第 9 页

Poirot nodded thoughtfully. "And Angela?" he asked. "Did she bear a grudge against her half sister?"

"Oh, no; don't run away with that idea. Angela was devoted to Caroline. She never gave that old business a thought, I'm sure. It was just Caroline who couldn't forgive herself."

"Did Angela take kindly to the idea of boarding school?"

"No, she didn't. She was furious with Amyas. Caroline took her side, but Amyas had absolutely made his mind up about it. In spite of a hot temper, Amyas was an easy man in most respects, but when he really got his back up everyone had to give in. Both Caroline and Angela knuckled under."

"She was to go to school - when?"

"The autumn term - they were getting her kit together I remember. I suppose, if it hadn't been for the tragedy she would have gone off a few days later. There was some talk of her packing on the morning of that day."

"And the governess?"

Poirot asked. "What do you mean - the governess?"

"How did she like the idea? It deprived her of a job did it not?"

"Yes - well, I suppose it did in a way. Little Carla used to do a few lessons, but of course she was only - what? Six or thereabouts. She had a nurse. They wouldn't have kept Miss Williams on for her. Yes, that's the name - Williams. Funny how things come back to you when you talk them over."

"Yes, indeed. You are back now - are you not? - in this past. You relive the scenes - the words that people said their gestures, the expressions on their faces?"

Meredith Blake said slowly:

"In a way - yes, but there are gaps, you know - great chunks missed out. I remember for instance, the shock it was to me when I first learned that Amyas was going to leave Caroline, but I can't remember whether it was he who told me or Elsa. I do remember arguing with Elsa on the subject - trying to show her, I mean, that it was a pretty rotten thing to do. And she only laughed at me in that cool way of hers and said I was old-fashioned. Well, I dare say I am old-fashioned, but I still think I was right. Amyas had a wife and child - he ought to have stuck to them."

"But Miss Greer thought that point of view out of date?"

"Yes. Mind you, sixteen years ago, divorce wasn't looked on quite so much as a matter of course as it is now. But Elsa was the kind of girl who went in for being modern. Her point of view was that when two people weren't happy together it was better to make a break. She said that Amyas and Caroline never stopped having rows and that it was far better for the child that she shouldn't be brought up in an atmosphere of disharmony."

"And her argument did not impress you?" asked Poirot.

"I felt, all the time," Meredith Blake said slowly, "that she didn't really know what she was talking about. She was rattling these things off - things she'd read in books or heard from her friends - it was like a parrot. She was - it's a queer thing to say - pathetic, somehow. So young and so self-confident." He paused. "There is something about youth, M. Poirot, that is - that can be - terribly moving."

Hercule Poirot said, looking at him with some interest, "I know what you mean."

Blake went on, speaking more to himself than to Poirot. "That's partly, I think, why I tackled Crale. He was nearly twenty years older than the girl. It didn t seem fair."

"Alas, how seldom one makes any effect," Poirot murmured. "When a person has determined on a certain course - especially when there is a woman concerned - it is not easy to turn them from it."

Meredith Blake said, "That is true enough." His tone was a shade bitter. "I certainly did no good by my interference. But, then, I am not a very convincing person. I never have been."

Poirot threw him a quick glance. He read into that slight acerbity of tone the dissatisfaction of a sensitive man with his own lack of personality. And he acknowledged to himself the truth of what Blake had just said. Meredith Blake was not the man to persuade anyone into or out of any course. His well-meaning attempts would always be set aside - indulgently usually, without anger, but definitely set aside. They would not carry weight. He was essentially an ineffective man.

Poirot said, with an appearance of changing a painful subject, "You still have your laboratory of medicines ad cordials, yes?"

"No."

The word came sharply - with an almost anguished rapidity Meredith Blake said, his face flushing: "I abandoned the whole thing - dismantled it. I couldn't go on with it - how could I after what had happened? The whole thing, you see, might have been said to be my fault."

"No, no, Mr Blake, you are too sensitive."

"But don t you see? If I hadn't collected those damned drugs; if I hadn't laid stress on them - boasted about them - forced them on those people's notice that afternoon - But I never thought - I never dreamed - how could I -"

"How indeed?"

"But I went bumbling on about them. Pleased with my little bit of knowledge. Blind, conceited fool. I pointed out that damned coniine. I even - fool that I was - took them back into the library and read them out that passage from the Phaedo describing Socrates's death. A beautiful piece of writing - I've always admired it - but it's haunted me ever since."

Poirot said, "Did they find any fingerprints on the coniine bottle?"

Blake answered with one poignant word:

"Hers."

"Caroline Crale's?"

"Yes."

"Not yours?"

"No, I didn't handle the bottle, you see. Only pointed to it."

"But at some time, surely, you had handled it?"

"Oh, of course, but I gave the bottles a periodic dusting from time to time - I never allowed the servants in there, of course - and I had done that about four or five days previously."

"You kept the room locked up?"

"Invariably."

"When did Caroline Crale take the coniine from the bottle?"

"She was the last to leave," Meredith Blake replied reluctantly. "I called her, I remember, and she came hurrying out. Her cheeks were just a little pink, and her eyes wide and excited. I can see her now -"

Poirot said, "Did you have any conversation with her at all that afternoon? I mean by that, did you discuss the situation as between her and her husband at all?"

"Not directly," Blake said slowly in a low voice. "She was looking, as I've told you, very upset. I said to her at a moment when we were more or less by ourselves, 'Is anything the matter, my dear?' She said, 'Everything's the matter.' I wish you could have heard the desperation in her voice. Those words were the absolute literal truth. There's no getting away from it - Amyas Crale was Caroline's whole world. She said, 'Everything's gone - finished. I'm finished, Meredith.' And then she laughed and turned to the others and was suddenly wild and very unnaturally gay."

Hercule Poirot nodded his head slowly. He looked very like a china mandarin. He said, "Yes - I see - it was like that."

Meredith Blake pounded suddenly with his fist. His voice rose. It was almost a shout. "And I'll tell you this, M. Poirot - when Caroline Crale said at the trial that she took the stuff for herself, I'll swear she was speaking the truth! There was no thought in her mind of murder at that time. I swear there wasn't. That came later."

"Are you sure that it did come later?" Poirot asked.

Blake stared. "I beg your pardon?" he said. "I don't quite understand -"

Poirot said, "I ask you whether you are sure that the thought of murder ever did come? Are you perfectly convinced in your own mind that Caroline Crale did deliberately commit murder?"

Meredith Blake's breath came unevenly. He said, "But if not - if not - are you suggesting an - well, accident of some kind?"

"Not necessarily."

"That's a very extraordinary thing to say."

"Is it? You have called Caroline Crale a gentle creature. Do gentle creatures commit murder?"

"She was a gentle creature, but all the same - well, there were very violent quarrels, you know."

"Not such a gentle creature, then?"

"But she was - Oh, how difficult these things are to explain."

"I am trying to understand."

"Caroline had a quick tongue - a vehement way of speaking. She might say, "I hate you. I wish you were dead," but it wouldn't mean - it wouldn't entail - action."

"So in your opinion, it was highly uncharacteristic of Mrs Crale to commit murder?"

"You have the most extraordinary ways of putting things, M. Poirot. I can only say that - yes, it does seem to me uncharacteristic of her. I can only explain it by realizing that the provocation was extreme. She adored her husband. Under those circumstances a woman might - well, kill."

Poirot nodded. "Yes, I agree."

"I was dumbfounded at first. I didn't feel it could be true. And it wasn't true - if you know what I mean - it wasn't the real Caroline who did that."

"But you are quite sure that, in the legal sense, Caroline Crale did do it?"

Again Meredith Blake stared at him. "My dear man, if she didn't -"

"Well, if she didn't?"

"I can't imagine any alternative solution. Accident? Surely impossible."

"Quite impossible, I should say."

"And I can't believe in the suicide theory. It had to be brought forward, but it was quite unconvincing to anyone who knew Crale."

"Quite."

"So what remains?" asked Meredith Blake.

Poirot said coolly, "There remains the possibility of Amyas Crale having been killed by somebody else."

"But that's absurd! Nobody could have killed him but his wife. But he drove her to it. And so, in a way, it was suicide after all, I suppose."

"Meaning that he died by the result of his own actions, though not by his own hand?"

"Yes, it's a fanciful point of view, perhaps. But - well, cause and effect, you know."

Hercule Poirot said, "Have you ever reflected, Mr Blake, that the reason for murder is nearly always to be found by a study of the person murdered?"

"I hadn't exactly - yes, I suppose I see what you mean."

Poirot said, "Until you know exactly what sort of a person the victim was, you cannot begin to see the circumstances of a crime clearly." He added, "That is what I am seeking for - and what you and your brother have helped to give me - a reconstruction of the man Amyas Crale."

Meredith Blake passed the main point of the remark over. His attention had been attracted by a single word.

He said quickly, "Philip?"

"Yes."

"You have talked with him, also?"

"Certainly."

Meredith Blake said sharply, "You should have come to me first."

Smiling a little, Poirot made a courteous gesture. "As your brother lives near London, it was easier to visit him first."

Meredith Blake repeated, "You should have come to me first."

This time Poirot did not answer. He waited. And presently Meredith Blake went on. "Philip," he said, "is prejudiced."

"Yes?"

"As a matter of fact, he's a mass of prejudices - always has been." He shot a quick, uneasy glance at Poirot. "He'll have tried to put you against Caroline."

"Does that matter, so long - after?"

Meredith Blake gave a sharp sigh. "I know. I forget that it's so long ago - that it's all over. Caroline is beyond being harmed. But, all the same, I shouldn't like you to get a false impression."

"And you think your brother might give me a false impression?"

"Frankly, I do. You see, there was always a certain - how shall I put it? - antagonism between him and Caroline."

"Why?"

The question seemed to irritate Blake. He said, "Why? How should I know why? These things are so. Philip always crabbed her whenever he could. He was annoyed, I think, when Amyas married her. He never went near them for over a year. And yet Amyas was almost his best friend. That was the reason really, I suppose. He didn't feel that any woman was good enough. And he probably felt that Caroline's influence would spoil their friendship."

"And did it?"

"No, of course it didn't. Amyas was always just as fond of Philip - right up to the end. Used to twit him with being a moneygrubber and with growing a corporation and being a Philistine generally. Philip didn't care. He just used to grin and say it was a good thing Amyas had one respectable friend."

"How did your brother react to the Elsa Greer affair?"

"Do you know, I find it rather difficult to say. His attitude wasn't really easy to define. He was annoyed, I think, with Amyas for making a fool of himself over the girl. He said more than once that it wouldn't work and that Amyas would live to regret it. At the same time I have a feeling - yes, very definitely I have a feeling that he was just faintly pleased at seeing Caroline let down."

There was a silence. Then Blake said with the irritable plaintiveness of a weak man, "It was all over - forgotten - and now you come, raking it all up."

"Not I. Caroline Crale."

Meredith stared at him. "Caroline? What do you mean?"

Poirot said, watching him, "Caroline Crale the second."

Meredith's face relaxed. "Ah, yes, the child. Little Carla. I - I misunderstood you for a moment."

"You thought I meant the original Caroline Crale? You thought that it was she who would not - how shall I say it? - rest easy in her grave."

Blake shivered. "Don't, man."

"You know that she wrote to her daughter - the last words she ever wrote - that she was innocent?"

Meredith stared at him. He said - and his voice sounded utterly incredulous, "Caroline wrote that?"

"Yes." Poirot paused and said, "It surprises you?"

"It would surprise you if you'd seen her in court. Poor, hunted, defenseless creature. Not even struggling."