Chapter 15 Chapter fifteen

Hercule Poirot, who was enjoying a glass of chocolate during the morning break, was suddenly interrupted by the ringing of the telephone.He stood up and picked up the receiver. "Hey?" "Is it M. Poirot?" "Is that Mrs Angkatell?" "How nice of you to hear my voice! Am I bothering you?" "Not at all. I hope you have not been hurt by the sad events of yesterday." "No, not at all. It's sad, as you say. But one person, I found, was very detached. I called you to see if you might come over - an imposed request, I know , but I am really in great trouble."

"Certainly, Mrs Angkatell. Do you mean now?" "Oh yes, it does mean now. As soon as possible, kind of you." "Then, can I come through the woods?" "Oh, of course—the shortest way. Thank you very much, my dear M. Poirot." After just brushing some dust off the lapels of his coat and hastily putting on his overcoat, Poirot set off without pausing.He crossed the country lane and hurried along it through the chestnut woods.The swimming pool was abandoned - the police had done their job and left.In the misty light of autumn, it looks pure and peaceful.

Poirot inspected the awning quickly.The white fox shawl, which he had noticed, had been taken away; but the six boxes of matches still lay on the coffee table by the bench; he was more interested in them than ever. "It's not a place for matches—it's humid here. One box, for convenience, perhaps—but not six." He frowned and looked down at the lacquered iron table.The tray with the glasses had been taken away.Someone had scribbled a picture in pencil on the table—a sketch of a nightmarish tree.It pained Hercule Poirot.It disturbed his rigorous mind. He clicked his tongue, shook his head, and hurried towards the house, thinking about the reason for this urgent summons.

Mrs Angkatell was waiting for him by the French windows, and led him briskly into the empty drawing room. "It is very kind of you to come, M. Poirot." She held his hand tightly and warmly. "Madam, I am willing to serve you at any time." Mrs Angkatell's hand waved expressively.Her big beautiful eyes widened. "Look, it's all so hard. That sheriff is interviewing—no, interrogating—taking a confession—what's their terminology?—Gjen. Our whole life here really depends on Gage Jain, one person really sympathizes with him so much. Because for him, of course, being interrogated by the police is terrible - even Sergeant Grange, I do feel good about him, and think he is probably a Family man - had several boys. And played McNaugh with them in the evenings - and had an impeccable wife, but the house was too small and a little cramped..."

Hercule Poirot blinked as Mrs Angkatell completed her imaginary picture of Sheriff Grange's family life. "His beard hangs down, by the way," went on Mrs. Angkatell, "and I think an overly impeccable family may be depressing at times—like the soap on a nurse's face in a hospital. What a spectacle." But in the backward country, there's a lot of it—in the sanatoriums in London, they put on a lot of powder and put on very bright lipstick. But I'm saying, M. Poirot, when all this nonsense is over, You really have to make a special trip for lunch." "It's so kind of you."

"I don't mind the policemen personally," said Mrs. Angkatell. "I really find everything very interesting. I will help you in any way I can, I said to Inspector Grange. He seemed A rather confused man, but organized." "Motivation seems to be very important to the police," she continued. "Speaking of the nurses in the hospital, I'm sure John Crystal - a nurse with red hair and a snub nose - is very attractive. But of course this was a long time ago and the police probably wouldn't be interested. One cannot know exactly how much poor Gerda has had to endure. She is of the faithful type, do you think so? Perhaps she may have listened to what she was told. I think that if one is not If it's smart, it's wise to do that."

Quite suddenly, Mrs Angkater burst open the study door and led Poirot in."Here is M. Poirot," exclaimed cheerfully. She circled him briskly a few times, then went out, closing the door behind her.Sheriff Grange and Gazeon were sitting at the table.A young man with a blotter sat in one corner.Gazeon stood up respectfully. Poirot hastily apologized. "I'll back out immediately. I assure you I don't know Mrs Angkatell—" "No, no, you don't have to." Grange's beard looked more lifeless than usual this morning. "Perhaps," thought Poirot, enthralled by Angkatel's recent picture of Grange, "too many sweepers, or bought a Benares brass table, so that this The good sheriff really doesn't have room to move."

He chased those thoughts away angrily.Sheriff Grange's tidy but overcrowded home, his wife, his sons and their obsession with McKenna, are all figments of Mrs Angkatell's busy mind. But the hypothesis, stated so clearly and vividly, interested him.That's quite an achievement. "Sit down, M. Poirot," said Grange, "I want to ask you something, which is almost over here." He turned his attention to Gjen, who resigned himself to his seat resignedly, almost in protest.Then turned an expressionless face to his interlocutor. "Is that all you can remember?"

"Yes, sir, everything, sir, is exactly as usual, and there is nothing unpleasant." "There's a fur shawl—under the awning by the pool. Whose lady's it is?" "You mean, sir, a shawl of white fox fur? I noticed that too yesterday when I delivered the mug to the tent. But it ain't anyone's property in this house, sir." "Then whose is it?" "It may have belonged to Miss Clay, sir. Miss Veronica Clay, a movie actress. She wore that shawl." "when?" "When she came here the night before yesterday, sir." "You didn't mention that she was here as a guest?"

"She's not a guest, sir. Miss Cray lives in the Dove Cottage, the farmhouse at the end of the - er - country lane, and she came after dinner, and she's run out of matches, so she's here to borrow some." "Did she take six boxes?" asked Poirot. Gazeon turned to him. "Exactly, Mr. Ma'am, after asking if we had enough, insisted that Miss Clay take half a dozen matches." "Did she forget it in the awning?" said Poirot. "Yes, sir, I saw them there yesterday morning." "There was hardly anything the man hadn't observed," Poirot commented after Gjen had left and closed the door behind him gently and respectfully.

Sheriff Grange simply commented that the servants were devils! "However," he said, with a little renewed glee, "it's always the kitchen maids who are willing to talk—unlike these haughty senior servants." "I've sent a man down to Harley Street to investigate," he went on, "and I'm going later in the day. We're supposed to get something there. You know, I dare say, that Crystal's wife must have put up with it." Lots of stuff. These trendy doctors and their female patients—oh, you're surprised! And I've heard from Mrs. Angkatell that he's having trouble with a hospital nurse. She's very vague about it, of course. .” "Yes," agreed Poirot, "she is very vague." A very skillfully constructed picture...the love plot between John Christo and the female nurses in the hospital...a chance in the life of a doctor...reason enough to explain Gerda Christo's eventual accumulation of into murderous jealousy. Yes, a well-suggested picture, drawing attention to the background of Harley Street--leaving the Hollow Manor--leaving that Henrietta Savnac, striding forward, From the moment when Gerda Crystal took the revolver in the defiant hand ... left the other moment when John Crystal said "Henrietta" in his dying breath. Suddenly, Hercule Poirot, who had half-closed his eyes, opened them, and asked with irresistible curiosity: "Do your boys play McKenna?" "Well, what?" Inspector Grange came back to reality from frowning fantasy, and stared at Poirot. "What, what exactly? Actually, they're too small—but I'm thinking of giving Teddy a pair of McKennas for Christmas. What made you ask that?" Poirot shook his head. What made Mrs Angercartel dangerous, he thought, was the fact that her intuitive, expansive guesses were often likely to be right.With a careless word (and it seems careless), she constructs a picture - and if part of the picture is true, don't you, against your own mind, believe the picture Is the rest of it also true? ... Sheriff Grange is speaking. "There is one point I want to make to you, M. Poirot. This Miss Clay, the actress—she comes here wearily to borrow matches. If she wants to borrow matches, why doesn't she come to you, one for a couple of A step away? Why go a mile and a half away?" Hercule Poirot shrugged. "There must be some reason. Snob's sake, shall we say? My little farmhouse, it's small and unremarkable. I'm just a weekender. But Sir Henry and Mrs. Anglecartel are important Characters—they live here—they're rich folks people in the country turn to. Miss Veronica Cray, she might want to know them—it's a way, after all." Sheriff Grange rose to his feet. "Yes," he said, "that's quite possible. Of course, but one doesn't want to overlook anything. I still have no doubt that everything will run in the ordinary course. Sir Henry has confirmed that the The gun was one of his collections. It seemed they actually used that gun in practice the afternoon before yesterday. All Mrs. Crystal had to do was go into the study and take it and the ammunition away from where she knew it. It's all very simple." "Yes," muttered Poirot, "it seems all is very simple." It is true, he thought, that a woman like Gerda Christo could commit crimes.No tricks or complicated reasons - just driven by the intense pain of a narrow but loving nature, to a violent crime. Yet there is no doubt that she has some sense of self-preservation.Maybe she was in the blind—that spiritual darkness that drove her to action, when reasons didn't matter so much. He recalled her blank, dazed face. He didn't understand--he didn't understand. But he felt that he should understand.