'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 among 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 is a good set of prints on it. Thumb, first finger, part of the 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 condoling 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 finger-prints, 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!'
Chapter XXVII
