Banished by her own act from Ainswick - from all the loveliness and dearness of Ainswick which might have been her very own possession.
But better banishment, better loneliness, better a drab and uninteresting life, than life with Edward and Henrietta's ghost. Until that day in the wood she had not known her own capacity for bitter jealousy.
And after all, Edward had never told her that he loved her. Affection, kindliness, he had never pretended to more than that. She had accepted the limitation, and not until she had realized what it would mean to live at close quarters with an Edward whose mind and heart had Henrietta as a permanent guest, did she know that for her Edward's affection was not enough.
Edward walking past her door, down the front stairs...
It was odd - very odd - where was he going?
Uneasiness grew upon her. It was all part and parcel of the uneasiness that The Hollow gave her nowadays. What was Edward doing downstairs in the small hours of the morning? Had he gone out?
Inactivity at last became too much for her. She got up, slipped on her dressing gown and taking a flashlight, she opened her door and came out into the passage.
It was quite dark, no lights had been switched on. Midge turned to the left and came to the head of the staircase. Below all was dark too. She ran down the stairs and after a moment's hesitation switched on the light in the hall. Everything was silent. The front door was closed and locked. She tried the side door but that too was locked.
Edward, then, had not gone out. Where could he be?
And suddenly she raised her head and sniffed.
A whiff - a very faint whiff of gas.
The baize door to the kitchen quarters was just ajar. She went through it - a faint light was shining from the open kitchen door. The smell of gas was much stronger.
Midge ran along the passage and into the kitchen. Edward was lying on the floor with his head inside the gas oven which was turned on full.
Midge was a quick practical girl. Her first act was to swing open the shutters. She could not unlatch the window and winding a glass cloth round her arm, she smashed it. Then, holding her breath, she stooped down and tugged and pulled Edward out of the gas oven and switched off the taps.
He was unconscious and breathing queerly, but she knew that he could not have been unconscious long. He could only just have gone under. The wind sweeping through from the window to the open door was fast dispelling the gas fumes. Midge dragged Edward to a spot near the window where the air would have full play. She sat down and gathered him into her strong young arms.
She said his name, first softly, then with increasing desperation:
"Edward, Edward, Edward, Edward..."
He stirred, groaned, opened his eyes and looked up at her.
He said very faintly, "Gas oven..." and his eyes went round to the gas stove.
"I know, darling, but why - why?"
He was shivering now, his hands were cold and lifeless.
He said, "Midge?"
There was a kind of wondering surprise and pleasure in his voice.
She said, "I heard you pass my door... I didn't know... I came down."
He sighed - a very long sigh as though from very far away.
"Best way out," he said. And then, inexplicably, until she remembered Lucy's conversation on the night of the tragedy, "News of the World."
"But, Edward, why - why?"
He looked up at her and the blank, cold darkness of his stare frightened her.
"Because I know now I've never been any good. Always a failure. Always ineffectual. It's men like Christow who do things. They get there and women admire them. I'm nothing - I'm not even quite alive. I inherited Ainswick and I've enough to live on - otherwise I'd have gone under. No good at a career - never much good as a writer. Henrietta didn't want me. No one wanted me. That day - at the Berkeley - I thought - but it was the same story. You couldn't care either, Midge. Even for Ainswick you couldn't put up with me... So I thought better get out altogether."
Her words came with a rush.
"Darling, darling. You don't understand. It was because of Henrietta - because I thought you still loved Henrietta so much."
"Henrietta?" He murmured it vaguely, as though speaking of someone infinitely remote. "Yes, I loved her very much."
And from even farther away she heard him murmur:
"It's so cold..."
"Edward - my darling."
Her arms closed round him firmly. He smiled at her, murmuring:
"You're so warm, Midge - you're so warm."
Yes, she thought, that was what despair was. A cold thing - a thing of infinite coldness and loneliness. She'd never understood until now that despair was a cold thing. She had thought of it as something hot and passionate, something violent, a hot-blooded desperation. But that was not so. This was despair - this utter outer darkness of coldness and loneliness. And the sin of despair, that priests talked of, was a cold sin, the sin of cutting oneself off from all warm and living human contacts...
Edward said again, "You're so warm. Midge." And suddenly, with a glad proud confidence, she thought. But that's what he wants - that's what I can give him! They were all cold, the Angkatells; even Henrietta had something in her of the will-o'-the-wisp, of the elusive fairy coldness in the Angkatell blood. Let Edward love Henrietta as an intangible and unpossessable dream. It was warmth, permanence, stability that was his real need. It was daily companionship and love and laughter at Ainswick.
She thought, What Edward needs is someone to light a fire on his hearth - and I am the person to do that.
Edward looked up. He saw Midge's face bending over him, the warm colouring of the skin, the generous mouth, the steady eyes and the dark hair that lay back from her forehead like two wings.
He saw Henrietta always as a projection from the past. In the grown woman he sought and wanted only to see the seventeen-year-old girl he had first loved. But now, looking up at Midge, he had a queer sense of seeing a continuous Midge - he saw the schoolgirl with her winged hair springing back into two pigtails, he saw its dark waves framing her face now and he saw exactly how those wings would look when the hair was not dark any longer but grey...
Midge, he thought, is real... the only real thing I have ever known... He felt the warmth of her, and the strength - dark, positive, alive, real! Midge, he thought, is the rock on which I can build my life...
He said, "Darling Midge, I love you so, never leave me again..."
She bent down to him and he felt the warmth of her lips on his, felt her love enveloping him, shielding him, and happiness flowered in that cold desert where he had lived alone so long...
Suddenly Midge said, with a shaky laugh -
"Look, Edward, a black beetle has come out to look at us. Isn't he a nice black beetle? I never thought I could like a black beetle so much!" She added dreamily:
"How odd life is. Here we are sitting on the floor in a kitchen that still smells of gas all amongst the black beetles and feeling that it's heaven."
He murmured dreamily:
"I could stay here forever."
"We'd better go and get some sleep. It's four o'clock. How on earth are we to explain that broken window to Lucy?"
Fortunately, Midge reflected, Lucy was an extraordinarily easy person to explain things to...
Taking a leaf out of Lucy's own book, Midge went into her room at six o'clock.
She made a bald statement of fact.
"Edward went down and put his head in the gas oven in the night," she said. "Fortunately I heard him and went down after him. I broke the window because I couldn't get it open quickly."
Lucy, Midge had to admit, was wonderful.
She smiled sweetly with no sign of surprise.
"Dear Midge," she said, "you are always so practical. I'm sure you will always be the greatest comfort to Edward."
After Midge had gone Lady Angkatell lay thinking. Then she got up and went into her husband's room, which for once was unlocked.
"Henry."
"My dear Lucy! It's not cock-crow yet."
"No, but listen, Henry, this is really important. We must have electricity installed to cook by and get rid of that gas stove."
"Why, it's quite satisfactory, isn't it,?"
"Oh, yes, dear. But it's the sort of thing that gives people ideas, and everybody mightn't be as practical as dear Midge."
She flitted elusively away. Sir Henry turned over with a grunt. Presently he awoke with a start just as he was dozing off.
"Did I dream it," he murmured, "or did Lucy come in and start talking about gas stoves?"
Outside in the passage, Lady Angkatell went into the bathroom and put a kettle on the gas ring. Sometimes, she knew, people liked an early cup of tea... Fired with self-approval, she returned to bed and lay back on her pillows, pleased with life and with herself.
Edward and Midge at Ainswick - the inquest over - She would go and talk to M. Poirot again. A nice little man...
Suddenly another idea flashed into her head. She sat upright in bed.
"I wonder now," she speculated, "if she has thought of that?"
She got out of bed and drifted along the passage to Henrietta's room, beginning her remarks as usual long before she was within earshot.
"- and it suddenly came home, dear, that you might have overlooked that."
Henrietta murmured sleepily:
"For heaven's sake, Lucy, the birds aren't up yet!"
"Oh, I know, dear, it is rather early, but it seems to have been a very disturbed night - Edward and the gas stove, and Midge and the kitchen window - and thinking of what to say to M. Poirot and everything -"
"I'm sorry, Lucy, but everything you say sounds like complete gibberish... Can't it wait?"
"It was only the holster, dear. I thought, you know, that you might not have thought about the holster."
"Holster?" Henrietta sat up in bed. She was suddenly wide awake. "What's this about a holster?"
"That revolver of Henry's was in a holster, you know. And the holster hasn't been found. And, of course, nobody may think of it - but on the other hand somebody might -"
Henrietta swung herself out of bed. She said:
"One always forgets something - that's what they say! And it's true!"
Lady Angkatell went back to her room.
She got into bed and quickly went fast asleep.
The kettle on the gas ring boiled and went on boiling...
Chapter 29
Gerda rolled over to the side of the bed and sat up.
Her head felt a little better now but she was still glad that she hadn't gone with the others on the picnic. It was peaceful and almost comforting to be alone in the house for a bit.
Elsie, of course, had been very kind - very kind - especially at first. To begin with, Gerda had been urged to stay in bed for breakfast, trays had been brought up to her. Everybody urged her to sit in the most comfortable armchair, to put her feet up, not to do anything at all strenuous.
They were all so sorry for her about John. She had stayed cowering gratefully in that protective dim haze. She hadn't wanted to think, or to feel, or to remember.
But now, every day, she felt it coming nearer - she'd have to start living again, to decide what to do, where to live. Already Elsie was showing a shade of impatience in her manner. "Oh, Gerda, don't be so slow!"
It was all the same as it had been - long ago, before John came and took her away. They all thought her slow and stupid. There was nobody to say, as John had said, "I'll look after you."
Her head ached and Gerda thought, I'll make myself some tea.
She went down to the kitchen and put the kettle on. It was nearly boiling when she heard a ring at the front door.
The maids had been given the day out. Gerda went to the door and opened it. She was astonished to see Henrietta's rakish-looking car drawn up to the curb and Henrietta herself standing on the doorstep.
"Why, Henrietta!" she exclaimed. She fell back a step or two. "Come in. I'm afraid my sister and the children are out but -"
Henrietta cut her short.
"Good. I'm glad. I wanted to get you alone. Listen, Gerda, what did you do with the holster?"
Gerda stopped. Her eyes looked suddenly vacant and uncomprehending. She said, "Holster?"
Then she opened a door on the right of the hall.
"You'd better come in here. I'm afraid it's rather dusty. You see, we haven't had much time this morning -"
Henrietta interrupted again urgently.
She said, "Listen, Gerda, you've got to tell me. Apart from the holster everything's all right - absolutely watertight. There's nothing to connect you with the business. I found the revolver where you'd shoved it into that thicket by the pool. I hid it in a place where you couldn't possibly have put it - and there are fingerprints on it which they'll never identify. So there's only the holster; I must know what you did with that?"
She paused, praying desperately that Gerda would react quickly.
She had no idea why she had this vital sense of urgency, but it was there. Her car had not been followed - she had made sure of that. She had started on the London road, had filled up at a garage and had mentioned that she was on her way to London. Then, a little further on, she had swung across country until she had reached a main road leading south to the coast.
Gerda was still staring at her. The trouble with Gerda thought Henrietta, was that she was so slow.
"If you've still got it, Gerda, you must give it to me. I'll get rid of it somehow. It's the only possible thing, you see, that can connect you now with John's death. Have you got it?"
There was a pause and then Gerda slowly nodded her head.
"Didn't you know it was madness to keep it?" Henrietta could hardly control her impatience.
"I forgot about it. It was up in my room."
She added, "When the police came up to Harley Street I cut it in two and put it in the bag with my leather work."
Henrietta said, "That was clever of you."
Gerda said, "I'm not quite so stupid as everybody thinks."
She put her hand up to her throat. She said, "John - John -" Her voice broke.
