The Hollow - Agatha Christie [76]
Midge said suddenly: ‘I’m glad to get away–even from Lucy. Darling as she is, she gives me the creeps sometimes.’
Henrietta was looking intently into the small driving-mirror.
She said rather inattentively:
‘Lucy has to give the coloratura touch–even to murder.’
‘You know, I’d never thought about murder before.’
‘Why should you? It isn’t a thing one thinks about. It’s a six-letter word in a crossword, or a pleasant entertainment between the covers of a book. But the real thing–’
She paused. Midge finished:
‘Is real. That is what startles one.’
Henrietta said:
‘It needn’t be startling to you. You are outside it. Perhaps the only one of us who is.’
Midge said:
‘We’re all outside it now. We’ve got away.’
Henrietta murmured: ‘Have we?’
She was looking in the driving-mirror again. Suddenly she put her foot down on the accelerator. The car responded. She glanced at the speedometer. They were doing over fifty. Presently the needle reached sixty.
Midge looked sideways at Henrietta’s profile. It was not like Henrietta to drive recklessly. She liked speed, but the winding road hardly justified the pace they were going. There was a grim smile hovering round Henrietta’s mouth.
She said: ‘Look over your shoulder, Midge. See that car way back there?’
‘Yes?’
‘It’s a Ventnor 10.’
‘Is it?’ Midge was not particularly interested.
‘They’re useful little cars, low petrol consumption, keep the road well, but they’re not fast.’
‘No?’
Curious, thought Midge, how fascinated Henrietta always was by cars and their performance. ‘As I say, they’re not fast–but that car, Midge, has managed to keep its distance although we’ve been going over sixty.’
Midge turned a startled face to her.
‘Do you mean that–’
Henrietta nodded. ‘The police, I believe, have special engines in very ordinary-looking cars.’
Midge said:
‘You mean they’re still keeping an eye on us all?’
‘It seems rather obvious.’
Midge shivered.
‘Henrietta, can you understand the meaning of this second gun business?’
‘No, it lets Gerda out. But beyond that it just doesn’t seem to add up to anything.’
‘But, if it was one of Henry’s guns–’
‘We don’t know that it was. It hasn’t been found yet, remember.’
‘No, that’s true. It could be someone outside altogether. Do you know who I’d like to think killed John, Henrietta? That woman.’
‘Veronica Cray?’
‘Yes.’
Henrietta said nothing. She drove on with her eyes fixed sternly on the road ahead of her.
‘Don’t you think it’s possible?’ persisted Midge.
‘Possible, yes,’ said Henrietta slowly.
‘Then you don’t think–’
‘It’s no good thinking a thing because you want to think it. It’s the perfect solution–letting all of us out!’
‘Us? But–’
‘We’re in it–all of us. Even you, Midge darling–though they’d be hard put to it to find a motive for your shooting John. Of course I’d like it to be Veronica. Nothing would please me better than to see her giving a lovely performance, as Lucy would put it, in the dock!’
Midge shot a quick look at her.
‘Tell me, Henrietta, does it all make you feel vindictive?’
‘You mean’–Henrietta paused a moment–‘because I loved John?’
‘Yes.’
As she spoke, Midge realized with a slight sense of shock that this was the first time the bald fact had been put into words. It had been accepted by them all, by Lucy and Henry, by Midge, by Edward even, that Henrietta loved John Christow, but nobody had ever so much as hinted at the fact in words before.
There was a pause whilst Henrietta seemed to be thinking. Then she said in a thoughtful voice:
‘I can’t explain to you what I feel. Perhaps I don’t know myself.’
They were driving now over Albert Bridge.
Henrietta said:
‘You’d better come to the studio, Midge. We’ll have tea, and I’ll drive you to your digs afterwards.’
Here in London the short afternoon light was already fading. They drew up at the studio door and Henrietta put her key into the door. She went in and switched on the light.
‘It’s chilly,