'I am not sneering. But I do not like being lied to-and that, I think, is what you are trying to do.'
Henrietta said quietly:
'I have told you that I am not very truthful-but when John said Henrietta, he was not accusing me of having murdered him. Can't you understand that people of my kind, who make things, are quite incapable of taking life? I don't kill people, M. Poirot. I couldn't kill anyone. That's the plain stark truth. You suspect me simply because my name was murmured by a dying man who hardly knew what he was saying.'
'Dr. Christow knew perfectly what he was saying. His voice was as alive and conscious as that of a doctor doing a vital operation who says sharply and urgently, 'Nurse, the forceps, please.''
'But-' She seemed at a loss, taken aback. Hercule Poirot went on rapidly:
'And it is not just on account of what Dr. Christow said when he was dying. I do not believe for one moment that you are capable of premeditated murder-that, no. But you might have fired that shot in a sudden moment of fierce resentment-and if so-if so, Mademoiselle, you have the creative imagination and ability to cover your tracks.'
Henrietta got up. She stood for a moment, pale and shaken, looking at him. She said with a sudden rueful smile:
'And I thought you liked me.'
Hercule Poirot sighed. He said sadly:
'That is what is so unfortunate for me. I do.'
Chapter XIX
When Henrietta had left him, Poirot sat on until he saw below him Inspector Grange walk past the pool with a resolute easy stride and take the path on past the pavilion.
The Inspector was walking in a purposeful way.
He must be going, therefore, either to Resthaven or to Dovecotes. Poirot wondered which.
He got up and retraced his steps along the way he had come. If Inspector Grange was coming to see him, he was interested to hear what the Inspector had to say.
But when he got back to Resthaven there was no sign of a visitor. Poirot looked thoughtfully up the lane in the direction of Dovecotes. Veronica Cray had not, he knew, gone back to London.
He found his curiosity rising about Veronica Cray. The pale, shining fox furs, the heaped boxes of matches, that sudden imperfectly explained invasion on the Saturday night, and, finally, Henrietta Savernake's revelations about John Christow and Veronica.
It was, he thought, an interesting pattern. … Yes, that was how he saw it: a pattern.
A design of intermingled emotions and the clash of personalities. A strange involved design, with dark threads of hate and desire running through it.
Had Gerda Christow shot her husband?
Or was it not quite so simple as that?
He thought of his conversation with Henrietta and decided that it was not so simple.
Henrietta had jumped to the conclusion that he suspected her of the murder, but actually he had not gone nearly as far as that in his mind. No further indeed than the belief that Henrietta knew something. Knew something or was concealing something-which?
He shook his head, dissatisfied.
The scene by the pool. A set scene. A stage scene.
Staged by whom?
Staged for whom?
The answer to the second question was, he strongly suspected, Hercule Poirot. He had thought so at the time. But he had thought then that it was an impertinence-a joke.
It was still an impertinence-but not a joke.
And the answer to the first question?
He shook his head. He did not know. He had not the least idea.
But he half closed his eyes and conjured them up-all of them-seeing them clearly in his mind's eye. Sir Henry, upright, responsible, trusted administrator of Empire.
Lady Angkatell, shadowy, elusive, unexpectedly and bewilderingly charming, with that deadly power of inconsequent suggestion.
Henrietta Savernake who had loved John Christow better than she loved herself.
The gentle and negative Edward Angkatell.
The dark, positive girl called Midge Hardcastle.
The dazed, bewildered face of Gerda Christow clasping a revolver in her hand.
The offended, adolescent personality of David Angkatell.
There they all were, caught and held in the meshes of the law. Bound together for a little while in the relentless aftermath of sudden and violent death. Each of them had his or her own tragedy and meaning, his or her own story.
And somewhere in that interplay of characters and emotions lay the truth…
To Hercule Poirot there was only one thing more fascinating than the study of human beings, and that was the pursuit of truth…
He meant to know the truth of John Christow's death.
'But, of course, Inspector,' said Veronica. 'I'm only too anxious to help you.'
'Thank you. Miss Cray.'
Veronica Cray was not, somehow, at all what the Inspector had imagined.
He had been prepared for glamour, for artiflciality, even possibly, for heroics. He would not have been at all surprised if she had put on an act of some kind.
In fact, she was, he shrewdly suspected, putting on an act. But it was not the kind of act he had expected.
There was no overdone feminine charm -glamour was not stressed.
Instead, he felt that he was sitting opposite to an exceedingly good-looking and expensively dressed woman who was also a good business woman. Veronica Cray, he thought, was no fool.
'We just want a clear statement, Miss Cray. You came over to The Hollow on Saturday evening?'
'Yes, I'd run out of matches. One forgets how important these things are in the country.'
'You went all the way to The Hollow? Why not to your next door neighbour, M. Poirot?'
She smiled-a superb confident camera smile.
'I didn't know who my next door neighbour was-otherwise I should have. I just thought he was some little foreigner and I thought, you know, he might become a bore-living so near.'
Yes, thought Grange, quite plausible.
She'd worked that one out ready for the occasion.
'You got your matches,' he said. 'And you recognized an old friend in Dr. Christow, I understand?'
She nodded.
'Poor John. Yes, I hadn't seen him for fifteen years.'
'Really?' There was polite disbelief in the Inspector's tone.
'Really.' Her tone was firmly assertive.
'You were pleased to see him?'
'Very pleased. It's always delightful, don't you think, Inspector, to come across an old friend?'
'It can be on some occasions.'
Veronica Cray went on without waiting for further questioning:
'John saw me home. You'll want to know if he said anything that could have a bearing on the tragedy, and I've been thinking over our conversation very carefully-but really there wasn't a pointer of any kind.'
'What did you talk about. Miss Cray?'
'Old days. 'Do you remember this, that and the other?'' She smiled pensively. 'We had known each other in the
