Henrietta said, "I know, my dear, I know."
Gerda said, "But you can't know... John wasn't - he wasn't -" She stood there, dumb and strangely pathetic.
She raised her eyes suddenly to Henrietta's face. "It was all a lie - everything! All the things I thought he was! I saw his face when he followed that woman out that evening. Veronica Cray! I knew he'd cared for her, of course, years ago, before he married me, but I thought it was all over."
Henrietta said gently:
"But it was all over."
Gerda shook her head.
"No. She came there and pretended that she hadn't seen John for years - but I saw John's face... He went out with her. I went up to bed. I lay there trying to read - I tried to read that detective story that John was reading. And John didn't come. And at last I went out..."
Her eyes seemed to be turning inwards seeing the scene.
"It was moonlight. I went along the path to the swimming pool. There was a light in the pavilion. They were there - John and that woman..."
Henrietta made a faint sound.
Gerda's face had changed - it had none of its usual slightly vacant amiability. It was remorseless, implacable.
"I'd trusted John. I'd believed in him - as though he were God. I thought he was the noblest man in the world - I thought he was everything that was fine and noble... And it was all a lie! I was left with nothing - nothing at all. I - I'd worshipped John!"
Henrietta was gazing at her fascinated. For here, before her eyes, was what she had guessed at and brought to life, carving it out of wood. Here was The Worshipper - blind devotion thrown back on itself, disillusioned - dangerous...
Gerda said, "I couldn't bear it! I had to kill him! I had to - you do see that, Henrietta?"
She said it quite conversationally, in an almost friendly tone.
"And I knew I must be careful because the police are very clever. But then I'm not really as stupid as people think! If you're very slow and just stare, people think you don't take things in - and sometimes, underneath, you're laughing at them! I knew I could kill John and nobody would know because I'd read in that detective story about the police being able to tell which gun a bullet has been fired from. Sir Henry had shown me how to load and fire a revolver that afternoon. I'd take two revolvers. I'd shoot John with one and then hide it and let people find me holding the other and first they'd think I'd shot him and then they'd find he couldn't have been killed with that revolver and so they'd say I hadn't done it after all!"
She nodded her head triumphantly.
"But I forgot about the leather thing. It was in the drawer in my bedroom. What do you call it, a holster? Surely the police won't bother about that now?"
"They might," said Henrietta. "You'd better give it to me, and I'll take it away with me. Once it's out of your hands, you're quite safe."
She sat down. She felt suddenly unutterably weary.
Gerda said, "You don't look well. I was just making tea."
She went out of the room. Presently she came back with a tray. On it was a teapot, milk jug and two cups. The milk jug had slopped over because it was overfull. Gerda put the tray down and poured out a cup of tea and handed it to Henrietta.
"Oh, dear," she said, dismayed, "I don't believe the kettle can have been boiling."
"It's quite all right," said Henrietta. "Go and get that holster, Gerda."
Gerda hesitated and then went out of the room. Henrietta leant forward and put her arms on the table and her head down on them. She was so tired, so dreadfully tired... But it was nearly done now. Gerda would be safe... as John had wanted her to be safe.
She sat up, pushed the hair off her forehead and drew the teacup towards her. Then at a sound in the doorway she looked up. Gerda had been quite quick for once.
But it was Hercule Poirot who stood in the doorway.
"The front door was open," he remarked as he advanced to the table, "so I took the liberty of walking in."
"You!" said Henrietta. "How did you get here?"
"When you left The Hollow so suddenly, naturally I knew where you would go. I hired a very fast car and came straight here."
"I see." Henrietta sighed. "You would."
"You should not drink that tea," said Poirot, taking the cup from her and replacing it on the tray. "Tea that has not been made with boiling water is not good to drink."
"Does a little thing like boiling water really matter?"
Poirot said gently, "Everything matters."
There was a sound behind him and Gerda came into the room. She had a workbag in her hands. Her eyes went from Poirot's face to Henrietta's.
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 trailed 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 stagy 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 place Gerda would have put it - I was only a minute or two ahead of Inspector Grange's men."
She paused and then went on:
"I kept it with me in that satchel bag of mine until I could take it up to London. Then I hid it in the studio until I could bring it back, and put it where the police would find it."
"The clay horse," murmured Poirot.
"How did you know? Yes, I put it in a sponge bag and wired the armature round it and then slapped up the clay model round it. After all, the police couldn't very well destroy an artist's masterpiece, could they? What made you know where it was!"
"The fact that you chose to model a horse. The horse of Troy was the unconscious association in your mind. But the fingerprints - How did you manage the fingerprints?"
"An old blind man who sells matches in the street. He didn't know what it was I asked him to hold for a moment while I got some money out!"
Poirot looked at her for a moment.
"C'est formidable!" he murmured. "You are one of the best antagonists, Mademoiselle, that I have ever had."
"It's been dreadfully tiring always trying to keep one move ahead of you!"
"I know. I began to realize the truth as soon as I saw that the pattern was always designed not to implicate anyone person but to implicate everyone - other than Gerda Christow. Every indication always pointed away from her. You deliberately planted Ygdrasil to catch my attention and bring yourself under suspicion. Lady Angkatell, who knew perfectly what you were doing, amused herself by leading poor Inspector Grange in one direction after another. David, Edward, herself.
"Yes, there is only one thing to do if you want to clear a person from suspicion who is actually guilty. You must suggest guilt elsewhere but never localize it. That is why every clue looked promising and then petered out and ended in nothing."
Henrietta looked at the figure huddled pathetically in the chair. She said, "Poor Gerda."
"Is that what you have felt all along?"
"I think so... Gerda loved John terribly - but she didn't want to love him for what he was. She built up a pedestal for him and attributed every splendid and noble and unselfish characteristic to him. And if you cast down an idol, there's nothing left..." She paused and then went on. "But John was something much finer than an idol on a pedestal. He was a real, living, vital human being. He was generous and warm and alive, and he was a great doctor - yes, a great doctor! And he's dead, and the world has lost a very great man. And I have lost the only man I shall ever love..."
Poirot put his hand gently on her shoulder. He said:
"But you are of those who can live with a sword in their hearts - who can go on and smile -"
Henrietta looked up at him. Her lips twisted into a bitter smile. "That's a little melodramatic, isn't it?"
"It is because I am a foreigner and I like to use fine words."
Henrietta said suddenly:
"You have been very kind to me."
"That is because I have admired you always very much."
"M. Poirot, what are we going to do? About Gerda, I mean."
Poirot drew the raffia workbag towards him. He turned out its contents, scraps of brown suede and other coloured leathers. There were three fragments of thick, shiny brown leather. Poirot fitted them together.
"The holster. I take this. And poor Madame Christow, she was overwrought, her husband's death was too much for her. It will be brought in that she took her life whilst of unsound mind -"
Henrietta said slowly:
"And no one will ever know what really happened?"
"I think one person will know. Dr. Christow's son. I think that one day he will come to me and ask me for the truth."
"But you won't tell him," cried Henrietta.
"Yes, I shall tell him."
"Oh, no!"
"You do not understand. To you it is unbearable that anyone should be hurt. But to some minds there is something more unbearable still - not to know. You heard that poor woman just a little while ago say, 'Terry always has to know...' To the scientific mind, truth comes first. Truth, however bitter, can be accepted, and woven into a design for living."
Henrietta got up.
"Do you want me here, or had I better go?"
"It would be better if you went, I think."
She nodded. Then she said, more to herself than to him:
"Where shall I go? What shall I do - without John?"
"You are speaking like Gerda Christow. You will know where to go and what to do."
"Shall I? I'm so tired M. Poirot, so tired..."
He said gently:
"Go, my child. Your place is with the living. I will stay here with the dead..."
Chapter 30
As she drove towards London, the two phrases echoed through Henrietta' s mind - What shall I do? Where shall I go?
For the last few weeks she had been strung up, excited, never relaxing for a moment. She had had a task to perform - a task laid on her by John. But now that was over - had she failed or succeeded? One could look at it either way... But however one looked at it, the task was over. And she experienced the terrible weariness of the reaction.
