The Hollow - Agatha Christie [88]
‘Thank you,’ said David. ‘But when I come down I am going to Athens–to the British School.’
Lady Angkatell turned to her husband.
‘Who’s got the Embassy now? Oh, of course. Hope-Remmington. No, I don’t think David would like them. Those girls of theirs are so terribly hearty. They play hockey and cricket and the funny game where you catch the thing in a net.’
She broke off, looking down at the telephone receiver.
‘Now, what am I doing with this thing?’
‘Perhaps you were going to ring someone up,’ said Edward.
‘I don’t think so.’ She replaced it. ‘Do you like telephones, David?’
It was the sort of question, David reflected irritably, that she would ask; one to which there could be no intelligent answer. He replied coldly that he supposed they were useful.
‘You mean,’ said Lady Angkatell, ‘like mincing machines? Or elastic bands? All the same, one wouldn’t–’
She broke off as Gudgeon appeared in the doorway to announce lunch.
‘But you like partridges,’ said Lady Angkatell to David anxiously.
David admitted that he liked partridges.
‘Sometimes I think Lucy really is a bit touched,’ said Midge as she and Edward strolled away from the house and up towards the woods.
The partridges and the Soufflé Surprise had been excellent, and with the inquest over a weight had lifted from the atmosphere.
Edward said thoughtfully:
‘I always think Lucy has a brilliant mind that expresses itself like a missing word competition. To mix metaphors–the hammer jumps from nail to nail and never fails to hit each one squarely on the head.’
‘All the same,’ Midge said soberly, ‘Lucy frightens me sometimes.’ She added, with a tiny shiver: ‘This place has frightened me lately.’
‘The Hollow?’
Edward turned an astonished face to her.
‘It always reminds me a little of Ainswick,’ he said. ‘It’s not, of course, the real thing–’
Midge interrupted:
‘That’s just it, Edward. I’m frightened of things that aren’t the real thing. You don’t know, you see, what’s behind them. It’s like–oh, it’s like a mask.’
‘You mustn’t be fanciful, little Midge.’
It was the old tone, the indulgent tone he had used years ago. She had liked it then, but now it disturbed her. She struggled to make her meaning clear–to show him that behind what he called fancy, was some shape of dimly apprehended reality.
‘I got away from it in London, but now that I’m back here it all comes over me again. I feel that everyone knows who killed John Christow. That the only person who doesn’t know–is me.’
Edward said irritably:
‘Must we think and talk about John Christow? He’s dead. Dead and gone.’
Midge murmured:
‘He is dead and gone, lady,
He is dead and gone.
At his head a grass green turf,
At his heels a stone.’
She put her hand on Edward’s arm. ‘Who did kill him, Edward? We thought it was Gerda–but it wasn’t Gerda. Then who was it? Tell me what you think? Was it someone we’ve never heard of ?’
He said irritably:
‘All this speculation seems to me quite unprofitable. If the police can’t find out, or can’t get sufficient evidence, then the whole thing will have to be allowed to drop–and we shall be rid of it.’
‘Yes–but it’s the not knowing.’
‘Why should we want to know? What has John Christow to do with us?’
With us, she thought, with Edward and me? Nothing! Comforting thought–she and Edward, linked, a dual entity. And yet–and yet–John Christow, for all that he had been laid in his grave and the words of the burial service read over him, was not buried deep enough. He is dead and gone, lady–But John Christow was not dead and gone–for all that Edward wished him to be. John Christow was still here at The Hollow.
Edward said: ‘Where are we going?’
Something in his tone surprised her. She said:
‘Let’s walk up on to the top of the ridge. Shall we?’
‘If you like.’
For some reason he was unwilling. She wondered why. It was usually his favourite walk. He and Henrietta used nearly always–Her thought snapped and broke