The Hollow - Agatha Christie [62]
Henrietta was repeating:
‘And Echo there, whatever is ask’d her…’ She went on, almost to herself, ‘But of course–I see–that’s what it is–Echo!’
‘How do you mean, Echo?’
‘This place–The Hollow itself ! I almost saw it before–on Saturday when Edward and I walked up to the ridge. An echo of Ainswick. And that’s what we are, we Angkatells. Echoes! We’re not real–not real as John was real.’ She turned to Poirot. ‘I wish you had known him, M. Poirot. We’re all shadows compared to John. John was really alive.’
‘I knew that even when he was dying, Mademoiselle.’
‘I know. One felt it…And John is dead, and we, the echoes, are alive…It’s like, you know, a very bad joke.’
The youth had gone from her face again. Her lips were twisted, bitter with sudden pain.
When Poirot spoke, asking a question, she did not, for a moment, take in what he was saying.
‘I am sorry. What did you say, M. Poirot?’
‘I was asking whether your aunt, Lady Angkatell, liked Dr Christow?’
‘Lucy? She is a cousin, by the way, not an aunt. Yes, she liked him very much.’
‘And your–also a cousin?–Mr Edward Angkatell–did he like Dr Christow?’
Her voice was, he thought, a little constrained, as she replied:
‘Not particularly–but then he hardly knew him.’
‘And your–yet another cousin? Mr David Angkatell?’
Henrietta smiled.
‘David, I think, hates all of us. He spends his time immured in the library reading the Encyclopædia Britannica.’
‘Ah, a serious temperament.’
‘I am sorry for David. He has had a difficult home life. His mother was unbalanced–an invalid. Now his only way of protecting himself is to try to feel superior to everyone. It’s all right as long as it works, but now and then it breaks down and the vulnerable David peeps through.’
‘Did he feel himself superior to Dr Christow?’
‘He tried to–but I don’t think it came off. I suspect that John Christow was just the kind of man that David would like to be. He disliked John in consequence.’
Poirot nodded his head thoughtfully.
‘Yes–self-assurance, confidence, virility–all the intensive male qualities. It is interesting–very interesting.’
Henrietta did not answer.
Through the chestnuts, down by the pool, Hercule Poirot saw a man stooping, searching for something, or so it seemed.
He murmured: ‘I wonder–’
‘I beg your pardon?’
Poirot said: ‘That is one of Inspector Grange’s men. He seems to be looking for something.’
‘Clues, I suppose. Don’t policemen look for clues? Cigarette ash, footprints, burnt matches.’
Her voice held a kind of bitter mockery. Poirot answered seriously.
‘Yes, they look for these things–and sometimes they find them. But the real clues, Miss Savernake, in a case like this, usually lie in the personal relationships of the people concerned.’
‘I don’t think I understand you.’
‘Little things,’ said Poirot, his head thrown back, his eyes half-closed. ‘Not cigarette ash, or a rubber heel mark–but a gesture, a look, an unexpected action…’
Henrietta turned her head sharply to look at him. He felt her eyes, but he did not turn his head. She said:
‘Are you thinking of–anything in particular?’
‘I was thinking of how you stepped forward and took the revolver out of Mrs Christow’s hand then dropped it in the pool.’
He felt the slight start she gave. But her voice was quite normal and calm.
‘Gerda, M. Poirot, is rather a clumsy person. In the shock of the moment, and if the revolver had had another cartridge in it, she might have fired it and–and hurt someone.’
‘But it was rather clumsy of you, was it not, to drop it in the pool?’
‘Well, I had had a shock too.’ She paused. ‘What are you suggesting, M. Poirot?’
Poirot sat up, turned his head, and spoke in a brisk, matter-of-fact way.
‘If there were fingerprints on that revolver, that is to say, fingerprints made before Mrs Christow handled it, it would be interesting to know whose they were–and that we shall never know now.’
Henrietta said quietly but steadily:
‘Meaning that you think they were mine. You are suggesting that I shot John and then left the