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Twenty-six
Grange came in to Resthaven to drink a cup of tea with Hercule Poirot. The tea was exactly what
he had had apprehensions it might be—extremely weak and China tea at that.
“These foreigners,” thought Grange, “don’t know how to make tea. You can’t teach ’em.” But
he did not mind much. He was in a condition of pessimism when one more thing that was
unsatisfactory actually afforded him a kind of grim satisfaction.
He said: “The adjourned inquest’s the day after tomorrow and where have we got? Nowhere at
all. What the hell, that gun must be somewhere! It’s this damned country—miles of woods. It
would take an army to search them properly. Talk of a needle in a haystack. It may be anywhere.
The fact is, we’ve got to face up to it—we may never find that gun.”
“You will find it,” said Poirot confidently.
“Well, it won’t be for want of trying!”
“You will find it, sooner or later. And I should say sooner. Another cup of tea?”
“I don’t mind if I do—no, no hot water.”
“Is it not too strong?”
“Oh, no, it’s not too strong.” The inspector was conscious of understatement.
Gloomily he sipped at the pale, straw-coloured beverage.
“This case is making a monkey of me, M. Poirot—a monkey of me! I can’t get the hang of these
people. They seem helpful—but everything they tell you seems to lead you away on a wild-goose
chase.”
“Away?” said Poirot. A startled look came into his eyes. “Yes, I see. Away….”
The inspector was now developing his grievance.
“Take the gun now. Christow was shot—according to the medical evidence—only a minute or
two before your arrival. Lady Angkatell had that egg basket, Miss Savernake had a gardening
basket full of dead flower heads, and Edward Angkatell was wearing a loose shooting coat with
large pockets stuffed with cartridges. Any one of them could have carried the revolver away with
them. It wasn’t hidden anywhere near the pool—my men have raked the place, so that’s definitely
out.”
Poirot nodded. Grange went on:
“Gerda Christow was framed—but who by? That’s where every clue I follow seems to vanish
into thin air.”
“Their stories of how they spent the morning are satisfactory?”
“The stories are all right. Miss Savernake was gardening. Lady Angkatell was collecting eggs.
Edward Angkatell and Sir Henry were shooting and separated at the end of the morning—Sir
Henry coming back to the house and Edward Angkatell coming down here through the woods.
The young fellow was up in his bedroom reading. (Funny place to read on a nice day, but he’s the
indoor, bookish kind.) Miss Hardcastle took a book down to the orchard. All sounds very natural
and likely, and there’s no means of checking up on it. Gudgeon took a tray of glasses out to the
pavilion about twelve o’clock. He can’t say where any of the house party were or what they were
doing. In a way, you know, there’s something against almost all of them.”
“Really?”
“Of course the most obvious person is Veronica Cray. She had quarrelled with Christow, she
hated his guts, she’s quite likely to have shot him—but I can’t find the least iota of proof that she
did shoot him. No evidence as to her having had any opportunity to pinch the revolvers from Sir
Henry’s collection. No one who saw her going to or from the pool that day. And the missing
revolver definitely isn’t in her possession now.”
“Ah, you have made sure of that?”
“What do you think? The evidence would have justified a search warrant but there was no need.
She was quite gracious about it. It’s not anywhere in that tin-pot bungalow. After the inquest was
adjourned we made a show of letting up on Miss Cray and Miss Savernake, and we’ve had a tail
on them to see where they went and what they’d do. We’ve had a man on at the film studios
watching Veronica—no sign of her trying to ditch the gun there.”
“And Henrietta Savernake?”
“Nothing there either. She went straight back to Chelsea and we’ve kept an eye on her ever
since. The revolver isn’t in her studio or in her possession. She was quite pleasant about the search
—seemed amused. Some of her fancy stuff gave our man quite a turn. He said it beat him why
people wanted to do that kind of thing — statues all lumps and swellings, bits of brass and
aluminum twisted into fancy shapes, horses that you wouldn’t know were horses.”
Poirot stirred a little.
“Horses, you say?”
“Well, a horse. If you’d call it a horse! If people want to model a horse, why don’t they go and
look at a horse!”
“A horse,” repeated Poirot.
Grange turned his head.
“What is there about that that interests you so, M. Poirot? I don’t get it.”
“Association—a point of the psychology.”
“Word association? Horse and cart? Rocking horse? Clothes horse. No, I don’t get it. Anyway,
after a day or two, Miss Savernake packs up and comes down here again. You know that?”
“Yes, I have talked with her and I have seen her walking in the woods.”
“Restless, yes. Well, she was having an affair with the doctor all right, and his saying:
‘Henrietta’ as he died is pretty near to an accusation. But it’s not quite near enough, M. Poirot.”
“No,” said Poirot thoughtfully, “it is not near enough.”
Grange said heavily:
“There’s something in the atmosphere here—it gets you all tangled up! It’s as though they all
knew something. Lady Angkatell now—she’s never been able to put out a decent reason why she
took out a gun with her that day. It’s a crazy thing to do—sometimes I think she is crazy.”
Poirot shook his head very gently.
“No,” he said, “she is not crazy.”
“Then there’s Edward Angkatell. I thought I was getting something on him. Lady Angkatell
said—no, hinted—that he’d been in love with Miss Savernake for years. Well, that gives him a
motive. And now I find it’s the other girl—Miss Hardcastle—that he’s engaged to. So bang goes
the case against him.”
Poirot gave a sympathetic murmur.
“Then there’s the young fellow,” pursued the inspector. “Lady Angkatell let slip something
about him. His mother, it seems, died in an asylum—persecution mania—thought everybody was
conspiring to kill her. Well, you can see what that might mean. If the boy had inherited that
particular strain of insanity, he might have got ideas into his head about Dr. Christow—might have
fancied the doctor was planning to certify him. Not that Christow was that kind of doctor. Nervous
affections of the alimentary canal and diseases of the super — super something. That was
Christow’s line. But if the boy was a bit touched, he might imagine Christow was here to keep him
under observation. He’s got an extraordinary manner, that young fellow, nervous as a cat.”
Grange sat unhappily for a moment or two.
“You see what I mean? All vague suspicions, leading nowhere.”
Poirot stirred again. He murmured softly:
“Away—not towards. From, not to. Nowhere instead of somewhere… Yes, of course, that must
be it.”
Grange stared at him. He said:
“They’re queer, all these Angkatells. I’d swear, sometimes, that they know all about it.”
Poirot said quietly:
“They do.”
“You mean, they know, all of them, who did it?” the inspector asked incredulously.
Poirot nodded.
“Yes, they know. I have thought so for some time. I am quite sure now.”
“I see.” The inspector’s face was grim. “And they’re hiding it up between them? Well, I’ll beat
them yet. I’m going to find that gun.”
It was, Poirot reflected, quite the inspector’s theme song.
Grange went on with rancour:
“I’d give anything to get even with them.”
“With—”
“All of them! Muddling me up! Suggesting things! Hinting! Helping my men—helping them!
All gossamer and spiders’ webs, nothing tangible. What I want is a good solid fact!”
Hercule Poirot had been staring out of the window for some moments. His eye had been
attracted by an irregularity in the symmetry of his domain.
He said now:
“You want a solid fact? Eh bien, unless I am much mistaken, there is a solid fact in the hedge by
my gate.”
They went down the garden path. Grange went down on his knees, coaxed the twigs apart till he
disclosed more fully the thing that had been thrust between them. He drew a deep sigh as
something black and steel was revealed.
He said: “It’s a revolver all right.”
Just for a moment his eye rested doubtfully on Poirot.
“No, no, my friend,” said Poirot. “I did not shoot Dr. Christow and I did not put the revolver in
my own hedge.”
“Of course you didn’t, M. Poirot! Sorry! Well, we’ve got it. Looks like the one missing from Sir
Henry’s study. We can verify that as soon as we get the number. Then we’ll see if it was the gun
that shot Christow. Easy does it now.”
With infinite care and the use of a silk handkerchief he eased the gun out of the hedge.
“To give us a break, we want fingerprints. I’ve a feeling, you know, that our luck’s changed at
last.”
“Let me know.”
“Of course I will, M. Poirot. I’ll ring you up.”
Poirot received two telephone calls. The first came through that same evening. The inspector
was jubilant.
“That you, M. Poirot? Well, here’s the dope. It’s the gun all right. The gun missing from Sir
Henry’s collection and the gun that shot John Christow! That’s definite. And there are a good set
of prints on it. Thumb, first finger, part of middle finger. Didn’t I tell you our luck had changed?”
“You have identified the fingerprints?”
“Not yet. They’re certainly not Mrs. Christow’s. We took hers. They look more like a man’s
than a woman’s for size. Tomorrow I’m going along to The Hollow to speak my little piece and
get a sample from everyone. And then, M. Poirot, we shall know where we are!”
“I hope so, I am sure,” said Poirot politely.
The second telephone call came through on the following day and the voice that spoke was no
longer jubilant. In tones of unmitigated gloom, Grange said:
“Want to hear the latest? Those fingerprints aren’t the prints of anybody connected with the
case! No, sir! They’re not Edward Angkatell’s, nor David’s, nor Sir Henry’s! They’re not Gerda
Christow’s, nor the Savernake’s, nor our Veronica’s, nor her ladyship’s, nor the little dark girl’s!
They’re not even the kitchen maid’s—let alone any of the other servants’!”
Poirot made consoling noises. The sad voice of Inspector Grange went on:
“So it looks as though, after all, it was an outside job. Someone, that is to say, who had a down
on Dr. Christow and who we don’t know anything about. Someone invisible and inaudible who
pinched the guns from the study, and who went away after the shooting by the path to the lane.
Someone who put the gun in your hedge and then vanished into thin air!”
“Would you like my fingerprints, my friend?”
“I don’t mind if I do! It strikes me, M. Poirot, that you were on the spot, and that taking it all
round you’re far and away the most suspicious character in the case!”
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