The Hollow - Agatha Christie [71]
Grange stared at her. She displayed no embarrassment–just a childlike eagerness. It beat him. He had never yet met anyone like Lucy Angkatell, and just for the moment he didn’t know what to do about it.
‘My wife,’ said Sir Henry, ‘is extremely absentminded, Inspector.’
‘So it seems, sir,’ said Grange. He did not say it very nicely.
‘Why do you think I took that pistol?’ Lady Angkatell asked him confidentially.
‘I have no idea, Lady Angkatell.’
‘I came in here,’ mused Lady Angkatell. ‘I had been talking to Simmons about the pillow-cases–and I remember dimly crossing over to the fireplace–and thinking we must get a new poker–the curate, not the rector–’
Inspector Grange stared. He felt his head going round.
‘And I remember picking up the Mauser–it was a nice handy little gun, I’ve always liked it–and dropping it into the basket–I’d just got the basket from the flower-room. But there were so many things in my head–Simmons, you know, and the bindweed in the Michaelmas daisies–and hoping Mrs Medway would make a really rich Nigger in his Shirt–’
‘A nigger in his shirt?’ Inspector Grange had to break in.
‘Chocolate, you know, and eggs–and then covered with whipped cream. Just the sort of sweet a foreigner would like for lunch.’
Inspector Grange spoke fiercely and brusquely, feeling like a man who brushes away fine spiders’ webs which are impairing his vision.
‘Did you load the pistol?’
He had hoped to startle her–perhaps even to frighten her a little, but Lady Angkatell only considered the question with a kind of desperate thoughtfulness.
‘Now did I? That’s so stupid. I can’t remember. But I should think I must have, don’t you, Inspector? I mean, what’s the good of a pistol without ammunition? I wish I could remember exactly what was in my head at the time.’
‘My dear Lucy,’ said Sir Henry. ‘What goes on or does not go on in your head has been the despair of everyone who knows you well for years.’
She flashed him a very sweet smile.
‘I am trying to remember, Henry dear. One does such curious things. I picked up the telephone receiver the other morning and found myself looking down at it quite bewildered. I couldn’t imagine what I wanted with it.’
‘Presumably you were going to ring someone up,’ said the inspector coldly.
‘No, funnily enough, I wasn’t. I remembered afterwards–I’d been wondering why Mrs Mears, the gardener’s wife, held her baby in such an odd way, and I picked up the telephone receiver to try, you know, just how one would hold a baby, and of course I realized that it had looked odd because Mrs Mears was left-handed and had its head the other way round.’
She looked triumphantly from one to the other of the two men.
‘Well,’ thought the inspector, ‘I suppose it’s possible that there are people like this.’
But he did not feel very sure about it.
The whole thing, he realized, might be a tissue of lies. The kitchenmaid, for instance, had distinctly stated that it was a revolver Gudgeon had been holding. Still, you couldn’t set much store by that. The girl knew nothing of firearms. She had heard a revolver talked about in connection with the crime, and revolver or pistol would be all one to her.
Both Gudgeon and Lady Angkatell had specified the Mauser pistol–but there was nothing to prove their statement. It might actually have been the missing revolver that Gudgeon had been handling and he might have returned it, not to the study, but to Lady Angkatell herself. The servants all seemed absolutely besotted about the damned woman.
Supposing it was actually she who had shot John Christow? (But why should she? He couldn’t see why.) Would they still back her up and tell lies for her? He had an uncomfortable feeling that that was just what they would do.
And now this fantastic story of hers about not being able to remember–surely she could think up something better than that. And looking so natural about it –not in the least embarrassed or apprehensive. Damn it all, she gave you the impression that she was speaking the literal truth.
He got up.
‘When you remember a little more, perhaps you’ll tell me,