornful. ‘Dr Christow was quite equal to dealing with any difficulties in that line. He had an excellent manner with patients.’ She added, ‘He was really a wonderful doctor.’
There was an almost grudging admiration in her voice.
Grange said: ‘Was he tangled up with any woman? Don’t be loyal, Miss Collins, it’s important that we should know.’
‘Yes, I can appreciate that. Not to my knowledge.’
A little too brusque, he thought. She doesn’t know, but perhaps she guesses.
He said sharply, ‘What about Miss Henrietta Savernake?’
Beryl’s lips closed tightly.
‘She was a close friend of the family’s.’
‘No–trouble between Dr and Mrs Christow on her account?’
‘Certainly not.’
The answer was emphatic. (Over-emphatic?)
The inspector shifted his ground.
‘What about Miss Veronica Cray?’
‘Veronica Cray?’
There was pure astonishment in Beryl’s voice.
‘She was a friend of Dr Christow’s, was she not?’
‘I never heard of her. At least, I seem to know the name–’
‘The motion-picture actress.’
Beryl’s brow cleared.
‘Of course! I wondered why the name was familiar. But I didn’t even know that Dr Christow knew her.’
She seemed so positive on the point that the inspector abandoned it at once. He went on to question her about Dr Christow’s manner on the preceding Saturday. And here, for the first time, the confidence of Beryl’s replies wavered. She said slowly:
‘His manner wasn’t quite as usual.’
‘What was the difference?’
‘He seemed distrait. There was quite a long gap before he rang for his last patient–and yet normally he was always in a hurry to get through when he was going away. I thought–yes, I definitely thought he had something on his mind.’
But she could not be more definite.
Inspector Grange was not very satisfied with his investigations. He’d come nowhere near establishing motive–and motive had to be established before there was a case to go to the Public Prosecutor.
He was quite certain in his own mind that Gerda Christow had shot her husband. He suspected jealousy as the motive–but so far he had found nothing to go on. Sergeant Coombes had been working on the maids but they all told the same story. Mrs Christow worshipped the ground her husband walked on.
Whatever happened, he thought, must have happened down at The Hollow. And remembering The Hollow he felt a vague disquietude. They were an odd lot down there.
The telephone on the desk rang and Miss Collins picked up the receiver.
She said: ‘It’s for you, Inspector,’ and passed the instrument to him.
‘Hallo, Grange here. What’s that?’ Beryl heard the alteration in his tone and looked at him curiously. The wooden-looking face was impassive as ever. He was grunting–listening.
‘Yes…yes, I’ve got that. That’s absolutely certain, is it? No margin of error. Yes…yes…yes, I’ll be down. I’ve about finished here. Yes.’
He put the receiver back and sat for a moment motionless. Beryl looked at him curiously.
He pulled himself together and asked in a voice that was quite different from the voice of his previous questions:
‘You’ve no ideas of your own, I suppose, Miss Collins, about this matter?’
‘You mean–’
‘I mean no ideas as to who it was killed Dr Christow?’
She said flatly: