第 10 页

"A defeatist?"

"No, no. She wasn't that. It was, I think, the knowledge that she'd killed the man she loved - or I thought it was that."

"You are not so sure now?"

"To write a thing like that - solemnly - when she was dying."

Poirot said, "A pious lie, perhaps?"

"Perhaps." But Meredith was dubious. "That's not - that's not like Caroline."

Hercule Poirot nodded. Carla Lemarchant had said that. Carla had only a child's obstinate memory. But Meredith Blake had known Caroline well. It was the first confirmation Poirot had got that Carla's belief was to be depended upon.

Meredith Blake looked up at him. He said slowly, "If - if Caroline was innocent - why, the whole thing's madness! I don't see - any other possible solution."

He turned sharply on Poirot. "And you? What do you think?"

There was a silence.

"As yet," said Poirot at last, "I think nothing. I collect only the impressions: What Caroline Crale was like. What Amyas Crale was like. What the other people who were there at the time were like. What happened exactly on those two days. That is what I need. To go over the facts laboriously one by one. Your brother is going to help me there. He is sending me an account of the events as he remembers them."

"You won't get much from that," Meredith Blake said sharply. "Philip's a busy man. Things slip his memory once they're past and done with. Probably he'll remember things all wrong."

"There will be gaps, of course. I realize that."

"I tell you what -" Meredith paused abruptly, then went on, reddening a little as he spoke. "If you like, I - I could do the same. I mean, it would be a kind of check, wouldn't it?"

Hercule Poirot said warmly, "It would be most valuable. An idea of the first excellence!"

"Right. I will. I've got some old diaries somewhere. Mind you," he laughed awkwardly, "I'm not much of a hand at literary language. Even my spelling's not too good. You - you won't expect too much?"

"Ah, it is not the style I demand. Just a plain recital of everything you can remember: What everyone said, how they looked - just what happened. Never mind if it doesn't seem relevant. It all helps with the atmosphere, so to speak."

"Yes, I can see that. It must be difficult visualizing people and places you have never seen."

Poirot nodded. "That is another thing I wanted to ask you. Alderbury is the adjoining property to this, is it not? Would it be possible to go there - to see with my own eyes where the tragedy occurred?"

Meredith Blake said slowly, "I can take you over there right away. But, of course, it's a good deal changed."

"It has not been built over?"

"No, thank goodness - not quite so bad as that. But it's a kind of hostel now - it was bought by some society. Hordes of young people come down to it in the summer, and, of course, all the rooms have been cut up and partitioned into cubicles, and the grounds have been altered a good deal."

"You must reconstruct it for me by your explanations."

"I'll do my best. I wish you could have seen it in the old days. It was one of the loveliest properties I know."

He led the way out and began walking down a slope of lawn.

"Who was responsible for selling it?"

"The executors on behalf of the child. Everything Crale had came to her. He hadn't made a will, so I imagine that it would be divided automatically between his wife and the child. Caroline's will left what she had to the child, also."

"Nothing to her half sister?"

"Angela had a certain amount of money of her own left her by her father."

Poirot nodded. "I see." Then he uttered an exclamation. "But where is it that you take me? This is the seashore ahead of us!"

"Ah, I must explain our geography to you. You'll see for yourself in a minute. There's a creek, you see, Camel Creek, they call it, runs right inland - looks almost like a river mouth, but it isn't - it's just sea. To get to Alderbury by land, you have to go right inland and around the creek, but the shortest way from one house to the other is to row across this narrow bit of the creek. Alderbury is just opposite - there, you can see the house through the trees."

They had come out on a little beach. Opposite them was a wooded headland, and a white house could just be distinguished high up among the trees.

Two boats were drawn up on the beach. Meredith Blake, with Poirot's somewhat awkward assistance, dragged one of them down to the water and presently they were rowing across to the other side.

"We always went this way in the old days," Meredith explained. "Unless there was a storm or it was raining, and then we'd take the car. But it's nearly three miles if you'go around that way."

He ran the boat neatly alongside a stone quay on the other side. He cast a disparaging eye on a collection of wooden huts and some concrete terraces.

"All new, this. Used to be a boathouse - tumble-down old place, and nothing else. And one walked along the shore and bathed off those rocks over there."

He assisted his guest to alight, made fast the boat, and led the way up a steep path.

"Don't suppose we'll meet anyone," he said over his shoulder. "Nobody here in April - except for Easter. Doesnt matter if we do. I'm on good terms with my neighbors. Sun's glorious today. Might be summer. It was a wonderful day then. More like July than September. Brilliant sun, but a chilly little wind."

The path came out of the trees and skirted an outcrop of rock. Meredith pointed up with his hand.

"That s what they called the Battery. We're underneath it now - skirting round it."

They plunged into trees again and then the path took another sharp turn and they emerged by a door set in a high wall. The path itself continued to zigzag upward, but Meredith opened the door and the two men passed through it.

For a moment Poirot was dazzled, coming in from the shade outside. The Battery was an artificially cleared plateau with battlements set with cannon. It gave one the impression of overhanging the sea. There were trees above it and behind it, but on the sea side there was nothing but the dazzling blue water below.

"Attractive spot," said Meredith. He nodded contemptuously toward a kind of pavilion set back against the back wall. "That wasn't there, of course - only an old tumble-down shed where Amyas kept his painting muck and some bottled beer and a few deck chairs. It wasn't concreted then, either. There used to be a bench and a table - painted iron ones. That was all. Still - it hasn't changed much."

His voice held an unsteady note.

Poirot said, "And it was here that it happened?"

Meredith nodded. "The bench was there - up against the shed. He was sprawled on that. He used to sprawl there sometimes when he was painting - just fling himself down and stare and stare, and then suddenly up he'd jump and start laying the paint on the canvas like mad."

He paused.

"That's why, you know, he looked - almost natural. As though he might be asleep - just have dropped off. But his eyes were open - and he'd - just stiffened up. Stuff sort of paralyzes you, you know. There isn't any pain... I've - I've always been glad of that..."

Poirot asked a thing he already knew: "Who found him here?"

"She did. Caroline. After lunch. Elsa and I, I suppose, were the last ones to see him alive. It must have been coming on then. He - looked queer. I'd rather not talk about it. I'll write it to you. Easier that way."

He turned abruptly and went out of the Battery. Poirot flowed him without speaking.

The two men went on up the zigzag path. At a higher left-brace than the Battery, there was another small plateau. It was overshadowed with trees and there was a bench there and a table. Meredith said, "They haven't changed this much. But the bench used not to be Ye Olde Rustic. It was just a painted iron business. A bit hard for sitting, a lovely view."

Poirot agreed. Through a framework of trees one looked over the Battery to the creek mouth.

"I sat up here part of the morning," Meredith explained. "Trees weren't quite so overgrown then. One could see the battlements of the Battery quite plainly. That's where Elsa was posing, you know. Sitting on one, with her head twisted around."

He gave a slight twitch of his shoulders. "Trees grow faster than one thinks," he muttered. "Oh, well, suppose I'm getting old. Come on up to the house."

They continued to follow the path till it emerged near the house. It had been a fine old house, Georgian in style. It had been added to, and on a green lawn near it were set some fifty little wooden bathing hutches.

"Young men sleep there, girls in the house," Meredith explained.

"I don't suppose there's anything you want to see here. All the rooms have been cut about. Used to be a little conservatory tacked on here. These people have built a loggia. Oh, well - I suppose they enjoy their holidays. Can't keep everything as it used to be - more's the pity."

He turned away abruptly. "We'll go down another way. It - it all comes back to me, you know. Ghosts. Ghosts everywhere!"

Chapter 5

They returned to the quay by a somewhat longer and more rambling route. Poirot did not speak, nor did Blake. When they reached Handcross Manor once more, Blake said abruptly:

"I bought that picture, you know. The one that Amyas was painting. I just couldn't stand the idea of its being sold for - well, publicity value - a lot of dirty-minded brutes gaping at it. It was a fine piece of work. Amyas said it was the best thing he'd ever done. I shouldn't be surprised if he was right. It was practically finished. He only wanted to work on it another day or so. Would - would you care to see it?"

Hercule Poirot said quickly, "Yes, indeed."

Blake led the way across the hall and took a key from his pocket. He unlocked a door and they went into a fair-sized, dusty-smelling room. It was closely shuttered. Blake went across to the windows and opened the wooden shutters. Then, with a little difficulty, he flung up a window and a breath of fragrant spring air came wafting into the room.

Meredith said, "That's better."

He stood by the window inhaling the air, and Poirot joined him. There was no need to ask what the room had been. The shelves were empty, but there were marks upon them where bottles had once stood. Against one wall was some derelict chemical apparatus and a sink. The room was thick in dust.

Meredith Blake was looking out of the window. He said: "How easily it all comes back. Standing here, smelling the jasmine, and talking - talking, like the damned fool I was, about my precious potions and distillations!"

Absently, Poirot stretched a hand through the window. He pulled off a spray of jasmine leaves just breaking from their woody stem.

Meredith Blake moved resolutely across the floor. On the wall was a picture covered with a dust sheet. He jerked the dust sheet away.

Poirot caught his breath. He had seen, so far, four pictures of Amyas Crale's - two at the Tate; one at a London dealer's; one, the still life of roses. But now he was looking at what the artist himself had called his best picture, and Poirot realized at once what a superb artist the man had been.

The painting had an odd, superficial smoothness. At first sight it might have been a poster, so seemingly crude were its contrasts. A girl, a girl in a canary-yellow shirt and dark-blue slacks, sitting on a gray wall in full sunlight against a background of violent blue sea. Just the kind of subject for a poster.

But the first appearance was deceptive; there was a subtle distortion - an amazing brilliance and clarity in the light. And the girl -

Yes, here was life. All there was, all there could be, of life, of youth, of sheer, blazing vitality. The face was alive and the eyes -

So much life! Such passionate youth! That, then, was what Amyas Crale had seen in Elsa Greer, which had made him blind and deaf to the gentle creature, his wife. Elsa was life. Elsa was youth.

A superb, slim, straight creature, arrogant, her head turned, her eyes insolent with triumph. Looking at you, watching you - waiting...

Hercule Poirot spread out his hands. He said, "It is a great - Yes, it is great."

Meredith Blake said, a catch in his voice, "She was so young -"

Poirot nodded. He thought to himself, "What do most people mean when they say that? So young. Something innocent, something appealing, something helpless. But youth is not that! Youth is crude, youth is strong, youth is powerful - yes, and cruel! And one thing more - youth is vulnerable."

Poirot followed his host to the door. His interest was quickened now in Elsa Greer, whom he was to visit next. What would the years have done to that passionate, triumphant, crude child?

He looked back at the picture.

Those eyes. Watching him - watching him - telling him something...

Supposing he couldn't understand what they were telling him? Would the real woman be able to tell him? Or were those eyes saying something that the real woman did not know?

Such arrogance, such triumphant anticipation -

And then death had stepped in and taken the prey out of those eager, clutching young hands.

And the light had gone out of those passionately anticipating eyes. What were the eyes of Elsa Greer like now?

He went out of the room with one last look.

He thought, "She was too much alive."

He felt - a little - frightened...

The house in Brook Street had Darwin tulips in the window boxes. Inside the hall a great vase of white lilacs sent eddies of perfume toward the open front door.

A middle-aged butler relieved Poirot of his hat and stick. A footman appeared to take them, and the butler murmured deferentially, "Will you come this way, sir?"

Poirot followed him along the hall and down three steps. A door was opened, the butler pronounced his name with every syllable correct.

Then the door closed behind him and a tall, thin man got up from a chair by the fire and came toward him.

Lord Dittisham was a man just under forty. He was not only a peer of the realm; he was a poet. Two of his fantastical poetic dramas had been staged at vast expense and had had a succès d'estime. His forehead was rather prominent, his chin was eager, and his eyes and his mouth unexpectedly beautiful.