The Hollow - Agatha Christie [60]
‘Mrs Crabtree?’ Poirot was surprised. ‘Who, then, is this Mrs Crabtree?’
There was something between tears and laughter in Henrietta’s voice as she went on:
‘She’s an old woman–ugly, dirty, wrinkled, quite indomitable. John thought the world of her. She’s a patient in St Christopher’s Hospital. She’s got Ridgeway’s Disease. That’s a disease that’s very rare, but if you get it you’re bound to die–there just isn’t any cure. But John was finding a cure–I can’t explain technically–it was all very complicated–some question of hormone secretions. He’d been making experiments and Mrs Crabtree was his prize patient–you see, she’s got guts, she wants to live–and she was fond of John. She and he were fighting on the same side. Ridgeway’s Disease and Mrs Crabtree is what has been uppermost in John’s mind for months–night and day–nothing else really counted. That’s what being the kind of doctor John was really means–not all the Harley Street stuff and the rich, fat women, that’s only a sideline. It’s the intense scientific curiosity and the achievement. I–oh, I wish I could make you understand.’
Her hands flew out in a curiously despairing gesture, and Hercule Poirot thought how very lovely and sensitive those hands were.
He said:
‘You seem to understand very well.’
‘Oh, yes, I understood. John used to come and talk, do you see? Not quite to me–partly, I think, to himself. He got things clear that way. Sometimes he was almost despairing–he couldn’t see how to overcome the heightened toxicity–and then he’d get an idea for varying the treatment. I can’t explain to you what it was like–it was like, yes, a battle. You can’t imagine the–the fury of it and the concentration–and yes, sometimes the agony. And sometimes the sheer tiredness…’
She was silent for a minute or two, her eyes dark with remembrance.
Poirot said curiously:
‘You must have a certain technical knowledge yourself ?’
She shook her head.
‘Not really. Only enough to understand what John was talking about. I got books and read about it.’
She was silent again, her face softened, her lips half-parted. She was, he thought, remembering.
With a sigh, her mind came back to the present. She looked at him wistfully.
‘If I could only make you see–’
‘But you have, Mademoiselle.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes. One recognizes authenticity when one hears it.’
‘Thank you. But it won’t be so easy to explain to Inspector Grange.’
‘Probably not. He will concentrate on the personal angle.’
Henrietta said vehemently:
‘And that was so unimportant–so completely unimportant.’
Poirot’s eyebrows rose slowly. She answered his unspoken protest.
‘But it was! You see–after a while–I got between John and what he was thinking of. I affected him, as a woman. He couldn’t concentrate as he wanted to concentrate–because of me. He began to be afraid that he was beginning to love me–he didn’t want to love anyone. He–he made love to me because he didn’t want to think about me too much. He wanted it to be light, easy, just an affair like other affairs that he had had.’
‘And you–’ Poirot was watching her closely. ‘You were content to have it–like that.’
Henrietta got up. She said, and once more it was her dry voice:
‘No, I wasn’t–content. After all, one is human…’
Poirot waited a minute then he said:
‘Then why, Mademoiselle–’
‘Why?’ She whirled round on him. ‘I wanted John to be satisfied, I wanted John to have what he wanted. I wanted him to be able to go on with the thing he cared about–his work. If he didn’t want to be hurt–to be vulnerable again–why–why, that was all right by me.’
Poirot rubbed his nose.
‘Just now, Miss Savernake, you mentioned Veronica Cray. Was she also a friend of John Christow’s?’
‘Until last Saturday night, he hadn’t seen her for fifteen years.’
‘He knew her fifteen years ago?’
‘They were engaged to be married.’ Henrietta came back