Poirot said quietly, "I am flattered."
That fact, he noted, she took for granted. She was a woman, he thought, who was very sure of the effect she was producing. So sure that she might, occasionally, make a mistake.
"John and I were engaged to be married fifteen years ago. He was very much in love with me - so much so that it rather alarmed me sometimes. He wanted me to give up acting - to give up having any mind or life of my own. He was so possessive and masterful that I felt I couldn't go through with it, and I broke off the engagement. I'm afraid he took that very hard."
Poirot clicked a discreet and sympathetic tongue.
"I didn't see him again until last Saturday night. He walked home with me. I told the Inspector that we talked about old times - that's true in a way. But there was far more than that."
"Yes?"
"John went mad - quite mad. He wanted to leave his wife and children, he wanted me to get a divorce from my husband and marry him. He said he'd never forgotten me - that the moment he saw me time stood still..."
She closed her eyes, she swallowed. Under her make-up her face was very pale.
She opened her eyes again and smiled almost timidly at Poirot.
"Can you believe that a - a feeling like that is possible?" she asked.
"I think it is possible, yes," said Poirot.
"Never to forget - to go on waiting - planning - hoping- to determine with all one's heart and mind to get what one wants in the end... There are men like that, M. Poirot."
"Yes - and women."
She gave him a hard stare.
"I'm talking about men - about John Christow. Well, that's how it was. I protested at first, laughed, refused to take him seriously. Then I told him he was mad... It was quite late when he went back to the house. We'd argued and argued... He was still - just as determined."
She swallowed again. "That's why I sent him a note the next morning. I couldn't leave things like that. I had to make him realize that what he wanted was - impossible."
"It was impossible?"
"Of course it was impossible! He came over. He wouldn't listen to what I had to say. He was just as insistent. I told him that it was no good, that I didn't love him, that I hated him..." She paused, breathing hard. "I had to be brutal about it. So we parted in anger... And now - he's dead."
He saw her hands creep together, saw the twisted fingers and the knuckles stand out. They were large, rather cruel hands.
The strong emotion that she was feeling communicated itself to him. It was not sorrow, not grief - no, it was anger. The anger, he thought, of a baffled egoist.
"Well, M. Poirot?" Her voice was controlled and smooth again. "What am I to do? Tell the story, or keep it to myself. It's what happened - but it takes a bit of believing."
Poirot looked at her, a long considering gaze.
He did not think that Veronica Cray was telling the truth, and yet there was an undeniable undercurrent of sincerity. It happened, he thought, but it did not happen like that...
And suddenly he got it. It was a true story, inverted. It was she who had been unable to forget John Christow. It was she who had been baffled and repulsed. And now, unable to bear in silence the furious anger of a tigress deprived of what she considered her legitimate prey, she had invented a version of the truth that should satisfy her wounded pride and feed a little the aching hunger for a man who had gone beyond the reach of her clutching hands. Impossible to admit that she, Veronica Cray, could not have what she wanted! So she had changed it all round.
Poirot drew a deep breath and spoke:
"If all this had any bearing on John Christow's death, you would have to speak out, but if it has not - and I cannot see why it should have - then I think you are quite justified in keeping it to yourself."
He wondered if she was disappointed. He had a fancy that in her present mood, she would like to hurl her story into the printed page of a newspaper. She had come to him - why? To try out her story? To test his reaction? Or to use him - to induce him to pass the story on.
If his mild response disappointed her, she did not show it. She got up and gave him one of those long, well-manicured hands.
"Thank you, M. Poirot. What you say seems eminently sensible. I'm so glad I came to you. I - I felt I wanted somebody to know."
"I shall respect your confidence, Madame."
When she had gone, he opened the windows a little. Scents affected him. He did not like Veronica's scent. It was expensive but cloying, overpowering like her personality.
He wondered, as he flapped the curtains, whether Veronica Cray had killed John Christow.
She would have been willing to kill him - he believed that. She would have enjoyed pressing the trigger - would have enjoyed seeing him stagger and fall.
But behind that vindictive anger was something cold and shrewd, something that appraised chances, a cool, calculating intelligence. However much Veronica Cray wished to kill John Christow, he doubted whether she would have taken the risk.
Chapter 23
The inquest was over. It had been the merest formality of an affair, and though warned of this beforehand, yet nearly everyone had a resentful sense of anti-climax.
Adjourned for a fortnight at the request of the police.
Gerda had driven down with Mrs. Patterson from London in a hired Daimler. She had on a black dress and an unbecoming hat and looked nervous and bewildered.
Preparatory to stepping back into the Daimler, she paused as Lady Angkatell came up to her.
"How are you, Gerda dear? Not sleeping too badly I hope. I think it went off as well as we could hope for, don't you? So sorry we haven't got you with us at The Hollow but I quite understand how distressing that would be."
Mrs. Patterson said in her bright voice, glancing reproachfully at her sister for not introducing her properly:
"This was Miss Collier's idea - to drive straight down and back. Expensive, of course, but we thought it was worth it."
"Oh, I do so agree with you."
Mrs. Patterson lowered her voice.
"I am taking Gerda and the children straight down to Bexhill. What she needs is rest and quiet. The reporters! You've no idea! Simply swarming round Harley Street."
A young man snapped off a camera, and Elsie Patterson pushed her sister into the car and they drove off.
The others had a momentary view of Gerda's face beneath the unbecoming hat brim. It was vacant, lost - she looked for the moment like a half-witted child.
Midge Hardcastle muttered under her breath, "Poor devil."
Edward said irritably:
"What did everybody see in Christow? That wretched woman looks completely heartbroken."
"She was absolutely wrapped up in him," said Midge.
"But why? He was a selfish sort of fellow, good company in a way - but -" He broke off. Then he asked, "What did you think of him, Midge?"
"I?" Midge reflected. She said at last, rather surprised at her own words, "I think I respected him."
"Respected him? For what?"
"Well, he knew his job."
"You're thinking of him as a doctor?"
"Yes."
There was no time for more.
Henrietta was driving Midge back to London in her car. Edward was returning to lunch at The Hollow and going up by the afternoon train with David. He said vaguely to Midge, "You must come out and lunch one day?" and Midge said that that would be very nice but that she couldn't take more than an hour off. Edward gave her his charming smile and said:
"Oh, it's a special occasion. I'm sure they'll understand."
Then he moved towards Henrietta. "I'll ring you up, Henrietta."
"Yes, do, Edward. But I may be out a good deal."
"Out?"
She gave him a quick mocking smile.
"Drowning my sorrow. You don't expect me to sit at home and mope, do you?"
He said slowly, "I don't understand you nowadays, Henrietta. You are quite different."
Her face softened. She said unexpectedly, "Darling Edward," and gave his arm a quick squeeze.
Then she turned to Lucy Angkatell. "I can come back if I want to, can't I, Lucy?"
Lady Angkatell said, "Of course, darling. And anyway there will be the inquest again in a fortnight."
Henrietta went to where she had parked the car in the market square. Her suit-cases and Midge's were already inside. They got in and drove off.
The car climbed the long hill and came out on the road over the ridge. Below them the brown and golden leaves shivered a little in the chill of a grey Autumn day.
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," she said. "We'd better light the gas fire. Oh, bother - I meant to get some matches on the way."
"Won't a lighter do?"
"Mine's no good and anyway it's difficult to light a gas fire with one. Make yourself at home. There's an old blind man stands on the corner. I usually get my matches off him. I shan't be a minute or two."
Left alone in the studio, Midge wandered round, looking at Henrietta's work. It gave her an eerie feeling to be sharing the empty studio with these creations of wood and bronze.
There was a bronze head with high cheekbones and a tin hat, possibly a Red Army soldier, and there was an airy structure of twisted, ribbon-like aluminum which intrigued her a good deal. There was a vast static frog in pinkish granite, and at the end of the studio she came to an almost life-sized wooden figure.
She was staring at it when Henrietta's key turned in the lock and Henrietta herself came in slightly breathless.
Midge turned.
"What's this, Henrietta? It's rather frightening."
"That? That's The Worshipper. It's going to the International Group."
