Chapter 28 Chapter Twenty Eight

Gerda rolled to the other side of the bed and sat up. Her head feels better now.But she is still glad that she did not go to the clinic with other people to see a doctor.It's quiet, and almost comfortable, to be alone in the house. Elsie, of course, had been very nice--very nice--especially at first.At first, Gerda was forced to eat breakfast in bed, with the dishes brought to her.Everyone forced her to sit in the most comfortable armchair, to restore her to her former state, to do nothing that wasted her energy. Everyone was so sorry about John.She had huddled gratefully in that protective haze of bewilderment.She doesn't need to think, or feel, or remember.

But now, every day, she felt an urgency getting closer—that she would have to start living again, decide what to do, where to live.Elsie already showed a shadow of impatience in her demeanor. "Oh, Gerda, don't be so dull!" All was as it had been before—long ago, before John came and took her away.All of them thought her dull and stupid.Nobody said, "I'll take care of you" like John did. Her head began to hurt, and Gerda thought: "I'm going to make myself some tea." She went into the kitchen and put the kettle on the stove.Just as the water was about to boil, she heard the front doorbell ring.

The maid is on vacation.Gerda went to the door, opened it, and was amazed to see Henrietta's light-looking car parked by the side of the road, and Henrietta herself standing on the doorstep. "Ah, Henrietta!" she cried, and she went up a step or two. "Come in. I'm afraid my sister and the children are out, but—" Henrietta interrupted: "That's good, I'm glad. I want to be alone with you. Listen, Gerda, what did you do with the holster?" Gerda froze.Her gaze suddenly became blank and incomprehensible.She said, "Holster?" Then she opened a door on the right side of the hall.

"You'd better come in. I'm afraid it's too dusty here. We don't have much time this morning, you see." Henrietta interrupted her eagerly again. She said: "Listen, Gerda, you've got to tell me. Everything's fine except the holster—absolutely flawless. Nothing connects you to the case. I found you hiding in the The revolver in the bushes by the swimming pool. I just hid it in a place where you couldn't put it - and it had fingerprints on it that could never be identified. So all that's left is the holster. I have to know what you put How is it?"

She paused, praying desperately for Gerda's quick response. She didn't understand why she felt this sense of urgency, but it was there.Her car hadn't been followed - she was absolutely sure of that.She had started from London Road and only noticed she was headed towards London after filling up at a roadside service station.Then, after some distance, she traveled through the country until she reached a main road leading south to the coast. Gerda was staring at her.The trouble with Gerda is that she is so dull, Henrietta thought. "If you still have it, Gerda, you must give it to me. I'll get rid of it somehow. It's the only sensible thing to do, and, you see, it can take you as well. John's death is linked. Do you still have it?"

After a pause, Gerda nodded slowly. "Don't you see that it's crazy to keep it?" Henrietta could hardly hide her impatience. "I forgot. In my room." She added: "When the police came to Harley Street I cut it into pieces and put it in my bag with my leather crafts." Henrietta said, "You're so clever." "I'm not as stupid as everyone thinks," said Gerda, putting her hand to her throat."John--John!" she said, her throat choking. Henrietta said, "I get it, darling, I get it." Gerda said: "But you can't understand .Her eyes lifted, looking suddenly straight into Henrietta's face. "It's all a lie—everything! Everything about him. I saw the look on his face when he went out with that woman that night. Veronica Clay. I knew he had Loved her, of course, many years ago, before he married me, but I thought it was over."

Henrietta said softly: "But it's really over." Gerda shook her head. "No. She went there and pretended she hadn't seen John in years—but I saw the look on John's face. He went out with her. I went to bed. I lay in bed and tried to read— I was trying to read the detective story that John had been looking at. And John never came back. So finally I went out..." Her gaze seemed to be constantly shifting in the depths of her eyes, watching the scene. "There was moonlight that night. I walked down the path to the pool. There was a light in the awning. There they were—John and the woman."

Henrietta made a slight noise. Gerda's expression changed.There is no longer the usual slightly empty kindness, but cruelty and ruthlessness. "I've always trusted John. I've always believed in him—as if he were God. I thought he was the noblest man in the world. I thought he was the very embodiment of goodness and nobility. But all this is a lie! All my No idea at all. I—I adored John!" Henrietta watched her as if enchanted.For here, before her eyes, was what she had guessed and brought to life, carved out of wood. The Adorer is here.The blind love returned to it, disenchanted and dangerous.

Gerda said: "I can't stand this! I have to kill him! I have to—do you understand this at all, Henrietta?" She was quite chatty when she said this, in an almost friendly tone. "And I knew I had to be careful because the cops were pretty smart. But then I wasn't really as stupid as people thought I was! If you're dumb and just stare, people think you haven't figured it out— —and sometimes, in the back of your mind, you're laughing at them! I know I can kill John and no one will know, because I read in that detective story that the police can identify which gun the bullet came from. Sir Henry I was shown how to load and fire that afternoon. I took two revolvers. I shot John with one and then hid it and let people find me holding the other. At first they'll think I shot John, then they'll realize he couldn't have been shot with that gun, so in the end they'll conclude it wasn't me!"

She nodded in triumph. "But I overlooked that leather thing. It's in a drawer in my bedroom. What do you call it, a holster? Of course the cops don't bother with it now!" "It's possible they will," Henrietta said. "You'd better give it to me, and I'll take it. Once it's out of your hands, you're perfectly safe." She sat down, suddenly feeling an indescribable fatigue. Gerda said: "You don't look well. I was just making tea." She walks out of the house.Soon came back with a tray, on which stood a teapot, milk jug, and two glasses.The milk jug overflowed from being overfilled.Gerda put down the tray, poured out a cup of tea, and handed it to Henrietta.

"My God," she said despondently, "I can't believe the water in the kettle isn't boiling." "It's fine," said Henrietta. "Go get the holster, Gerda." Gerda hesitated, then walked out of the room.Henrietta leaned forward, resting her arms on the end table and resting her head on it.She was so exhausted, so 100 percent exhausted.But now it's all coming to an end.Gerda would be safe, as safe as John had hoped. She stood up, pushed her hair back from her forehead, and lifted her teacup to her lips.Then there was a knock at the door, and she looked up.For once, Gerda moved quite quickly. But standing at the door was Hercule Poirot. "The front door is open," he explained as he made his way to the coffee table, "so I won't ask myself in." "You!" said Henrietta, "how did you get here?" "You left the Void Manor so suddenly, I naturally understood where you were going. I hired an express car and came straight here." "I see." Henrietta sighed. "You will." "You cannot drink that cup of tea," said Poirot, taking it from her hand and replacing it on the tray. "Tea made from unboiled water does not taste good." "Does something as small as boiling water really matter?" Poirot said softly: "Everything matters." There was a sound behind him, and Gerda entered.In her hand was a tool bag.Her gaze passed from Poirot's face to Henrietta's. Henrietta said quickly: "I am afraid, Gerda, that I am a suspect. M. Poirot seems to have been following me. He thinks I killed John—but he cannot prove it." She said this deliberately and slowly.As long as Gerda doesn't give herself away. Gerda said vaguely: "I'm sorry. Would you like some tea, M. Poirot?" "No, thank you, ma'am." Gerda sat down behind the tray.She started talking in her apologetic, chatty way. "Sorry everyone was out, my sister and the kids went out for a picnic. I didn't feel well so they left me behind." "I'm sorry, ma'am." Gerda picked up a cup of tea and drank it. "Everything is so worrying. Everything is so worrying. You see, John used to have everything sorted out, and now John's gone from us..." Her voice trailed off. "Now John has left us." Her eyes passed from one person to another, pitifully and bewildered. "I don't know what to do without John. John took care of me. He cared about me. Now he's gone, everything is gone. And the kids—they ask me questions, and I Couldn't answer them properly. I didn't know what to say to Terry. He kept asking, 'Why was father killed?' Maybe one day, of course, he'd find out why. Terry always got to the bottom of it. What confuses me is that he always asks why, not who!" Gerda leaned back in the chair.Her lips were blue. She said with difficulty: "I don't think—not very well—if John—John—" Poirot walked towards her around the table and seated her comfortably sideways in the chair.Her head hangs on her chest.He bent down and opened her eyelids.Then he straightened up. "A comfortable, relatively painless death." Henrietta watched him. "Heart attack? No." Her thoughts leaped forward. "What was in the tea? Something she put in herself? Did she choose such a path of liberation?" Poirot shook his head tenderly. "Oh no, that's for you. The poison is in your teacup." "She's going to kill me?" Henrietta's voice was filled with disbelief. "But I'm trying to help her." "It doesn't matter. Have you ever seen a dog in a trap—it grinned at anyone who touched it. All she saw was that you knew her secret, so you, too, must die." Henrietta said slowly: "So you told me to put the cup back on the tray—did you want—did you want her—" Poirot interrupted her calmly: "No, no, miss. I don't know what's in your teacup. I only know it might. And when the cups are on the tray, she has an equal chance of drinking this or that— If you call it an opportunity. Personally I see this ending as kind. For her and for those two innocent kids." He said softly to Henrietta, "You're tired, aren't you?" She nodded.She asked him, "When did you guess that?" "I don't know for sure. The scene was ready, I had the feeling from the beginning. But I didn't realize for a long time that it was Gerda Christo who was ready - she had the attitude. Dramatically, because she was really playing a role. I was confused by the simplicity and complexity at the same time. I realized fairly quickly that I was fighting your wit, and as soon as your relatives understood what you wanted I'm helping you right now!" He paused, then added, "Why do you want things to be like this?" "Because John asked me to! That's just what he meant when he said 'Henrietta.' Everything is contained in that one word. He's asking me to protect Gerda. You see, he loves Gerda." Gerda. I think he loves Gerda far more than he thinks. Far more than Veronica Clay. Far more than me. Gerda belongs to him, and John loves what belongs to him .He knew that if anything could protect Gerda from what she had done, it would be me. And he knew that I would do whatever he wanted me to do, because I loved him." "And you started at once," said Poirot bitterly. "Yes, the first thing I could think of was to take the revolver from her and drop it in the swimming pool. That would obscure the fingerprints, and when I later found out he had been shot with a different gun After the shot I went out to look for it and found it right away, naturally, because I knew Gerda would hide it in that kind of place. And it was only a minute or two before Sheriff Grange's men arrived .” She paused, then went on: "I kept it in my canvas bag until I brought it to London. Then, until I got it back, I hid it in the sculpture room and put it in the police station. nowhere to be found." "That clay horse," muttered Poirot softly. "How do you know? Yes, I put it in a tool bag and built a brace around it and smeared clay all over it to make a statue. After all, the police can't bust a painter A masterpiece, isn't it? How do you know where it is?" "The fact that you chose to build a horse. The Trojan horse was in your mind unconsciously. But those fingerprints—how did you get those fingerprints?" "In that street there was a blind old man who sold matches. He didn't know what to ask him to hold in his hand when I paid for it!" Poirot watched her for a moment. "C'estformidable!" he muttered. "You are the toughest opponent I have ever met, miss." "It's exhausting being always ahead of you." "I know. I realized the truth as soon as I saw that the pattern was designed to implicate no one, but to implicate everyone—except Gerda Christo. Every hint Always avoided her. You drew Yggdrasil on purpose to get my attention and put yourself among the suspects. Mrs. Angkatell, she knows exactly what you're doing, just use one after another Possibility: Davy, Edward, herself to seduce poor Sheriff Grange, and have fun with it." "Yes, if you want to clear someone who is actually guilty, there's only one thing to do. You have to imply guilt somewhere else, but never be sure about it. That's why every clue seems so There is hope, but then the hope dwindles and there is nothing in the end." Henrietta looked at the man huddled pitifully in the chair."Poor Gerda," she said. "Have you always felt this way?" "That's right. Gerda loves John dearly, but she doesn't want to love him as a real person. She erects a shrine to him, and ascribes to him every quality of excellence, nobility, and disinterestedness." But if you overthrow an idol, nothing is left." She paused, then went on: "But John was far better than an idol on the altar. He was a real, living, Man of life. He was generous, gentle, full of life, and he was a great doctor—yes, a great doctor, but he is dead. The world lost a very great man. And I lost The only person I've ever loved in my life." Poirot put his hand tenderly on her shoulder.He said: "But you're a man who can live with a sword in his heart—a man who can go on living and smiling—" Henrietta looked up at him.A poignant smile formed on her twisted lips. "It's a little dramatic, isn't it?" "Because I'm a foreigner and I like to use beautiful words." Henrietta said suddenly: "You've always been nice to me." "That's because I admire you so much." "What are you going to do, M. Poirot? I mean, about Gerda." Poirot drew the raffia tool bag to him.He emptied its contents, some brown hides, and others that had been dyed.There were also fragments of thick shiny brown leather.Poirot put them together. "The holster. I'll take this away. And poor Mrs. Crystal, she was so overwhelmed that her husband's death was too much for her. She had wrong thoughts and took her own life—" Henrietta said slowly: "Will no one ever know what really happened?" "I think one will know, Dr. Crystal's son. I think one day he will come to me and ask me for the truth." "But you won't tell him," cried Henrietta. "No. I'll tell him." "Oh no!" "You don't understand. To you, it's intolerable for anyone to be hurt. But for some minds, there's something even more intolerable—not understanding what happened. You hear that poor woman still In saying, 'Terry always has to understand things,' for a scientific mind, the truth is first and foremost. The truth, even if it is poignant, can be taken and woven into the fabric of life." Henrietta stood up. "Do you want me to stay here, or leave?" "Things would be better if you left, I think." She nodded.Then to him, but more like to himself: "Where shall I go? What shall I do—without John by my side?" "You talk like Gerda Crystal. You know where to go and what to do." "Would I? I'm so tired, M. Poirot, so tired." He said softly: "Go, my boy. You should stay with the living. I stay here with the dead."