"You mean," said Poirot, "that you have decided that Mrs. Christow shot her husband?"

Grange gave him a look of surprise.

"Well, don't you think so?" Poirot said slowly, "It could all have happened as she said."

Inspector Grange shrugged his shoulders.

"It could have-yes. But it's a thin story.

And they all think she killed him! They know something we don't." He looked curiously at his companion. "You thought she'd done it all right, didn't you, when you arrived on the scene?"

Poirot half closed his eyes. Coming along the path… Gudgeon stepping aside…

Gerda Christow standing over her husband with the revolver in her hand and that blank look on her face. Yes, as Grange had said, he had thought she had done it… had thought, at least, that that was the impression he was meant to have… Yes, but that was not the same thing…

A scene staged-set to deceive…

Had Gerda Christow looked like a woman who had just shot her husband? That was what Inspector Grange wanted to know.

And with a sudden shock of surprise, Hercule Poirot realized that in all his long experience of deeds of violence he had never actually come face to face with a woman who had just killed her husband… What would a woman look like in such circumstances?

Triumphant, horrified, satisfied, dazed, incredulous, empty?

Any one of these things, he thought…

Inspector Grange was talking. Poirot caught the end of his speech. («-once you get all the facts behind the case, and you can usually get all that from, the servants."

"Mrs. Christow is going back to London?"

"Yes.

There're a couple of kids there.

Have to let her go. Of course, we keep a sharp eye on her, but she won't know that.

She thinks she's got away with it all right.

Looks rather a stupid kind of woman to me…"

Did Gerda Christow realize, Poirot wondered, what the police thought-and what the Angkatells thought? She had looked as though she did not realize anything at all-she had looked like a woman whose reactions were slow and who was completely dazed and heartbroken by her husband's death…

They had come out into the lane.

Poirot stopped by his gate. Grange said:

"This your little place? Nice and snug.

Well, good-bye for the present, M. Poirot.

Thanks for your cooperation. I'll drop in sometime and give you the lowdown on how we're getting on."

His eye travelled up the lane.

"Who's your neighbour? That's not where our new celebrity hangs out, is it?"

"Miss Veronica Cray, the actress, comes there for week-ends, I believe."

"Of course. Dovecotes. I liked her in Lady Rides on Tiger but she's a bit highbrow for my taste. Give me Deanna Durbin or Hedy Lamarr."

He turned away.

"Well, I must get back to the job. So long, M. Poirot."

"You recognize this. Sir Henry?"

Inspector Grange laid the revolver on the desk in front of Sir Henry and looked at him expectantly.

"I can handle it?" Sir Henry's hand hesitated over the revolver as he asked the question.

Grange nodded.

"It's been in the pool. Destroyed whatever finger-prints there were on it. A pity, if I may say so, that Miss Savernake let it slip out of her hand."

"Yes, yes-but, of course, it was a very tense moment for all of us. Women are apt to get flustered and-er-drop things."

Again Inspector Grange nodded. He said:

"Miss Savernake seems a cool, capable young lady on the whole."

The words were devoid of emphasis 5 yet something in them made Sir Henry look up sharply. Grange went on:

"Now, do you recognize it, sir?"

Sir Henry picked up the revolver and examined it. He noted the number and compared it with a list in a small leather-bound book. Then, closing the book with a sigh, he said:

"Yes, Inspector, this comes from my collection here."

"When did you see it last?"

"Yesterday afternoon. We were doing some shooting in the garden with a target, and this was one of the firearms we were using."

"Who actually fired this revolver on that occasion?"

"I think everybody had at least one shot with it."

"Including Mrs. Christow?"

"Including Mrs. Christow."

"And after you had finished shooting?"

"I put the revolver away in its usual place.

Here."

He pulled out the drawer of a big bureau.

It was half full of guns.

"You've got a big collection of firearms, Sir Henry."

"It's been a hobby of mine for many years."

Inspector Grange's eyes rested thoughtfully on the ex-Governor of the Hollowene Islands. A good-looking distinguished man, the kind of man he would be quite pleased to serve under himself-in fact, a man he would much prefer to his own present Chief Constable. Inspector Grange did not think much of the Chief Constable of Wealdshire -a fussy despot and a tuft-hunter-he brought his mind back to the job in hand.

"The revolver was not, of course, loaded when you put it away, Sir Henry?"

"Certainly not."

"And you keep your ammunition-where?"

"Here." Sir Henry took a key from a pigeonhole and unlocked one of the lower drawers of the desk.

Simple enough, thought Grange. The Christow woman had seen where it was kept.

She'd only got to come along and help herself. Jealousy, he thought, plays the dickens with women. He'd lay ten to one it was jealousy.

The thing would come clear enough when he'd finished the routine here and got onto the Harley Street end. But you'd got to do things in their proper order.

He got up and said:

"Well, thank you. Sir Henry. I'll let you know about the inquest."