The Hollow - Agatha Christie [85]
‘Their stories of how they spent the morning are satisfactory?’
‘The stories are all right. Miss Savernake was gardening. Lady Angkatell was collecting eggs. Edward Angkatell and Sir Henry were shooting and separated at the end of the morning–Sir Henry coming back to the house and Edward Angkatell coming down here through the woods. The young fellow was up in his bedroom reading. (Funny place to read on a nice day, but he’s the indoor, bookish kind.) Miss Hardcastle took a book down to the orchard. All sounds very natural and likely, and there’s no means of checking up on it. Gudgeon took a tray of glasses out to the pavilion about twelve o’clock. He can’t say where any of the house party were or what they were doing. In a way, you know, there’s something against almost all of them.’
‘Really?’
‘Of course the most obvious person is Veronica Cray. She had quarrelled with Christow, she hated his guts, she’s quite likely to have shot him–but I can’t find the least iota of proof that she did shoot him. No evidence as to her having had any opportunity to pinch the revolvers from Sir Henry’s collection. No one who saw her going to or from the pool that day. And the missing revolver definitely isn’t in her possession now.’
‘Ah, you have made sure of that?’
‘What do you think? The evidence would have justified a search warrant but there was no need. She was quite gracious about it. It’s not anywhere in that tin-pot bungalow. After the inquest was adjourned we made a show of letting up on Miss Cray and Miss Savernake, and we’ve had a tail on them to see where they went and what they’d do. We’ve had a man on at the film studios watching Veronica–no sign of her trying to ditch the gun there.’
‘And Henrietta Savernake?’
‘Nothing there either. She went straight back to Chelsea and we’ve kept an eye on her ever since. The revolver isn’t in her studio or in her possession. She was quite pleasant about the search–seemed amused. Some of her fancy stuff gave our man quite a turn. He said it beat him why people wanted to do that kind of thing–statues all lumps and swellings, bits of brass and aluminium twisted into fancy shapes, horses that you wouldn’t know were horses.’
Poirot stirred a little.
‘Horses, you say?’
‘Well, a horse. If you’d call it a horse! If people want to model a horse, why don’t they go and look at a horse!’
‘A horse,’ repeated Poirot.
Grange turned his head.
‘What is there about that that interests you so, M. Poirot? I don’t get it.’
‘Association–a point of the psychology.’
‘Word association? Horse and cart? Rocking-horse? Clothes horse. No, I don’t get it. Anyway, after a day or two, Miss Savernake packs up and comes down here again. You know that?’
‘Yes, I have talked with her and I have seen her walking in the woods.’
‘Restless, yes. Well, she was having an affair with the doctor all right, and his saying: “Henrietta” as he died is pretty near to an accusation. But it’s not quite near enough, M. Poirot.’
‘No,’ said Poirot thoughtfully, ‘it is not near enough.’
Grange said heavily:
‘There’s something in the atmosphere here–it gets you all tangled up! It’s as though they all knew something. Lady Angkatell now–she’s never been able to put out a decent reason why she took out a gun with her that day. It’s a crazy thing to do–sometimes I think she is crazy.’
Poirot shook his head very gently.
‘No,’ he said, ‘she is not crazy.’
‘Then there’s Edward Angkatell. I thought I was getting something on him. Lady Angkatell said–no, hinted–that he’d been in love with Miss Savernake for years. Well, that gives him a motive. And now I find it’s the other girl–Miss Hardcastle–that he’s engaged to. So bang goes the case against him.’
Poirot gave a sympathetic murmur.
‘Then there’s the young fellow,’ pursued the inspector. ‘Lady Angkatell let slip something about him. His mother, it seems, died in an asylum–persecution mania–thought everybody was conspiring to kill her. Well, you can see what that might mean. If the boy had inherited that particular strain of insanity, he might have got