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Twenty-nine
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 kerb 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 farther 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 conceal 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 pieces 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.
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 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 over-full. 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 now it was nearly
done. 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 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 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 not 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 any one 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 one 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 suède
and other coloured leathers. There were some pieces 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 the 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.”
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