The Hollow - Agatha Christie [95]
Henrietta said quickly:
‘I’m afraid, Gerda, I’m rather a suspicious character. M. Poirot seems to have been shadowing me. He thinks that I killed John–but he can’t prove it.’
She spoke slowly and deliberately. So long as Gerda did not give herself away.
Gerda said vaguely: ‘I’m so sorry. Will you have some tea, M. Poirot?’
‘No, thank you, Madame.’
Gerda sat down behind the tray. She began to talk in her apologetic, conversational way.
‘I’m so sorry that everybody is out. My sister and the children have all gone for a picnic. I didn’t feel very well, so they left me behind.’
‘I am sorry, Madame.’
Gerda lifted a teacup and drank.
‘It is all so very worrying. Everything is so worrying. You see, John always arranged everything and now John is gone…’ Her voice tailed off. ‘Now John is gone.’
Her gaze, piteous, bewildered, went from one to the other.
‘I don’t know what to do without John. John looked after me. He took care of me. Now he is gone, everything is gone. And the children–they ask me questions and I can’t answer them properly. I don’t know what to say to Terry. He keeps saying: “Why was Father killed?” Some day, of course, he will find out why. Terry always has to know. What puzzles me is that he always asks why, not who!’
Gerda leaned back in her chair. Her lips were very blue.
She said stiffly:
‘I feel–not very well–if John–John–’
Poirot came round the table to her and eased her sideways down in the chair. Her head dropped forward. He bent and lifted her eyelid. Then he straightened up.
‘An easy and comparatively painless death.’
Henrietta stared at him.
‘Heart? No.’ Her mind leaped forward. ‘Something in the tea. Something she put there herself. She chose that way out?’
Poirot shook his head gently.
‘Oh, no, it was meant for you. It was in your teacup.’
‘For me?’ Henrietta’s voice was incredulous. ‘But I was trying to help her.’
‘That did not matter. Have you not seen a dog caught in a trap–it sets its teeth into anyone who touches it. She saw only that you knew her secret and so you, too, must die.’
Henrietta said slowly:
‘And you made me put the cup back on the tray–you meant–you meant her–’
Poirot interrupted her quietly:
‘No, no, Mademoiselle. I did not know that there was anything in your teacup. I only knew that there might be. And when the cup was on the tray it was an even chance if she drank from that or the other–if you call it chance. I say myself that an end such as this is merciful. For her–and for two innocent children.’
He said gently to Henrietta: ‘You are very tired, are you not?’
She nodded. She asked him: ‘When did you guess?’
‘I do not know exactly. The scene was set; I felt that from the first. But I did not realize for a long time that it was set by Gerda Christow–that her attitude was stagey because she was, actually, acting a part. I was puzzled by the simplicity and at the same time the complexity. I recognized fairly soon that it was your ingenuity that I was fighting against, and that you were being aided and abetted by your relations as soon as they understood what you wanted done!’ He paused and added: ‘Why did you want it done?’
‘Because John asked me to! That’s what he meant when he said “Henrietta.” It was all there in that one word. He was asking me to protect Gerda. You see, he loved Gerda. I think he loved Gerda much better than he ever knew he did. Better than Veronica Cray. Better than me. Gerda belonged to him, and John liked things that belonged to him. He knew that if anyone could protect Gerda from the consequences of what she’d done, I could. And he knew that I would do anything he wanted, because I loved him.’
‘And you started at once,’ said Poirot grimly.
‘Yes, the first thing I could think of was to get the revolver away from her and drop it in the pool. That would obscure the fingerprint business. When I discovered later that he had been shot with a different gun, I went out to look for it, and naturally found it at once because I knew just the sort of