五只小猪08
时间：2024-12-17 01:11:42
（单词翻译:单击）
Seven
THIS LITTLE PIG STAYED AT HOME
Hercule Poirot was not a man to neglect details.
His advance towards Meredith Blake was carefully thought out. Meredith Blake was, he already
felt sure, a very different proposition from Philip Blake. Rush tactics would not succeed here. The
assault must be leisurely.
Hercule Poirot knew that there was only one way to penetrate the stronghold. He must approach
Meredith Blake with the proper credentials. Those credentials must be social, not professional.
Fortunately, in the course of his career, Hercule Poirot had made friends in many counties.
Devonshire was no exception. He sat down to review what resources he had in Devonshire. As a
result he discovered two people who were acquaintances or friends of Mr. Meredith Blake. He
descended upon him therefore armed with two letters, one from Lady Mary Lytton-Gore, a gentle
widow lady of restricted means, the most retiring of creatures; and the other from a retired
Admiral, whose family had been settled in the county for four generations.
Meredith Blake received Poirot in a state of some perplexity.
As he had often felt lately, things were not what they used to be. Dash it all, private detectives
used to be private detectives—fellows you got to guard wedding presents at country receptions,
fellows you went to—rather shamefacedly—when there was some dirty business afoot and you’d
got to get the hang of it.
But here was Lady Mary Lytton-Gore writing: “Hercule Poirot is a very old and valued friend
of mine. Please do all you can to help him, won’t you?” And Mary Lytton-Gore wasn’t—no,
decidedly she wasn’t—the sort of woman you associate with private detectives and all that they
stand for. And Admiral Cronshaw wrote: “Very good chap—absolutely sound. Grateful if you will
do what you can for him. Most entertaining fellow, can tell you lots of good stories.”
And now here was the man himself. Really a most impossible person—the wrong clothes—
button boots!—an incredible moustache! Not his—Meredith Blake’s—kind of fellow at all. Didn’t
look as though he’d ever hunted or shot—or even played a decent game. A foreigner.
Slightly amused, Hercule Poirot read accurately these thoughts passing through the other’s
head.
He had felt his own interest rising considerably as the train brought him into the West Country.
He would see now, with his own eyes, the actual place where these long past events happened.
It was here, at Handcross Manor, that two young brothers had lived and gone over to Alderbury
and joked and played tennis and fraternized with a young Amyas Crale and a girl called Caroline.
It was from here that Meredith had started out to Alderbury on that fatal morning. That had been
sixteen years ago. Hercule Poirot looked with interest at the man who was confronting him with
somewhat uneasy politeness.
Very much what he had expected. Meredith Blake resembled superficially every other English
country gentleman of straitened means and outdoor tastes.
A shabby old coat of Harris tweed, a weather-beaten, pleasant, middle-aged face with somewhat
faded blue eyes, a weak mouth, half hidden by a rather straggly moustache. Poirot found Meredith
Blake a great contrast to his brother. He had a hesitating manner, his mental processes were
obviously leisurely. It was as though his tempo had slowed down with the years just as his
brother’s had been accelerated.
As Poirot had already guessed, he was a man whom you could not hurry. The leisurely life of
the English countryside was in his bones.
He looked, the detective thought, a good deal older than his brother, though, from what Mr.
Jonathan had said, it would seem that only a couple of years separated them.
Hercule Poirot prided himself on knowing how to handle an “old school tie.” It was no moment
for trying to seem English. No, one must be a foreigner — frankly a foreigner — and be
magnanimously forgiven for the fact. “Of course, these foreigners don’t quite know the ropes. Will
shake hands at breakfast. Still, a decent fellow really….”
Poirot set about creating this impression of himself. The two men talked, cautiously, of Lady
Mary Lytton-Gore and of Admiral Cronshaw. Other names were mentioned. Fortunately Poirot
knew someone’s cousin and had met somebody else’s sister-in-law. He could see a kind of warmth
dawning in the Squire’s eye. The fellow seemed to know the right people.
Gracefully, insidiously, Poirot slid into the purpose of his visit. He was quick to counteract the
inevitable recoil. This book was, alas! going to be written. Miss Crale—Miss Lemarchant, as she
was now called—was anxious for him to exercise a judicious editorship. The facts, unfortunately,
were public property. But much could be done in their presentation to avoid wounding
susceptibilities. Poirot murmured that before now he had been able to use discreet influence to
avoid certain purple passages in a book of memoirs.
Meredith Blake flushed angrily. His hand shook a little as he filled a pipe. He said, a slight
stammer in his voice:
“It’s—it’s g-ghoulish the way they dig these things up. S-sixteen years ago. Why can’t they let
it be?”
Poirot shrugged his shoulders. He said:
“I agree with you. But what will you? There is a demand for such things. And anyone is at
liberty to reconstruct a proved crime and to comment on it.”
“Seems disgraceful to me.”
Poirot murmured:
“Alas—we do not live in a delicate age…You would be surprised, Mr. Blake, if you knew the
unpleasant publications I had succeeded in—shall we say—softening. I am anxious to do all I can
to save Miss Crale’s feeling in the matter.”
Meredith Blake murmured: “Little Carla! That child! A grown-up woman. One can hardly
believe it.”
“I know. Time flies swiftly, does it not?”
Meredith Blake sighed. He said: “Too quickly.”
Poirot said:
“As you will have seen in the letter I handed you from Miss Crale, she is very anxious to know
everything possible about the sad events of the past.”
Meredith Blake said with a touch of irritation:
“Why? Why rake up everything again? How much better to let it all be forgotten.”
“You say that, Mr. Blake, because you know all the past too well. Miss Crale, remember, knows
nothing. That is to say she knows only the story as she has learnt it from the official accounts.”
Meredith Blake winced. He said:
“Yes, I forgot. Poor child. What a detestable position for her. The shock of learning the truth.
And then—those soulless, callous reports of the trial.”
“The truth,” said Hercule Poirot, “can never be done justice to in a mere legal recital. It is the
things that are left out that are the things that matter. The emotions, the feelings—the characters of
the actors in the drama. The extenuating circumstances—”
He paused and the other man spoke eagerly like an actor who had received his cue.
“Extenuating circumstances! That’s just it. If ever there were extenuating circumstances, there
were in this case. Amyas Crale was an old friend—his family and mine had been friends for
generations, but one has to admit that his conduct was, frankly, outrageous. He was an artist, of
course, and presumably that explains it. But there it is—he allowed a most extraordinary set of
affairs to arise. The position was one that no ordinary decent man could have contemplated for a
moment.”
Hercule Poirot said:
“I am interested that you should say that. It had puzzled me, that situation. Not so does a well-
bred man, a man of the world, go about his affairs.”
Blake’s thin, hesitating face had lit up with animation. He said:
“Yes, but the whole point is that Amyas never was an ordinary man! He was a painter, you see,
and with him painting came first — really sometimes in the most extraordinary way! I don’t
understand these so-called artistic people myself—never have. I understood Crale a little because,
of course, I’d known him all my life. His people were the same sort as my people. And in many
ways Crale ran true to type—it was only where art came in that he didn’t conform to the usual
standards. He wasn’t, you see, an amateur in any way. He was first-class—really first-class. Some
people say he’s a genius. They may be right. But as a result, he was always what I should describe
as unbalanced. When he was painting a picture—nothing else mattered, nothing could be allowed
to get in the way. He was like a man in a dream. Completely obsessed by what he was doing. Not
till the canvas was finished did he come out of this absorption and start to pick up the threads of
ordinary life again.”
He looked questioningly at Poirot and the latter nodded.
“You understand, I see. Well, that explains, I think, why this particular situation arose. He was
in love with this girl. He wanted to marry her. He was prepared to leave his wife and child for her.
But he’d started painting her down here, and he wanted to finish that picture. Nothing else
mattered to him. He didn’t see anything else. And the fact that the situation was a perfectly
impossible one for the two women concerned, doesn’t seem to have occurred to him.”
“Did either of them understand his point of view?”
“Oh yes—in a way. Elsa did, I suppose. She was terrifically enthusiastic about his painting. But
it was a difficult position for her—naturally. And as for Caroline—”
He stopped. Poirot said:
“For Caroline—yes, indeed.”
Meredith Blake said, speaking with a little difficulty:
“Caroline—I had always—well, I had always been very fond of Caroline. There was a time
when—when I hoped to marry her. But that was soon nipped in the bud. Still, I remained, if I may
say so, devoted to—to her service.”
Poirot nodded thoughtfully. That slightly old- fashioned phrase expressed, he felt, the man
before him very typically. Meredith Blake was the kind of man who would devote himself readily
to a romantic and honourable devotion. He would serve his lady faithfully and without hope of
reward. Yes, it was all very much in character.
He said, carefully weighing the words:
“You must have resented this—attitude—on her behalf?”
“I did. Oh, I did. I—I actually remonstrated with Crale on the subject.”
“When was this?”
“Actually the day before—before it all happened. They came over to tea here, you know. I got
Crale aside and I—I put it to him. I even said, I remember, that it wasn’t fair on either of them.”
“Ah, you said that?”
“Yes. I didn’t think—you see, that he realized.”
“Possibly not.”
“I said to him that it was putting Caroline in a perfectly unendurable position. If he meant to
marry this girl, he ought not to have her staying in the house and—well—more or less flaunt her in
Caroline’s face. It was, I said, an unendurable insult.”
Poirot asked curiously: “What did he answer?”
Meredith Blake replied with distaste:
“He said: ‘Caroline must lump it.’”
Hercule Poirot’s eyebrows rose.
“Not,” he said, “a very sympathetic reply.”
“I thought it abominable. I lost my temper. I said that no doubt, not caring for his wife, he didn’t
mind how much he made her suffer, but what, I said, about the girl? Hadn’t he realized it was a
pretty rotten position for her? His reply to that was that Elsa must lump it too!
“Then he went on: ‘You don’t seem to understand, Meredith, that this thing I’m painting is the
best thing I’ve done. It’s good, I tell you. And a couple of jealous quarrelling women aren’t going
to upset it—no, by hell, they’re not.’
“It was hopeless talking to him. I said he seemed to have taken leave of all ordinary decency.
Painting, I said, wasn’t everything. He interrupted there. He said: ‘Ah, but it is to me.’
“I was still very angry. I said it was perfectly disgraceful the way he had always treated
Caroline. She had had a miserable life with him. He said he knew that and he was sorry about it.
Sorry! He said: ‘I know, Merry, you don’t believe that—but it’s the truth. I’ve given Caroline the
hell of a life and she’s been a saint about it. But she did know, I think, what she might be letting
herself in for. I told her candidly the sort of damnable egoistic, loose-living kind of chap I was.’
“I put it to him then very strongly that he ought not to break up his married life. There was the
child to be considered and everything. I said that I could understand that a girl like Elsa could
bowl a man over, but that even for her sake he ought to break off the whole thing. She was very
young. She was going into this baldheaded, but she might regret it bitterly afterwards. I said
couldn’t he pull himself together, make a clean break and go back to his wife?”
“And what did he say?”
Blake said: “He just looked—embarrassed. He patted me on the shoulder and said: ‘You’re a
good chap, Merry. But you’re too sentimental. You wait till the picture’s finished and you’ll admit
that I was right.’
“I said: ‘Damn your picture.’ And he grinned and said all the neurotic women in England
couldn’t do that. Then I said that it would have been more decent to have kept the whole thing
from Caroline until after the picture was finished. He said that that wasn’t his fault. It was Elsa
who had insisted on spilling the beans. I said, Why? And he said that she had had some idea that it
wasn’t straight otherwise. She wanted everything to be clear and above board. Well, of course, in a
way, one could understand that and respect the girl for it. However badly she was behaving, she
did at least want to be honest.”
“A lot of additional pain and grief is caused by honesty,” remarked Hercule Poirot.
Meredith Blake looked at him doubtfully. He did not quite like the sentiment. He sighed:
“It was a—a most unhappy time for us all.”
“The only person who does not seem to have been affected by it was Amyas Crale,” said Poirot.
“And why? Because he was a rank egoist. I remember him now. Grinning at me as he went off
saying: ‘Don’t worry, Merry. Everything’s going to pan out all right!’”
“The incurable optimist,” murmured Poirot.
Meredith Blake said:
“He was the kind of man who didn’t take women seriously. I could have told him that Caroline
was desperate.”
“Did she tell you so?”
“Not in so many words. But I shall always see her face as it was that afternoon. White and
strained with a kind of desperate gaiety. She talked and laughed a lot. But her eyes—there was a
kind of anguished grief in them that was the most moving thing I have ever known. Such a gentle
creature, too.”
Hercule Poirot looked at him for a minute or two without speaking. Clearly the man in front of
him felt no incongruity in speaking thus of a woman who on the day after had deliberately killed
her husband.
Meredith Blake went on. He had by now quite overcome his first suspicious hostility. Hercule
Poirot had the gift of listening. To men such as Meredith Blake, the reliving of the past has a
definite attraction. He spoke now almost more to himself than to his guest.
“I ought to have suspected something, I suppose. It was Caroline who turned the conversation to
—to my little hobby. It was, I must confess, an enthusiasm of mine. The old English herbalists,
you know, are a very interesting study. There are so many plants that were formerly used in
medicine and which have now disappeared from the official Pharmacopœia. And it’s astonishing,
really, how a simple decoction of something or other will really work wonders. No need for
doctors half the time. The French understand these things—some of their tisanes are first rate.” He
was well away now on his hobby.
“Dandelion tea, for instance; marvellous stuff. And a decoction of hips—I saw the other day
somewhere that that’s coming into fashion with the medical profession again. Oh yes, I must
confess, I got a lot of pleasure out of my brews. Gathering the plants at the right time, drying them
—macerating them—all the rest of it. I’ve even dropped to superstition sometimes and gathered
my roots at the full of the moon or whatever it was the ancients advised. On that day I gave my
guests, I remember, a special disquisition on the spotted hemlock. It flowers biennially. You gather
the fruits when they’re ripening, just before they turn yellow. Coniine, you know, is a drug that’s
dropped out—I don’t believe there’s any official preparation of it in the last Pharmacopœia—but
I’ve proved the usefulness of it in whooping cough—and in asthma too, for that matter—”
“You talked of all this in your laboratory?”
“Yes, I showed them round—explained the various drugs to them—valerian and the way it
attracts cats—one sniff at that was enough for them! Then they asked about deadly nightshade and
I told them about belladonna and atropine. They were very much interested.”
“They? What is comprised in that word?”
Meredith Blake looked faintly surprised as though he had forgotten that his listener had no first-
hand knowledge of the scene.
“Oh, the whole party. Let me see, Philip was there and Amyas, and Caroline, of course. Angela.
And Elsa Greer.”
“That was all?”
“Yes—I think so. Yes, I am sure of it,” Blake looked at him curiously. “Who else should there
be?”
“I thought perhaps the governess—”
“Oh, I see. No, she wasn’t there that afternoon. I believe I’ve forgotten her name now. Nice
women. Took her duties very seriously. Angela worried her a good deal I think.”
“Why was that?”
“Well, she was a nice kid, but she was inclined to run wild. Always up to something or other.
Put a slug or something down Amyas’s back one day when he was hard at work painting. He went
up in smoke. Cursed her up and down dale. It was after that that he insisted on this school idea.”
“Sending her to school?”
“Yes. I don’t mean he wasn’t fond of her, but he found her a bit of a nuisance sometimes. And I
think—I’ve always thought—”
“Yes?”
“That he was a bit jealous. Caroline, you see, was a slave to Angela. In a way, perhaps, Angela
came first with her—and Amyas didn’t like that. There was a reason for it of course. I won’t go
into that, but—”
Poirot interrupted.
“The reason being that Caroline Crale reproached herself for an action that had disfigured the
girl?”
Blake exclaimed: “Oh, you know that? I wasn’t going to mention it. All over and done with.
But yes, that was the cause of her attitude I think. She always seemed to feel that there was
nothing too much she could do—to make up, as it were.”
Poirot nodded thoughtfully. He asked:
“And Angela? 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.”
Poirot said: “And the governess?”
“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 the 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?”
Meredith Blake said slowly:
“I felt, all the time, 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, Mr. 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.”
Poirot murmured:
“Alas—how seldom one makes any effect. When a person has determined on a certain course—
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 and cordials, yes?”
“No.”
The word came sharply — with an almost anguished rapidity Meridith 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’ 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?”
“Hers.”
“Caroline Crale’s?”
“Yes.”
“Not yours?”
“No. I didn’t handle the bottle, you see. Only pointed to it.”
“But at the same 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?”
Meredith Blake replied reluctantly:
“She was the last to leave the room. I called her, I remember, and she came hurrying out. Her
cheeks were just a little pink—and her eyes wide and excited. Oh, God, 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?”
Blake said slowly in a low voice:
“Not directly. 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 wildly 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 Mr. 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.”
Hercule Poirot asked:
“Are you sure that it did come later?”
Blake stared. He said:
“I beg your pardon? 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, Mr. 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!”
“You think so?”
“I’m sure of it. Who would have wanted to kill him? Who could have killed him?”
“You are more likely to know than I am.”
“But you don’t seriously believe—”
“Perhaps not. It interests me to examine the possibility. Give it your serious consideration. Tell
me what you think.”
Meredith stared at him for a minute or two. Then he lowered his eyes. After a minute or two he
shook his head. He said:
“I can’t imagine any possible alternative. I should like to do so. If there were any reason for
suspecting anybody else I would readily believe Caroline innocent. I don’t want to think she did it.
I couldn’t believe it at first. But who else is there? Who else was there. Philip? Crale’s best friend.
Elsa? Ridiculous. Myself? Do I look like a murderer? A respectable governess? A couple of old
faithful servants? Perhaps you’d suggest that the child Angela did it? No, Mr. Poirot, there’s no
alternative. Nobody could have killed Amyas Crale 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.
“According to the laws of primogenitude, that is so,” he said. “I am aware that you are the elder.
But you comprehend that as your brother lives near London, it was easier to visit him first.”
Meredith Blake was still frowning. He pulled uneasily at his lip. He 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 money grabber 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.”
Poirot’s eyebrows rose. He said:
“He really felt like that?”
“Oh, don’t misunderstand me. I wouldn’t go further than to say that I believe that feeling was at
the back of his mind. I don’t know that he ever quite realized himself that that is what he felt.
Philip and I have nothing much in common, but there is a link, you know, between people of the
same blood. One brother often knows what the other brother is thinking.”
“And after the tragedy?”
Meredith Blake shook his head. A spasm of pain crossed his face. He said:
“Poor Phil. He was terribly cut up. Just broken up by it. He’d always been devoted to Amyas,
you see. There was an element of hero worship about it, I think. Amyas Crale and I are the same
age. Philip was two years younger. And he looked up to Amyas always. Yes—it was a great blow
to him. He was—he was terribly bitter against Caroline.”
“He, at least, had no doubts, then?”
Meredith Blake said:
“None of us had any doubts….”
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?”
Meredith 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, defenceless creature. Not even
struggling.”
“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 suggested:
“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.”
Meredith Blake said sharply:
“You won’t get much from that. 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
every one 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.
“There 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 is 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 through the window 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 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 round 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 amongst 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, of course, there was a
storm or it was raining, and then we’d take the car. But it’s nearly three miles if you go round 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—tumbledown 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. Doesn’t matter if we do. I’m on good terms with my neighbours. 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 more or less 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 upwards, 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 towards a kind of pavilion set back
against the back wall. “That wasn’t there, of course—only an old tumbledown 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 paralyses you, you
know. There isn’t any pain…I’ve—I’ve always been glad of that….”
Poirot asked a thing that he already knew.
“Who found him?”
“She did. Caroline. After lunch. I and Elsa, 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 followed him without speaking.
The two men went on up the zigzag path. At a higher level 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, but a lovely view.”
Poirot agreed. Through a framework of trees one looked down 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 round.”
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.”
They returned to the quay by a somewhat longer and more rambling route. Neither of them
spoke. Poirot respected his companion’s mood.
When they reached Handcross Manor once more, Meredith 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
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 old 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 grey 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.”
He 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….
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