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时间：2024-12-17 01:15:45
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BOOK TWO
Narrative of Philip Blake
(Covering letter received with manuscript)
Dear Mr. Poirot,
I am fulfilling my promise and herewith find enclosed an account of the events
relating to the death of Amyas Crale. After such a lapse of time I am bound to
point out that my memories may not be strictly accurate, but I have put down
what occurred to the best of my recollection.
Yours truly,
Philip Blake
Notes on Progress of Events Leading up to Murder of Amyas Crale on Sept., 19….
My friendship with deceased dates back to a very early period. His home and mine were next door
to each other in the country, and our families were friends. Amyas Crale was a little over two
years older than I was. We played together as boys, in the holidays, though we were not at the
same school.
From the point of view of my long knowledge of the man I feel myself particularly qualified to
testify as to his character and general outlook on life. And I will say this straight away—to anyone
who knew Amyas Crale well—the notion of his committing suicide is quite ridiculous. Crale
would never have taken his own life. He was far too fond of living! The contention of the defence
at the trial that Crale was obsessed by conscience, and took poison in a fit of remorse, is utterly
absurd to anyone who knew the man. Crale, I should say, had very little conscience, and certainly
not a morbid one. Moreover, he and his wife were on bad terms, and I don’t think he would have
had any scruples about breaking up what was, to him, a very unsatisfactory married life. He was
prepared to look after her financial welfare and that of the child of the marriage, and I am sure
would have done so generously. He was a very generous man—and altogether a warm-hearted and
lovable person. Not only was he a great painter, but he was a man whose friends were devoted to
him. As far as I know he had no enemies.
I had also known Caroline Crale for many years. I knew her before her marriage, when she used
to come and stay at Alderbury. She was then a somewhat neurotic girl, subject to uncontrollable
outbursts of temper, not without attraction, but unquestionably a difficult person to live with.
She showed her devotion to Amyas almost immediately. He, I do not think, was really very
much in love with her. But they were frequently thrown together—she was, as I say, attractive,
and they eventually became engaged. Amyas Crale’s best friends were rather apprehensive about
the marriage, as they felt that Caroline was quite unsuited to him.
This caused a certain amount of strain in the first few years between Crale’s wife and Crale’s
friends, but Amyas was a loyal friend and was not disposed to give up his old friends at the
bidding of his wife. After a few years, he and I were on the same old terms and I was a frequent
visitor at Alderbury. I may add that I stood godfather to the little girl, Carla. This proves, I think,
that Amyas considered me his best friend, and it gives me authority to speak for a man who can no
longer speak for himself.
To come to the actual events of which I have been asked to write, I arrived down at Alderbury
(so I see by an old diary) five days before the crime. That is, on Sept. 13th. I was conscious at once
of a certain tension in the atmosphere. There was also staying in the house Miss Elsa Greer whom
Amyas was painting at the time.
It was the first time I had seen Miss Greer in the flesh, but I had been aware of her existence for
some time. Amyas had raved about her to me a month previously. He had met, he said, a
marvellous girl. He talked about her so enthusiastically that I said to him jokingly: “Be careful, old
boy, or you’ll be losing your head again.” He told me not to be a bloody fool. He was painting the
girl; he’d no personal interest in her. I said: “Tell that to the marines! I’ve heard you say that
before.” He said: “This time it’s different;” to which I answered somewhat cynically: “It always
is!” Amyas then looked quite worried and anxious. He said: “You don’t understand. She’s just a
girl. Not much more than a child.” He added that she had very modern views and was absolutely
free from old-fashioned prejudices. He said: “She’s honest and natural and absolutely fearless!”
I thought to myself, though I didn’t say so, that Amyas had certainly got it badly this time. A
few weeks later I heard comments from other people. It was said that the “Greer girl was
absolutely infatuated.” Somebody else said that it was a bit thick of Amyas considering how
young the girl was, whereupon somebody else sniggered and said that Elsa Greer knew her way
about all right. Further remarks were that the girl was rolling in money and had always got
everything she wanted, and also that “she was the one who was making most of the running.”
There was a question as to what Crale’s wife thought about it—and the significant reply that she
must be used to that sort of thing by now, to which someone demurred by saying they’d heard that
she was jealous as hell and led Crale such an impossible life that any man would be justified in
having a fling from time to time.
I mention all this because I think it is important that the state of affairs before I got down there
should be fully realized.
I was interested to see the girl—she was remarkably good-looking and very attractive—and I
was, I must admit, maliciously amused to note that Caroline was cutting up very rough indeed.
Amyas Crale himself was less light-hearted than usual. Though to anyone who did not know
him well, his manner would have appeared much as usual, I who knew him so intimately noted at
once various signs of strain, uncertain temper, fits of moody abstraction, general irritability of
manner.
Although he was always inclined to be moody when painting, the picture he was at work upon
did not account entirely for the strain he showed. He was pleased to see me and said as soon as we
were alone: “Thank goodness you’ve turned up, Phil. Living in a house with four women is
enough to send any man clean off his chump. Between them all they’ll send me into a lunatic
asylum.”
It was certainly an uncomfortable atmosphere. Caroline, as I said, was obviously cutting up
rough about the whole thing. In a polite, well-bred way, she was ruder to Elsa than one would
believe possible—without a single actually offensive word. Elsa herself was openly and flagrantly
rude to Caroline. She was top dog and she knew it—and no scruples of good breeding restrained
her from overt bad manners. The result was that Crale spent most of his time scrapping with the
girl Angela when he wasn’t painting. They were usually on affectionate terms, though they teased
and fought a good deal. But on this occasion there was an edge in everything Amyas said or did,
and the two of them really lost their tempers with each other. The fourth member of the party was
the governess. “A sour-faced hag,” Amyas called her. “She hates me like poison. Sits there with
her lips set together, disapproving of me without stopping.”
It was then that he said:
“God damn all women! If a man is to have any peace he must steer clear of women!”
“You oughtn’t to have married,” I said. “You’re the sort of man who ought to have kept clear of
domestic ties.”
He replied that it was too late to talk about that now. He added that no doubt Caroline would be
only too glad to get rid of him. That was the first indication I had that something unusual was in
the wind.
I said: “What’s all this? Is this business with the lovely Elsa serious then?” He said with a sort
of groan:
“She is lovely, isn’t she? Sometimes I wish I’d never seen her.”
I said: “Look here, old boy, you must take a hold on yourself. You don’t want to get tied up
with any more women.” He looked at me and laughed. He said: “It’s all very well for you to talk. I
can’t let women alone—simply can’t do it—and if I could, they wouldn’t let me alone!” Then he
shrugged those great shoulders of his, grinned at me and said: “Oh well, it will all pan out in the
end, I expect. And you must admit the picture is good?”
He was referring to the portrait he was doing of Elsa, and although I had very little technical
knowledge of painting, even I could see that it was going to be a work of especial power.
Whilst he was painting, Amyas was a different man. Although he would growl, groan, frown,
swear extravagantly, and sometimes hurl his brushes away, he was really intensely happy.
It was only when he came back to the house for meals that the hostile atmosphere between the
women got him down. That hostility came to a head on Sept. 17th. We had had an embarrassing
lunch. Elsa had been particularly—really, I think insolent is the only word for it! She had ignored
Caroline pointedly, persistently addressing the conversation to Amyas as though he and she were
alone in the room. Caroline had talked lightly and gaily to the rest of us, cleverly contriving so that
several perfectly innocent-sounding remarks should have a sting. She hadn’t got Elsa Greer’s
scornful honesty—with Caroline every thing was oblique, suggested rather than said.
Things came to a head after lunch in the drawing room just as we were finishing coffee. I had
commented on a carved head in highly polished beechwood—a very curious thing, and Caroline
said: “That is the work of a young Norwegian sculptor. Amyas and I admire his work very much.
We hope to go and see him next summer.” That calm assumption of possession was too much for
Elsa. She was never one to let a challenge pass. She waited a minute or two and then she spoke in
her clear, rather overemphasized voice. She said: “This would be a lovely room if it was properly
fixed. It’s got far too much furniture in it. When I’m living here I shall take all the rubbish out and
just leave one or two good pieces. And I shall have copper-coloured curtains, I think—so that the
setting sun will just catch them through that big western window.” She turned to me and said.
“Don’t you think that would be rather lovely?”
I didn’t have time to answer. Caroline spoke, and her voice was soft and silky and what I can
only describe as dangerous. She said:
“Are you thinking of buying this place, Elsa?”
Elsa said: “It won’t be necessary for me to buy it.”
Caroline said: “What do you mean?” And there was no softness in her voice now. It was hard
and metallic. Elsa laughed. She said: “Must we pretend? Come now, Caroline, you know very well
what I mean!”
Caroline said: “I’ve no idea.”
Elsa said to that: “Don’t be such an ostrich. It’s no good pretending you don’t see and know all
about it. Amyas and I care for each other. This isn’t your home. It’s his. And after we’re married I
shall live here with him!”
Caroline said: “I think you’re crazy.”
Elsa said: “Oh no, I’m not, my dear, and you know it. It would be much simpler if we were
honest with each other. Amyas and I love each other—you’ve seen that clearly enough. There’s
only one decent thing for you to do. You’ve got to give him his freedom.”
Caroline said: “I don’t believe a word of what you are saying.”
But her voice was unconvincing. Elsa had got under her guard all right.
And at that minute Amyas Crale came into the room and Elsa said with a laugh:
“If you don’t believe me, ask him.”
And Caroline said: “I will.”
She didn’t pause at all. She said:
“Amyas, Elsa says you want to marry her. Is this true?”
Poor Amyas. I felt sorry for him. It makes a man feel a fool to have a scene of that kind forced
upon him. He went crimson and started blustering. He turned on Elsa and asked her why the devil
she couldn’t have held her tongue?
Caroline said: “Then it is true?”
He didn’t say anything, just stood there passing his finger round inside the neck of his shirt. He
used to do that as a kid when he got into a jam of any kind. He said—and he tried to make the
words sound dignified and authoritative—and of course couldn’t manage it, poor devil:
“I don’t want to discuss it.”
Caroline said: “But we’re going to discuss it!”
Elsa chipped in and said:
“I think it’s only fair to Caroline that she should be told.”
Caroline said, very quietly:
“Is it true, Amyas?”
He looked a bit ashamed of himself. Men do when women pin them down in a corner.
She said:
“Answer me, please. I’ve got to know.”
He flung up his head then—rather the way a bull does in the bullring. He snapped out:
“It’s true enough—but I don’t want to discuss it now.”
And he turned and strode out of the room. I went after him. I didn’t want to be left with the
women. I caught up with him on the terrace. He was swearing. I never knew a man swear more
heartily. Then he raved:
“Why couldn’t she hold her tongue? Why the devil couldn’t she hold her tongue? Now the fat’s
in the fire. And I’ve got to finish that picture—do you hear, Phil? It’s the best thing I’ve done. The
best thing I’ve ever done in my life. And a couple of damn’ fool women want to muck it up
between them!”
Then he calmed down a little and said women had no sense of proportion.
I couldn’t help smiling a little. I said:
“Well, dash it all, old boy, you have brought this on yourself.”
“Don’t I know it,” he said, and groaned. Then he added: “But you must admit, Phil, that a man
couldn’t be blamed for losing his head about her. Even Caroline ought to understand that.”
I asked him what would happen if Caroline got her back up and refused to give him a divorce.
But by now he had gone off into a fit of abstraction. I repeated the remark and he said absently:
“Caroline would never be vindictive. You don’t understand, old boy.”
“There’s the child,” I pointed out.
He took me by the arm.
“Phil, old boy, you mean well—but don’t go on croaking like a raven. I can manage my affairs.
Everything will turn out all right. You’ll see if it doesn’t.”
That was Amyas all over—an absolutely unjustified optimist. He said now, cheerfully:
“To hell with the whole pack of them!”
I don’t know whether we would have said anything more, but a few minutes later Caroline
swept out on the terrace. She’d got a hat on, a queer, flopping, dark-brown hat, rather attractive.
She said in an absolutely ordinary, everyday voice:
“Take off that paint-stained coat, Amyas. We’re going over to Meredith’s to tea—don’t you
remember?”
He stared, stammered a bit as he said:
“Oh, I’d forgotten. Yes, of c-c-course we are.”
She said:
“Then go and try and make yourself look less like a rag-and-bone man.”
Although her voice was quite natural, she didn’t look at him. She moved over towards a bed of
dahlias and began picking off some of the overblown flowers.
Amyas turned round slowly and went into the house.
Caroline talked to me. She talked a good deal. About the chances of the weather lasting. And
whether there might be mackerel about, and if so Amyas and Angela and I might like to go
fishing. She was really amazing. I’ve got to hand it to her.
But I think, myself, that that showed the sort of woman she was. She had enormous strength of
will and complete command over herself. I don’t know whether she’d made up her mind to kill
him then—but I shouldn’t be surprised. And she was capable of making her plans carefully and
unemotionally, with an absolutely clear and ruthless mind.
Caroline Crale was a very dangerous woman. I ought to have realized then that she wasn’t
prepared to take this thing lying down. But like a fool I thought that she had made up her mind to
accept the inevitable—or else possibly she thought that if she carried on exactly as usual Amyas
might change his mind.
Presently the others came out. Elsa looking defiant—but at the same time triumphant. Caroline
took no notice of her. Angela really saved the situation. She came out arguing with Miss Williams
that she wasn’t going to change her skirt for anyone. It was quite all right—good enough for
darling old Meredith anyway—he never noticed anything.
We got off at last. Caroline walked with Angela. And I walked with Amyas. And Elsa walked
by herself—smiling.
I didn’t admire her myself—too violent a type—but I have to admit that she looked incredibly
beautiful that afternoon. Women do when they’ve got what they want.
I can’t remember the events of that afternoon clearly at all. It’s all blurred. I remember old
Merry coming out to meet us. I think we walked round the garden first. I remember having a long
discussion with Angela about the training of terriers for ratting. She ate an incredible lot of apples,
and tried to persuade me to do so too.
When we got back to the house, tea was going on under the big cedar tree. Merry, I remember,
was looking very upset. I suppose either Caroline or Amyas had told him something. He was
looking doubtfully at Caroline, and then he stared at Elsa. The old boy looked thoroughly worried.
Of course Caroline liked to have Meredith on a string more or less, the devoted, platonic friend
who would never, never go too far. She was that kind of woman.
After tea Meredith had a hurried word with me. He said:
“Look here, Phil, Amyas can’t do this thing!”
I said:
“Make no mistake, he’s going to do it.”
“He can’t leave his wife and child and go off with this girl. He’s years older than she is. She
can’t be more than eighteen.”
I said to him that Miss Greer was a fully sophisticated twenty.
He said: “Anyway, that’s under age. She can’t know what she’s doing.”
Poor old Meredith. Always the chivalrous pukka sahib. I said:
“Don’t worry, old boy. She knows what she’s doing, and she likes it!”
That’s all we had the chance of saying. I thought to myself that probably Merry felt disturbed at
the thought of Caroline being a deserted wife. Once the divorce was through she might expect her
faithful Dobbin to marry her. I had an idea that hopeless devotion was really far more in his line. I
must confess that that side of it amused me.
Curiously enough I remember very little about our visit to Meredith’s stink room. He enjoyed
showing people his hobby. Personally I always found it very boring. I suppose I was in there with
the rest of them when he gave a dissertation on the efficacy of coniine, but I don’t remember it.
And I didn’t see Caroline pinch the stuff. As I’ve said, she was a very adroit woman. I do
remember Meredith reading aloud the passage from Plato describing Socrates’ death. Very boring
I thought it. Classics always did bore me.
There’s nothing much more I can remember about that day. Amyas and Angela had a first-class
row, I know, and the rest of us rather welcomed it. It avoided other difficulties. Angela rushed off
to bed with a final vituperative outburst. She said A, she’d pay him out. B, she wished he were
dead. C, she hoped he’d die of leprosy, it would serve him right. D, she wished a sausage would
stick to his nose, like in the fairy story, and never come off. When she’d gone we all laughed, we
couldn’t help it, it was such a funny mixture.
Caroline went up to bed immediately afterwards. Miss Williams disappeared after her pupil.
Amyas and Elsa went off together into the garden. It was clear that I wasn’t wanted. I went for a
stroll by myself. It was a lovely night.
I came down late the following morning. There was no one in the dining room. Funny the things
you do remember. I remember the taste of the kidneys and bacon I ate quite well. They were very
good kidneys. Devilled.
Afterwards I wandered out looking for everybody. I went outside, didn’t see anybody, smoked a
cigarette, encountered Miss Williams running about looking for Angela, who had played truant as
usual when she ought to have been mending a torn frock. I went back into the hall and realized
that Amyas and Caroline were having a set-to in the library. They were talking very loud. I heard
her say:
“You and your women! I’d like to kill you. Some day I will kill you.” Amyas said: “Don’t be a
fool, Caroline.” And she said: “I mean it, Amyas.”
Well, I didn’t want to overhear any more. I went out again. I wandered along the terrace the
other way and came across Elsa.
She was sitting on one of the long seats. The seat was directly under the library window, and the
window was open. I should imagine that there wasn’t much she had missed of what was going on
inside. When she saw me she got up as cool as a cucumber and came towards me. She was
smiling. She took my arm and said:
“Isn’t it a lovely morning?”
It was a lovely morning for her all right! Rather a cruel girl. No, I think merely honest and
lacking in imagination. What she wanted herself was the only thing that she could see.
We’d been standing on the terrace talking for about five minutes, when I heard the library door
bang and Amyas Crale came out. He was very red in the face.
He caught hold of Elsa unceremoniously by the shoulder.
He said: “Come on, time for you to sit. I want to get on with that picture.”
She said: “All right. I’ll just go up and get a pullover. There’s a chilly wind.”
She went into the house.
I wondered if Amyas would say anything to me, but he didn’t say much. Just: “These women!”
I said: “Cheer up, old boy.”
Then we neither of us said anything till Elsa came out of the house again.
They went off together down to the Battery garden. I went into the house. Caroline was standing
in the hall. I don’t think she even noticed me. It was a way of hers at times. She’d seem to go right
away—to get inside herself as it were. She just murmured something. Not to me—to herself. I just
caught the words:
“It’s too cruel….”
That’s what she said. Then she walked past me and upstairs, still without seeming to see me—
just like a person intent on some inner vision. I think myself (I’ve no authority for saying this, you
understand) that she went up to get the stuff, and that it was then she decided to do what she did
do.
And just at that moment the telephone rang. In some houses one would wait for the servants to
answer it, but I was so often at Alderbury that I acted more or less as one of the family. I picked up
the receiver.
It was my brother Meredith’s voice that answered. He was very upset. He explained that he had
been into his laboratory and that the coniine bottle was half-empty.
I don’t need to go again over all the things I know now I ought to have done. The thing was so
startling and I was foolish enough to be taken aback. Meredith was dithering a good bit at the
other end. I heard someone on the stairs, and I just told him sharply to come over at once.
I myself went down to meet him. In case you don’t know the lay of the land, the shortest way
from one estate to the other was by rowing across a small creek. I went down the path to where the
boats were kept by a small jetty. To do so I passed under the wall of the Battery garden. I could
hear Elsa and Amyas talking as he painted. They sounded very cheerful and carefree. Amyas said
it was an amazingly hot day (so it was, very hot for September), and Elsa said that sitting where
she was, poised on the battlements, there was a cold wind blowing in from the sea. And then she
said: “I’m horribly stiff from posing. Can’t I have a rest, darling?” And I heard Amyas cry out:
“Not on your life. Stick it. You’re a tough girl. And this is going good, I tell you.” I heard Elsa
say, “Brute” and laugh, as I went out of earshot.
Meredith was just rowing himself across from the other side. I waited for him. He tied up the
boat and came up the steps. He was looking very white and worried. He said to me:
“Your head’s better than mine, Philip. What ought I to do? That stuff’s dangerous.”
I said: “Are you absolutely sure about this?” Meredith, you see, was always a rather vague kind
of chap. Perhaps that’s why I didn’t take it as seriously as I ought to have done. And he said he
was quite sure. The bottle had been full yesterday afternoon.
I said: “And you’ve absolutely no idea who pinched it?”
He said none whatever and asked me what I thought. Could it have been one of the servants? I
said I supposed it might have been, but it seemed unlikely to me. He always kept the door locked,
didn’t he? Always, he said, and then began a rigmarole about having found the window a few
inches open at the bottom. Someone might have got in that way.
“A chance burglar?” I asked sceptically. “It seems to me, Meredith, that there are some very
nasty possibilities.”
He said what did I really think? And I said, if he was sure he wasn’t making a mistake, that
probably Caroline had taken it to poison Elsa with—or that alternatively Elsa had taken it to get
Caroline out of the way and straighten the path of true love.
Meredith twittered a bit. He said it was absurd and melodramatic and couldn’t be true. I said:
“Well, the stuff’s gone. What’s your explanation?” He hadn’t any, of course. Actually thought just
as I did, but didn’t want to face the fact.
He said again: “What are we to do?”
I said, damned fool that I was: “We must think it over carefully. Either you’d better announce
your loss, straight out when everybody’s there, or else you’d better get Caroline alone and tax her
with it. If you’re convinced she’s nothing to do with it, adopt the same tactics for Elsa.” He said:
“A girl like that! She couldn’t have taken it.” I said I wouldn’t put it past her.
We were walking up to the house as we talked. After that last remark of mine neither of us
spoke for some few seconds. We were rounding the Battery garden again and I heard Caroline’s
voice.
I thought perhaps a three-handed row was going on, but actually it was Angela that they were
discussing. Caroline was protesting. She said: “It’s very hard on the girl.” And Amyas made some
impatient rejoinder. Then the door to the garden opened just as we came abreast of it. Amyas
looked a little taken aback at seeing us. Caroline was just coming out. She said: “Hallo, Meredith.
We’ve been discussing the question of Angela’s going to school. I’m not at all sure it’s the right
thing for her.” Amyas said: “Don’t fuss about the girl. She’ll be all right. Good riddance.”
Just then Elsa came running down the path from the house. She had some sort of scarlet jumper
in her hand. Amyas growled:
“Come along. Get back into the pose. I don’t want to waste time.”
He went back to where his easel was standing. I noticed that he staggered a bit and I wondered
if he had been drinking. A man might easily be excused for doing so with all the fuss and the
scenes.
He grumbled.
“The beer here is red hot. Why can’t we keep some ice down here?”
And Caroline Crale said:
“I’ll send you down some beer just off the ice.”
Amyas grunted out:
“Thanks.”
Then Caroline shut the door of the Battery garden and came up with us to the house. We sat
down on the terrace and she went into the house. About five minutes later Angela came along with
a couple of bottles of beer and some glasses. It was a hot day and we were glad to see it. As we
were drinking it Caroline passed us. She was carrying another bottle and said she would take it
down to Amyas. Meredith said he’d go, but she was quite firm that she’d go herself. I thought—
fool that I was—that it was just her jealousy. She couldn’t stand those two being alone down there.
That was what had taken her down there once already with the weak pretext of arguing about
Angela’s departure.
She went off down that zigzag path—and Meredith and I watched her go. We’d still not decided
anything, and now Angela clamoured that I should come bathing with her. It seemed impossible to
get Meredith alone. I just said to him: “After lunch.” And he nodded.
Then I went off bathing with Angela. We had a good swim—across the creek and back, and
then we lay out on the rocks sunbathing. Angela was a bit taciturn and that suited me. I made up
my mind that directly after lunch I’d take Caroline aside and accuse her point-blank of having
stolen the stuff. No use letting Meredith do it—he’d be too weak. No, I’d tax her with it outright.
After that she’d have to give it back, or even if she didn’t she wouldn’t dare use it. I was pretty
sure it must be her on thinking things over. Elsa was far too sensible and hard-boiled a young
woman to risk tampering with poisons. She had a hard head and would take care of her own skin.
Caroline was made of more dangerous stuff—unbalanced, carried away by impulses and definitely
neurotic. And still, you know, at the back of my mind was the feeling that Meredith might have
made a mistake. Or some servant might have been poking about in there and split the stuff and
then not dared to own up. You see, poison seems such a melodramatic thing—you can’t believe in
it.
Not till it happens.
It was quite late when I looked at my watch, and Angela and I fairly raced up to lunch. They
were just sitting down—all but Amyas, who had remained down in the Battery painting. Quite a
normal thing for him to do—and privately I thought him very wise to elect to do it today. Lunch
was likely to have been an awkward meal.
We had coffee on the terrace. I wish I could remember better how Caroline looked and acted.
She didn’t seem excited in any way. Quiet and rather sad is my impression. What a devil that
woman was!
For it is a devilish thing to do, to poison a man in cold blood. If there had been a revolver about
and she caught it up and shot him—well, that might have been understandable. But this cold,
deliberate, vindictive poisoning…. And so calm and collected.
She got up and said she’d take his coffee to him in the most natural way possible. And yet she
knew—she must have known—that by now she’d find him dead. Miss Williams went with her. I
don’t remember if that was at Caroline’s suggestion or not. I rather think it was.
The two women went off together. Meredith strolled away shortly afterwards. I was just making
an excuse to go after him, when he came running up the path again. His face was grey. He gasped
out:
“We must get a doctor—quick—Amyas—”
I sprang up.
“Is he ill—dying?”
Meredith said:
“I’m afraid he’s dead….”
We’d forgotten Elsa for the minute. But she let out a sudden cry. It was like the wail of a
banshee.
She cried:
“Dead? Dead?…” And then she ran. I didn’t know anyone could move like that—like a deer—
like a stricken thing. And like an avenging Fury, too.
Meredith panted out:
“Go after her. I’ll telephone. Go after her. You don’t know what she’ll do.”
I did go after her—and it’s as well I did. She might quite easily have killed Caroline. I’ve never
seen such grief and such frenzied hate. All the veneer of refinement and education was stripped
off. You could see her father and her father’s mother and father had been millhands. Deprived of
her lover, she was just elemental woman. She’d have clawed Caroline’s face, torn her hair, hurled
her over the parapet if she could. She thought for some reason or other that Caroline had knifed
him. She’d got it all wrong—naturally.
I held her off, and then Miss Williams took charge. She was good, I must say. She got Elsa to
control herself in under a minute—told her she’d got to be quiet and that we couldn’t have this
noise and violence going on. She was a tartar, that woman. But she did the trick. Elsa was quiet—
just stood there gasping and trembling.
As for Caroline, so far as I am concerned, the mask was right off. She stood there perfectly quiet
—you might have said dazed. But she wasn’t dazed. It was her eyes gave her away. They were
watchful—fully aware and quietly watchful. She’d begun, I suppose, to be afraid….
I went up to her and spoke to her. I said it quite low. I don’t think either of the two women
overheard.
I said:
“You damned murderess, you’ve killed my best friend.”
She shrank back. She said:
“No—oh no—he—he did it himself….”
I looked her full in the eyes. I said:
“You can tell that story—to the police.”
She did—and they didn’t believe her.
End of Philip Blake’s Statement.
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