第 14 页

Poirot said: "One might think so, certainly. A change of name - a change of scene. A new life. But it was not to be so easy as'that." And he then told of Carla's engagement, the discovery she had made upon coming of age, and her motive in coming to England.

Angela Warren listened quietly, her disfigured cheek resting on one hand. She betrayed no emotion during the recital, but as Poirot finished, she said quietly, "Good for Carla."

Hercule Poirot was startled. It was the first time that he had met with this reaction. He said, "You approve, Miss Warren?"

"Certainly. I wish her every success. Anything I can do to help, I will. I feel guilty, you know, that I haven't attempted anything myself."

"Then you think that there is a possibility that she is right in her views?"

Angela Warren said sharply, "Of course she's right. Caroline didn't do it. I've always known that."

"You surprise me very much indeed, mademoiselle," Poirot murmured. "Everybody else I have spoken to -"

She cut in sharply:

"You mustn't go by that. I've no doubt that the circumstantial evidence is overwhelming. My own conviction is based on knowledge - knowledge of my sister. I just know quite simply and definitely that Caro couldn't have killed anyone."

"Can you say that with certainty of any human creature?"

"Probably not in most cases. I agree that the human animal is full of curious surprises. But in Caroline's case there were special reasons - reasons which I have a better chance of appreciating than anyone else could."

She touched her damaged cheek.

"You see this? You've probably heard about it." Poirot nodded. "Caroline did that. That's why I'm sure - I know - that she did not do murder."

"It would not be a convincing argument to most people."

"No, it would be the opposite. It was actually used in that way, I believe. As evidence that Caroline had a violent and ungovernable temper! Because she had injured me as a baby, learned men argued that she would be equally capable of poisoning an unfaithful husband."

Poirot said, "I, at least, appreciated the difference. A sudden fit of ungovernable rage does not lead you to abstract a poison first and then use it deliberately on the following day."

Angela Warren waved an impatient hand.

"That's not what I mean at all. I must try and make it plain to you. Supposing that you are a person of normally affectionate and kindly disposition, but that you are also liable to intense jealousy. And supposing that during the years of your life when control is most difficult you do, in a fit of rage, come near to committing what is, in effect, murder. Think of the awful shock, the horror, the remorse that seizes upon you.

"If you are a sensitive person like Caroline that horror and remorse will never quite leave you. It never left her. I don't suppose I was consciously aware of it at the time, but looking back I recognize it perfectly. Caro was haunted, continually haunted, by the fact that she had injured me. That knowledge never left her in peace. It colored all her actions. It explained her attitude to me. Nothing was too good for me. In her eyes, I must always come first. Half the quarrels she had with Amyas were on my account."

Miss Warren paused, then went on. "It was very bad for me, of course. I got horribly spoiled. But that's neither here nor there. We're discussing the effect on Caroline. The result of that impulse to violence was a lifelong abhorrence of any further act of the same kind. Caro was watching herself, always in fear that something kind might happen again. And she took her own of guarding against it. One of those ways was a great of language. She felt (and I think, quite truly) that if she were violent enough in speech she would have no temptation to violence in action. She found by experience that the method worked.

"That's why I've heard Caro say things like, 'I'd like to cut so and so in pieces and boil him slowly in oil.' And she'd say to me, or to Amyas, 'If you go on annoying me I shall murder you.' In the same way she quarreled easily and violently. She recognized, I think, the impulse to violence that there was in her nature, and she deliberately gave it an outlet that way. She and Amyas used to have the most fantastic and lurid quarrels."

Hercule Poirot nodded. "Yes, there was evidence of that. They quarreled like cat and dog, it was said."

Angela Warren said:

"Exactly. That's what is so stupid and misleading about evidence. Of course Caro and Amyas quarreled! Of course they said bitter and outrageous and cruel things to each other! What nobody appreciates is that they enjoyed quarreling. But they did! Amyas enjoyed it, too. They were that kind of couple. They both of them liked drama and emotional scenes. Most men don't. They like peace. But Amyas was an artist. He liked shouting and threatening and generally being outrageous. It was like letting off steam to him. He was the kind of man who when he loses his collar stud bellows the house down. It sounds very odd, I know, but living that way with continual rows and makings up was Amyas's and Caroline's idea of fun!"

She made an impatient gesture.

"If they'd only not hustled me away and let me give evidence, I'd have told them that." Then she shrugged her shoulders. "But I don't suppose they would have believed me. And, anyway, then it wouldn't have been as clear in my mind as it is now. It was the kind of thing I knew but hadn't thought about and certainly had never dreamed of putting into words."

She looked across at Poirot.

"You do see what I mean?"

He nodded vigorously. "I see perfectly, and I realize the absolute rightness of what you have said. There are people to whom agreement is monotony. They require the stimulant of dissension to create drama in their lives."

"Exactly."

"May I ask you, Miss Warren, what were your own feelings at the time?"

Angela Warren sighed. "Mostly bewilderment and helplessness, I think. It seemed a fantastic nightmare. Caroline was arrested very soon - about three days afterward, I think, I can still remember my indignation, my dumb fury - and, of course, my childish faith that it was just a silly mistake, that it would be all right. Caro was chiefly perturbed about me - she wanted me kept right away from it all as far as possible. She got Miss Williams to take me away to some relations almost at once. The police had no objection. And then, when it was decided that my evidence would not be needed, arrangements were made for me to go to school abroad.

"I hated going, of course. But it was explained to me that Caro had me terribly on her mind and that the only way I could help her was by going."

She paused. Then she said, "So I went to Munich. I was there when - when the verdict was given. They never let me go to see Caro. Caro wouldn't have it. That's the only time, I think, when she failed in understanding."

"You cannot be sure of that, Miss Warren. To visit someone dearly loved in a prison might make a terrible impression on a young, sensitive girl."

"Possibly."

Angela Warren got up. She said: "After the verdict, when she had been condemned, my sister wrote me a letter. I have never shown it to anyone. I think I ought to show it to you now. It may help you to understand the kind of person Caroline was. If you like, you may take it to show to Carla, also."

She went to the door, then turning back she said: "Come with me. There is a portrait of Caroline in my room."

For the second time, Poirot stood gazing up at a portrait.

As a painting, Caroline Crale's portrait was mediocre. But Poirot looked at it with interest - it was not its artistic value that interested him.

He saw a long, oval face, a gracious line of jaw and a sweet, slightly timid expression. It was a face uncertain of itself, emotional, with a withdrawn, hidden beauty. It lacked the forcefulness and vitality of her daughter's face - that energy and joy of life Carla Lemarchant had doubtless inherited from her father. This was a less positive creature. Yet, looking at the painted face, Hercule Poirot understood why an imaginative man like Quentin Fogg had not been able to forget her.

Angela Warren stood at his side again - a letter in her hand. She said quietly, "Now that you have seen what she was like, read her letter."

He unfolded it carefully and read what Caroline Crale had written sixteen years ago:

"My darling little Angela:

"You will hear bad news and you will grieve, but what I want to impress upon you is that it is all, all right. I have never told you lies and I don't now when I say that I am actually happy - that I feel an essential rightness and a peace that I have never known before. It's all right, darling; it's all right. Don't look back and regret and grieve for me - go on with your life and succeed. You can, I know. It's all, all right, darling, and I'm going to Amyas. I haven't the least doubt that we shall be together. I couldn't have lived without him. Do this one thing for me - be happy. I've told you - I'm happy. One has to pay one's debts. It's lovely to feel peaceful.

"Your loving sister,

"Caro."

Hercule Poirot read it through twice. Then he handed it back. He said, "That is a very beautiful letter, mademoiselle - and a very remarkable one. A very remarkable one."

"Caroline," said Angela Warren, "was a very remarkable person."

"Yes, an unusual mind. You take it that this letter indicates innocence?"

"Of course it does!"

"It does not say so explicitly."

"Because Caro would know that I'd never dream of her being guilty!"

"Perhaps - perhaps... But it might be taken another way. In the sense that she was guilty and that in expiating her crime she will find peace."

It fitted in, he thought, with the description of her in court. And he experienced in this moment the strongest doubts he had yet felt of the course to which he had committed himself. Everything so far had pointed unswervingly to Caroline Crale's guilt. Now even her own words testified against her.

On the other side was only the unshaken conviction of Angela Warren. Angela had known her well, undoubtedly, but might not her certainty be the fanatical loyalty of an adolescent girl, up in arms for a dearly loved sister?

As though she had read his thoughts Angela said, "No, M. Poirot - I know Caroline wasn't guilty."

Poirot said briskly: "The bon Dieu knows I do not want ito shake you on that point. But let us be practical. You say your sister was not guilty. Very well, then, what really happened?"

Angela nodded thoughtfully. "That is difficult, I agree," she said. "I suppose that, as Caroline said, Amyas committed suicide."

"Is that likely from what you know of his character?"

"Very unlikely."

"But you do not say, as in the first case, that you know it is impossible?"

"No, because, as I said just now, most people do do impossible things - that is to say, things that seem out of character. But I presume, if you know them intimately, it wouldn't be out of character."

"You knew your brother-in-law well?"

"Yes, but not like I knew Caro. It seems to me quite fantastic that Amyas should have killed himself, but I suppose he could have done so. In fact, he must have done so."

"You cannot see any other explanation?"

Angela accepted the suggestion calmly, but not without a certain stirring of interest.

"Oh, I see what you mean... I've never really considered that possibility. You mean one of the other people killed him? That it was a deliberate cold-blooded murder?..."

"It might have been, might it not?"

"Yes, it might have been... But it certainly seems very unlikely."

"More unlikely than suicide?"

"That's difficult to say... On the face of it, there was no reason for suspecting anybody else. There isn't now when I look back..."

"All the same, let us consider the possibility. Who of those intimately concerned would you say was - shall we say the most likely person?"

"Let me think. Well, I didn't kill him. And the Elsa creature certainly didn't. She was mad with rage when he died. Who else was there? Meredith Blake? He was always very devoted to Caroline, quite a tame cat about the house. I suppose that might give him a motive in a way. In a book he might have wanted to get Amyas out of the way so that he himself could marry Caroline. But he could have achieved that just as well by letting Amyas go off with Elsa and then in due time consoling Caroline. Besides, I really can't see Meredith as a murderer. Too mild and too cautious. Who else was there?"

"Miss Williams? Philip Blake?" Poirot suggested.

Angela's grave face relaxed into a smile. "Miss Williams? One can't really make oneself believe that one's governess could commit a murder! Miss Williams was always so unyielding and so full of rectitude."

She paused a minute and then went on. "She was devoted to Caroline, of course. Would have done anything for her. And she hated Amyas. She was a great feminist and disliked men. Is that enough for murder? Surely not."

"It would hardly seem so," agreed Poirot.

Angela went on. "Philip Blake?" She was silent for some few moments. Then she said quietly, "I think, you know, if we're just talking of likelihoods, he's the most likely person."

Poirot said, "You interest me very much, Miss Warren. May I ask why you say that?"

"Nothing at all definite. But from what I remember of him, I should say he was a person of rather limited imagination."

"And a limited imagination predisposes you to murder?"

"It might lead you to take a crude way of settling your difficulties. Men of that type get a certain satisfaction from action of some kind or other. Murder is a very crude business, don't you think so?"

"Yes - I think you are right... It is definitely a point of view, that. But, all the same, Miss Warren, there must be more to it than that. What motive could Philip Blake possibly have had?"