Read Online The Hollow by Agatha Christie - Free Book Online

play the Murder Game, are we?”
    “I don't think so. I think it is just neighbourly hospitality.”
    Midge's voice changed a little.
    “Here's Edward coming out to hunt us.”
    “Dear Edward,” thought Henrietta with a sudden rush of warm affection.
    Edward Angkatell was very tall and thin. He was smiling now as he came towards the two young women.
    “Hullo, Henrietta. I haven't seen you for over a year.”
    “Hullo, Edward.”
    How nice Edward was! That gentle smile of his, the little creases at the corners of his eyes. And all his nice knobbly bones... I believe it's his bones I like so much, thought Henrietta. The warmth of her affection for Edward startled her. She had forgotten that she liked Edward so much...
    After lunch Edward said, “Come for a walk, Henrietta.”
    It was Edward's kind of walk - a stroll.
    They went up behind the house, taking a path that zigzagged up through the trees. Like the woods at Ainswick, thought Henrietta... Dear Ainswick, what fun they had had there! She began to talk to Edward about Ainswick. They revived old memories.
    “Do you remember our squirrel? The one with the broken paw? And we kept it in a cage and it got well?”
    “Of course. It had a ridiculous name - what was it now?”
    “Cholmondeley-Majoribanks!”
    “That's it.”
    They both laughed.
    “And old Mrs. Bondy, the housekeeper - she always said it would go up the chimney one day.”
    “And we were so indignant...”
    “And then it did...”
    “She made it,” said Henrietta positively. “She put the thought into the squirrel's head.”
    She went on:
    “Is it all the same, Edward? Or is it changed? I always imagine it as just the same.”
    “Why don't you come and see, Henrietta? It's a long, long time since you've been there.”
    “I know...”
    Why, she thought, had she let so long a time go by?
    One got busy - interested - tangled up with people...
    “You know you're always welcome there at any time.”
    “How sweet you are, Edward!”
    Dear Edward, she thought, with his nice bones...
    He said presently:
    “I'm glad you're fond of Ainswick, Henrietta.”
    She said dreamily, “Ainswick is the loveliest place in the world...”
    A long-legged girl, with a mane of untidy brown hair... happy girl with no idea at all of the things that life was going to do to her... a girl who loved trees...
    To have been so happy and not to have known it! If I could go back, she thought...
    And aloud she said suddenly:
    “Is Ygdrasil still there?”
    “It was struck by lightning.”
    “Oh, no, not Ygdrasil!”
    She was distressed. Ygdrasil - her own special name for the big oak tree. If the gods could strike down Ygdrasil then nothing was safe! Better not go back...
    “Do you remember your special sign, the Ygdrasil sign?” Edward asked.
    “The funny tree like no tree that ever was I used to draw on bits of paper? I still do, Edward! On blotters, and on telephone books, and on bridge scores. I doodle it all the time. Give me a pencil.”
    He handed her a pencil and note-book, and laughing, she drew the ridiculous tree.
    “Yes,” he said, “that's Ygdrasil...”
    They had come almost to the top of the path. Henrietta sat on a fallen tree trunk. Edward sat down beside her.
    She looked down through the trees.
    “It's a little like Ainswick here - a kind of pocket Ainswick. I've sometimes wondered - Edward, do you think that that is why Lucy and Henry came here?”
    “It's possible.”
    “One never knows,” said Henrietta slowly, “what goes on in Lucy's head.” Then she asked, “What have you been doing with yourself, Edward, since I saw you last?”
    “Nothing, Henrietta.”
    “That sounds very peaceful.”
    “I've never been very good at - doing things.” She threw him a quick glance. There had been something in his tone... But he was smiling at her quietly. And again she felt that rush of deep affection.
    “Perhaps,” she said, “you are wise.”
    “Wise?”
    “Not to do things...”
    Edward said