Chapter 27 Chapter Twenty Seven

Mickey, in the dark, was lying awake on the bed with his eyes open for tears, tossing and turning restlessly on the pillow.She heard a door unbolted, and footsteps passed her door in the corridor.This is Edward's door and Edward's footsteps.She turned on the light by the bed and looked at the clock beside the waiters on the table.Ten to three. Edward passed her door at this hour of the morning and came down the stairs.really weird. They all went to bed early at half past ten.She herself was not asleep, lying with burning eyelids open.With her was the fruitless, stinging misery that tormented her.

She had heard the bells downstairs - heard the owl hooting outside her bedroom window.At two o'clock she felt her depression reach its nadir.She thought to herself, "I can't bear it—I can't bear it. Tomorrow will come—a new day. It's going to be like this." Driven out of Answick by her own behavior--banished from all that could have been her own, the loveliness and sincerity of Ainswick. But the expulsion, the solitude, the dreary life, was better than living with Edward's and Henrietta's ghosts.It wasn't until that day in the woods that she understood the limits of her bitter jealousy.

And after all, Edward never told her he loved her.Care, affection, he never pretended to have more than that.She had accepted the limit, but not until she realized what it would mean to live in close proximity to the same Edward, whose heart and mind made Henrietta a permanent resident. Knowing that for her, Edward's kindness was not enough. Edward passed her door and went down the front stairs.It's weird -- very weird.Where is he going? Anxiety gradually took over her mind.These days, the indispensable thing that the fantasy manor has given her is anxiety.What was Edward doing down there in the middle of the night?Is he out?

In the end she defeated laziness.She got up from the bed, put on her pajamas, and then, holding a flashlight, opened the door and came to the corridor. The hallway was pretty dark and none of the lights were on.Mickey turned to the left and came to the landing.It was pitch black below.She hurried down the stairs, and after a moment's hesitation, she turned on the light in the hall.All places are silent.The front door was closed and locked tightly.She tried the side door, which was also locked. Well, Edward didn't go out.Where can he go? Suddenly she raised her head and twitched her nose.

A smell, a very faint smell of gas. The door to the kitchen operating room was slightly ajar.She walked through—a faint light shone through the kitchen door.The smell of gas was much stronger. Mitch ran down the corridor and into the kitchen.Edward was lying on the floor with his head in the gas stove, which was turned on to full blast. Mickey is a smart, sophisticated girl.Her first move was to open the shutters.But she couldn't open the window, so she wrapped a glass-resistant cloth around her arm and shattered the window.Then, holding his breath, stooping, dragged Edward out of the gas range and shut the valve.

He was unconscious, breathing strangely, but she knew he couldn't have been unconscious for very long.He may have only just succumbed to the call of death.The wind blew in through the window and towards the door, quickly dispelling the smell of gas.Mitch dragged Edward to a place near a window where he was completely exposed to fresh air.She sat down and held him tightly in her young, strong arms. She called his name, softly at first, then with growing desperation: "Edward, Edward, Edward..." He moved, moaned, and opened his eyes, looking at her."Gas stove," he said weakly, searching the gas stove with his eyes.

"I understand, dear, but why—why?" He was trembling at this moment, his hands were cold, and he didn't have a breath of life."Mickey?" he said, with a questioning wonderment and pleasure in his voice. She said: "I heard you pass my door and I didn't understand ... I just went downstairs." He sighed, a long sigh that seemed to come from far away. "The best form of relief," he said.At that moment, until she remembered Lucy's conversation "News of the World" on the night of the tragedy, it all ceased to make sense. "But, Edward, why, why?"

He watched her, and she was terrified by the emptiness and indifference in his eyes that she had never seen before. "Because I understand that I've never been good. Always a loser, always a loser. It's men like Crystal who do business. They come here and women adore them. I'm nothing - I'm not even very alive. I inherited Ainswick and have enough money to live on - otherwise I'd be down and out. Not good at any one - and never as a writer Not brilliant. Henrietta didn't want me. Nobody wanted me. That day—at Berkeley—I thought—but it was the same story. You couldn't care less about me, Mitch. Even for Anse You can't put up with me either, for Wick's sake. So I think it's best to get away from it all."

Her words came rushing out: "Honey, darling, you don't understand. It's because of Henrietta—because I think you still love Henrietta so much." "Henrietta?" he murmured vaguely, as if speaking of someone infinitely far away. "Yes, I love her very much." Even if she was farther away from him, she could hear him muttering: "It's so grim." "Edward—my dear." Her arms were tightly wrapped around him.He smiled at her and murmured: "How warm you are, Mitch—how warm you are." Yes, she thought, this is despair.A ruthless thing—a thing of infinite ruthlessness and solitude.She had thought of it as something fiery and passionate, something intense, a blood-thirsty desperation.But it doesn't.This is despair—this outpouring of the outer darkness of cruelty and loneliness.And the sin of despair, according to the priest, is a cruel sin, the sin that severes a man from all ties to all warm and living beings.

"How warm you are, Mitch," Edward said again, with a pleasant, proud confidence.It occurred to her: "But this is what he needs—this is what I can give him!" They were all hard, these Angkatells.There was something elusive even in Henrietta, that elusive fairy-like coolness that ran in her Angkatell blood.For Edward to love Henrietta was like dreaming an untouchable and unpossessed dream.What he really needed was warmth, permanence, and stability, the daily companionship of Ainswick, love, and laughter. She thought: "What Edward needs is someone to light a fire in his hearth—and I'm the one to do it."

Edward looked up and saw Mickey's face bent over him, the warm complexion, the wide mouth, the determined eyes, and the dark hair that fell back from his forehead like two wings . He has always seen Henrietta as a projection of the past.All he was looking for and wanting in the grown-up woman was the seventeen-year-old girl he had first loved.But now, looking at Mickey, he had a strange feeling, as if he saw a growing Mickey.He saw the back of the head with the two ponytails bouncing like a little schoolgirl flapping her wings, and now he saw the black waves covering her face, and he saw exactly when her hair What those wings looked like when they were no longer black and turned gray. "Mitch," he thought, "is real. The only real thing I've ever known..." He felt her warmth, and her courage—dark, active, alive, real! "Mitch," he thought, "is the rock on which I can build my life." He said, "Dear Mitch, I love you so much, never leave me." She bent down, and he felt the warmth of her lips on his, felt her love wrapping him and protecting him.And the flower of happiness bloomed in the cold desert where he had lived alone for so long. Mickey suddenly said with a trembling laugh: "Look, Edward, a black beetle came out to see us. Isn't it a lovely black beetle? I never thought I'd like a black beetle so much!" She added dreamily: "How strange life is. We're sitting on the floor of a kitchen, still smelling the gas, among black beetles, and feeling like heaven." He also whispered like a dream: "I would like to stay here forever." "We'd better get out and get some sleep. It's four o'clock. How on earth are we going to explain the broken window to Lucy?" thought Mitch, luckily Lucy is one to trust people to explain things to her . Following Lucy's example, Mickey walked into her room at six o'clock in the morning.She gave a truthful account of the facts. "Edward came downstairs in the middle of the night and stuck his head in the gas stove," she said. "Fortunately I heard him and went downstairs after him. I broke the window because I couldn't open it quickly enough." Mickey had to admit that Lucy was amazing. She smiled sweetly, without the slightest sign of surprise. "My dear Mickey," she said, "you have always been very tactful. I am sure you will always be Edward's greatest comfort." After Mickey was gone, Mrs Angkatell lay in bed thinking.Then she jumped out of bed and went into her husband's room, who this time made an exception and left the door unlocked. "Henry." "My dear Lucy! It's not yet dawn." "No, listen to me, Henry, it's really important. We've got to cook on the electric cooker and get rid of the gas range." "Why, that's always been satisfying, hasn't it?" "Oh, yes, dear. But that's the kind of thing that makes people think, and everybody can't be as sophisticated as dear Mickey." She left with incredible briskness.Sir Henry turned away after a disapproving grunt.Soon after taking a nap, he woke up. "Was I dreaming," he muttered, "or did Lucy come in and talk about the gas range?" In the corridor outside, Mrs Angkatell went into the bathroom and put a kettle on the gas burner.She knows that people sometimes like to have a cup of morning tea.With self-approval, she lit the fire, and then, satisfied with life and with herself, went back to bed and rested on the pillows. Edward and Mitch stay at Ainswick - the interrogation is over.She was going to talk to M. Poirot again.A sweet little man... Suddenly, another thought flashed into her mind.She sat up straight from the bed. "I wonder now," she reasoned, "whether she's thought of that." She climbed out of bed and floated down the hall into Henrietta's house, far away within earshot of her coming into Henrietta's and began her commentary as usual. "—it suddenly occurred to me, dear, that you might have overlooked that." Henrietta muttered sleepily, "For God's sake, Lucy, the birds aren't up yet!" "Oh, I know, dear, it's quite early, but it seems to have just been through a very anxious night - Edward and the gas stove, Mickey, and the kitchen window - and thinking about what to do to M. Poirot Say something, and everything—” "I'm sorry, Lucy, but everything you say sounds utterly inexplicable. Can't you speak a little more slowly?" "Just the holster, dear. I think, you know, you probably haven't thought of the holster." "Holster?" Henrietta sat up in bed.She was suddenly wide awake. "Any questions about the holster?" "Henry's revolver was in the holster, you know. And the holster hasn't been found. Of course no one would have thought of it—but on the other hand, someone might—" Henrietta flew off the bed.she says: "One always has to forget something - that's what they say! And it's true!" Mrs Angkatell returned to her room. She climbed into bed and soon fell asleep. The kettle on the gas stove boiled and continued to boil.