"Why was he killed, Mother?"
She had broken down then, becoming hysterical.
"Don't ask me about it - don't talk about it - I can't talk about it... it's all too dreadful."
"But they'll find out, won't they? I mean they have to find out. It's necessary."
So reasonable, so detached... It made Gerda want to scream and laugh and cry. She thought, He doesn't care - he can't care - he just goes on asking questions. Why, he hasn't cried, even.
Terence had gone away, evading his Aunt Elsie's ministrations, a lonely little boy with a stiff pinched face. He had always felt alone. But it hadn't mattered until today.
Today, he thought, was different. If only there was someone who would answer questions reasonably and intelligently.
Tomorrow, Tuesday, he and Nicholson Minor were going to make nitroglycerine. He had been looking forward to it with a thrill. The thrill had gone. He didn't care if he never made nitroglycerine.
Terence felt almost shocked at himself. Not to care any more about scientific experiment! But when a chap's father had been murdered... He thought, My father - murdered...
And something stirred - took root - grew... a slow anger.
Beryl Collier tapped on the bedroom door and came in. She was pale, composed, efficient. She said:
"Inspector Grange is here." And as Gerda gasped and looked at her piteously, Beryl went on quickly, "He said there was no need for him to worry you. He'll have a word with you before he goes, but it is just routine questions about Dr. Christow's practice and I can tell him everything he wants to know."
"Oh, thank you, Collie."
Beryl made a rapid exit and Gerda sighed out:
"Collie is such a help. She's so practical."
"Yes, indeed," said Mrs. Patterson. "An excellent secretary, I'm sure. Very plain, poor girl, isn't she? Oh, well, I always think that's just as well. Especially with an attractive man like John was."
Gerda flamed out at her:
"What do you mean, Elsie? John would never - he never - you talk as though John would have flirted or something horrid if he had had a pretty secretary. John wasn't like that at all."
"Of course not, darling," said Mrs. Patterson. "But after all, one knows what men are like!"
In the consulting room Inspector Grange faced the cool, belligerent glance of Beryl Collier. It was belligerent, he noted that. Well, perhaps that was only natural.
Plain bit of goods, he thought. Nothing between her and the doctor, I shouldn't think. She may have been sweet on him, though. It works that way sometimes.
But not this time, he came to the conclusion, when he leaned back in his chair a quarter of an hour later. Beryl Collier's answers to his questions had been models of clearness. She replied promptly, and obviously had every detail of the doctor's practice at her fingertips. He shifted his ground and began to probe gently into the relations existing between John Christow and his wife.
They had been, Beryl said, on excellent terms. "I suppose they quarrelled every now and then like most married couples?" The Inspector sounded easy and confidential.
"I do not remember any quarrels. Mrs. Christow was quite devoted to her husband - really quite slavishly so."
There was a faint edge of contempt in her voice. Inspector Grange heard it.
Bit of a feminist, this girl, he thought.
Aloud he said:
"Didn't stand up for herself at all?"
"No. Everything revolved round Dr. Christow."
"Tyrannical, eh?"
Beryl considered.
"No, I wouldn't say that... But he was what I should call a very selfish man. He took it for granted that Mrs. Christow would always fall in with his ideas."
"Any difficulties with patients - women, I mean? You needn't mind about being frank, Miss Collier. One knows doctors have their difficulties in that line."
"Oh, that sort of thing!" Beryl's voice was scornful. "Dr. Christow was quite equal to dealing with any difficulties in that line. He had an excellent manner with patients." She added, "He was really a wonderful doctor."
There was an almost grudging admiration in her voice.
Grange said, "Was he tangled up with any woman? Don't be loyal, Miss Collier, it's important that we should know."
"Yes, I can appreciate that. Not to my knowledge."
A little too brusque, he thought. She doesn't know, but perhaps she guesses...
He said sharply, "What about Miss Henrietta Savernake?"
Beryl's lips closed tightly.
"She was a close friend of the family's."
"No - trouble between Dr. and Mrs. Christow on her account?"
"Certainly not."
The answer was emphatic. (Overemphatic?)
The Inspector shifted his ground.
"What about Miss Veronica Cray?"
"Veronica Cray?"
There was pure astonishment in Beryl's voice.
"She was a friend of Dr. Christow's, was she not?"
"I never heard of her. At least, I seem to know the name -"
"The motion picture actress."
Beryl's brow cleared.
"Of course! I wondered why the name was familiar. But I didn't even know that Dr. Christow knew her."
She seemed so positive on the point that the Inspector abandoned it at once. He went on to question her about Dr. Christow's manner on the preceding Saturday. And here, for the first time, the confidence of Beryl's replies wavered. She said, slowly:
"His manner wasn't quite as usual."
"What was the difference?"
"He seemed distrait. There was quite a long gap before he rang for his last patient - and yet normally he was always in a hurry to get through when he was going away. I thought - yes, I definitely thought he had something on his mind."
But she could not be more definite.
Inspector Grange was not very satisfied with his investigations. He'd come nowhere near establishing motive - and motive had to be established before there was a case to go to the Public Prosecutor.
He was quite certain in his own mind that Gerda Christow had shot her husband. He suspected jealousy as the motive - but so far he had found nothing to go on. Sergeant Coombes had been working on the maids but they all told the same story. Mrs. Christow worshipped the ground her husband walked on.
Whatever happened, he thought, must have happened down at The Hollow. And remembering The Hollow, he felt a vague disquietude. They were an odd lot down there.
The telephone on the desk rang and Miss Collier picked up the receiver.
She said, "It's for you, Inspector," and passed the instrument to him.
"Hullo, Grange here... What's that?..." Beryl heard the alteration in his tone and looked at him curiously. The wooden-looking face was impassive as ever. He was grunting - listening -
"Yes, yes, I've got that... That's absolutely certain, is it? No margin of error... Yes... yes... yes, I'll be down. I've about finished here... Yes."
He put the receiver back and sat for a moment motionless. Beryl looked at him curiously.
He pulled himself together and asked in a voice that was quite different from the voice of his previous questions:
"You've no ideas of your own, I suppose, Miss Collier, about this matter?"
"You mean -"
"I mean no ideas as to who it was killed Dr. Christow?"
She said flatly:
"I've absolutely no idea at all, Inspector."
Grange said slowly:
"When the body was found, Mrs. Christow was standing beside it with the revolver in her hand -"
He left it purposely as an unfinished sentence.
Her reaction came promptly. Not heated, cool and judicial.
"If you think Mrs. Christow killed her husband, I am quite sure you are wrong. Mrs. Christow is not at all a violent woman. She is very meek and submissive and she was entirely under the doctor's thumb. It seems to me quite ridiculous that anyone could imagine for a moment that she shot him, however much appearances may be against her."
"Then if she didn't, who did?" he asked sharply.
Beryl said slowly, "I've no idea..."
The Inspector moved to the door. Beryl asked:
"Do you want to see Mrs. Christow before you go?"
"No - yes, perhaps I'd better."
Again Beryl wondered; this was not the same man who had been questioning her before the telephone rang. What news had he got that had altered him so much?
Gerda came into the room nervously. She looked unhappy and bewildered. She said in a low, shaky voice:
"Have you found out any more about who killed John?"
"Not yet, Mrs. Christow."
"It's so impossible - so absolutely impossible."
"But it happened, Mrs. Christow."
She nodded, looking down, screwing a handkerchief into a little ball.
He said quietly:
"Had your husband any enemies, Mrs. Christow?"
"John? Oh, no. He was wonderful. Everyone adored him."
"You can't think of anyone who had a grudge against him," he paused, "or against you?"
"Against me?" She seemed amazed. "Oh, no, Inspector."
Inspector Grange sighed.
"What about Miss Veronica Cray?"
"Veronica Cray? Oh, you mean the one who came that night to borrow matches?"
"Yes, that's the one. You knew her?"
Gerda shook her head.
"I'd never seen her before. John knew her years ago - or so she said."
"I suppose she might have had a grudge against him that you didn't know about?"
Gerda said with dignity:
"I don't believe anybody could have had a grudge against John. He was the kindest and most unselfish - oh, and one of the noblest men."
"H'm," said the Inspector. "Yes. Quite so. Well, good morning, Mrs. Christow. You understand about the inquest? Eleven o'clock Wednesday in Market Depleach. It will be very simple - nothing to upset you - probably be adjourned for a week so that we can make further inquiries."
"Oh, I see. Thank you."
She stood there staring after him. He wondered whether even now, she had grasped the fact that she was the principal suspect.
He hailed a taxi - justifiable expense in view of the piece of information he had just been given over the telephone. Just where that piece of information was leading him, be did not know. On the face of it, it seemed completely irrelevant - crazy. It simply did not make sense. But in some way that he could not yet see, it must make sense.
The only inference to be drawn from it was that the case was not quite the simple straightforward one that he had hitherto assumed it to be.
Chapter 17
Sir Henry stared curiously at Inspector Grange. He said slowly, "I'm not quite sure that I understand you, Inspector."
"It's quite simple, Sir Henry. I'm asking you to check over your collection of firearms. I presume they are catalogued and indexed?"
"Naturally. But I have already identified the revolver as part of my collection."
"It isn't quite so simple as that, Sir Henry." Grange paused a moment. His instincts were always against giving out any information, but his hand was being forced in this particular instance. Sir Henry was a person of importance. He would doubtless comply with the request that was being made to him, but he would also require a reason. The Inspector decided that he had got to give him the reason.
He said quietly:
"Dr. Christow was not shot with the revolver, you identified this morning."
Sir Henry's eyebrows rose.
"Remarkable!" he said.
Grange felt vaguely comforted. Remarkable was exactly what he felt himself. He was grateful to Sir Henry for saying so, and equally grateful for his not saying any more. It was as far as they could go at the moment. The thing was remarkable - and beyond that simply did not make sense.
Sir Henry asked:
"Have you any reason to believe that the weapon from which the fatal shot was fired comes from my collection?"
"No reason at all. But I have got to make sure, shall we say, that it doesn't."
Sir Henry nodded his head in confirmation.
"I appreciate your point. Well, we will get to work. It will take a little time."
He opened the desk and took out a leather-bound volume.
As he opened it he repeated:
"It will take a little time to check up -"
Grange's attention was held by something in his voice. He looked up sharply. Sir Henry's shoulders sagged a little - he seemed suddenly an older and more tired man.
Inspector Grange frowned.
He thought, Devil if I know what to make of these people down here...
"Ah -"
Grange spun round. His eyes noted the time by the clock, thirty minutes - twenty minutes - since Sir Henry had said, "It will take a little time..."
Grange said sharply:
"Yes, sir?"
"A .38 Smith & Wesson is missing. It was in a brown leather holster and was at the end of the rack in this drawer."
"Ah!" The Inspector kept his voice calm, but he was excited. "And when, sir, to your certain knowledge, did you last see it in its proper place?"
Sir Henry reflected for a moment or two.
"That is not very easy to say, Inspector. I last had this drawer open about a week ago and I think - I am almost certain - that if the revolver had been missing then I should have noticed the gap. But I should not like to swear definitely that I saw it there."
Inspector Grange nodded his head.
"Thank you, sir, I quite understand... Well, I must be getting on with things -"
He left the room - a busy, purposeful man.
Sir Henry stood motionless for a while after the Inspector had gone; then he went out slowly through the French windows onto the terrace. His wife was busy with a gardening basket and gloves. She was trimming some rare shrubs with a pair of scissors.
She waved to him brightly.
"What did the Inspector want? I hope he is not going to worry the servants again. You know, Henry, they don't like it. They can't see it as amusing or as a novelty like we do."
"Do we see it like that?"
