by Mark Place
Hercule Poirot said, “How was your father killed?”
Carla’s voice came clear and firm. “He was poisoned.”
Hercule Poirot said, “I see.” There was a silence. Then the girl said in a calm, matter-of-fact voice, “Thank goodness, you’re sensible. You see that it does matter - and what it involves. You don’t try to patch it up and trot out consoling phrases.”
“I understand very well,” said Poirot. “What I do not understand is what you want of me?”
“I want to marry John!” Carla Lemarchant said simply. “And I mean to marry John! And I want to have at least two girls and two boys. And you’re going to make that possible!”
“You mean - you want me to talk to your fiancé? Ah, no, it is idiocy what I say there! It is something quite different that you are suggesting. Tell me what is in your mind.”
“Listen, M. Poirot. Get this - and get it clearly. I’m hiring you to investigate a case of murder.”
“Do you mean-”
“Yes, I do mean. A case of murder is a case of murder whether it happened yesterday or sixteen years ago.”
“But, my dear young lady -”
“Wait, M. Poirot You haven’t got it all yet. There’s a very important point.”
“Yes?”
“My mother was innocent,” said Carla Lemarchant.
Hercule Poirot rubbed his nose. He murmured, “Well, naturally – I comprehend that -”
“It isn’t sentiment. There’s her letter. She left it for me before she died. It was to be given to me when I was twenty-one. She left it for that one reason - that I should be quite sure. That’s all that was in it. That she hadn’t done it - that she was innocent - that I could be sure of that always.”
Hercule Poirot looked thoughtfully at the young, vital face staring so earnestly at him. He said slowly, “Tout de meme -”
Carla smiled. “No, Mother wasn’t like that! You’re thinking that it might be a lie, a sentimental lie.” She leaned forward earnestly. “Listen, M. Poirot, there are some things that children know quite well. I can remember my mother, a patchy remembrance, of course, but I remember quite well the sort of person she was. She didn’t tell lies - kind lies. If a thing was going to hurt she always told you so. Dentists, or thorns in your finger - all that sort of thing. Truth was a - a natural impulse to her. I wasn’t, I don’t think, especially fond of her - but I trusted her. I still trust her! If she says she didn’t kill my father, then she didn’t kill him! She wasn’t the sort of person who would solemnly write down a lie when she knew she was dying.”
Slowly, almost reluctantly, Hercule Poirot bowed his head.
Carla went on. “That’s why it’s all right for me to marry John. I know it’s all right. But he doesn’t. He feels that naturally I would think my mother was innocent. It’s got to be cleared up, M. Poirot. And you’re going to do it!”
Hercule Poirot said slowly, “Granted that what you say is true, mademoiselle, sixteen years have gone by!”
Carla Lemarchant said, “Oh, of course it’s going to be difficult! Nobody but you could do it!”
Hercule Poirot’s eyes twinkled slightly. “You give me the best butter - hein?” he said.
“I’ve heard about you,” Carla said. “The things you’ve done. The way you have done them. It’s psychology that interests you, isn’t it? Well, that doesn’t change with time. The tangible things are gone – the cigarette end and the footprints and the bent blades of grass. You can’t look for those any more. But you can go over all the facts of the case, and perhaps talk to the people who were there at the time – they’re all alive still - and then - and then, as you said just now, you can lie back in your chair and think. And you’ll know what really happened…”
Hercule Poirot rose to his feet. One hand caressed his moustache. He said, “Mademoiselle, I am honoured! I will justify your faith in me. I will investigate your case of murder. I will search back into the events of sixteen years ago and I will find out the truth.”
Carla got up. Her eyes were shining. But she only said, Good.”
Hercule Poirot shook an eloquent forefinger. “One little moment. I have said I will find out the truth. I do not, you understand, have the bias. I do not accept your assurance of your mother’s innocence. If she was guilty - eh bien, what then?”
Carla’s head went back. “I’m her daughter,” she said. “I want the truth!” Hercule Poirot said, “En avant, then. Though it is not that, that I should say. On the contrary. En arrière!”
“Do I remember the Crale case?” asked Sir Montague Depleach. “Certainly I do. Remember it very well. Most attractive woman. But unbalanced, of course. No self-control.” He glanced sideways at Poirot. “What makes you ask me about it?”
“I am interested.”
“Not really tactful of you, my dear man,” said Depleach, showing his teeth in his sudden famous ‘wolf’s smile,’ which had been reputed to have such a terrifying effect upon witnesses. “Not one of my successes, you know. I didn’t get her off.”
“I know that.”
Sir Montague shrugged his shoulders. He said: “Of course, I hadn’t quite as much experience then as I have now. All the same, I think I did all that could humanly be done. One can’t do much without co-operation. We did get it commuted to penal servitude. Provocation, you know. Lots of respectable wives and mothers got up a petition. There was a lot of sympathy for her.”
He leaned back, stretching out his long legs. His face took on a judicial, appraising look. “If she’d shot him, you know, or even knifed him - I’d have gone all out for manslaughter. But poison - no, you can’t play tricks with that. It’s tricky - very tricky.”
“What was the defence?” asked Hercule Poirot. He knew because he had already read the newspaper files but he saw no harm in playing completely ignorant to Sir Montague.
“Oh, suicide. Only thing you could go for. But it didn’t go down well. Crale simply wasn’t that kind of man! You never met him, I suppose? No? Well, he was a great, blustering, vivid sort of chap. Great beer drinker. Went in for the lusts of the flesh and enjoyed them. You can’t persuade a jury that a man like that is going to sit down and quietly do away with himself. It just doesn’t fit. No, I was afraid I was up against a losing proposition from the first. And she wouldn’t play up! I knew we’d lost as soon as she went into the box. No fight in her at all. But there it is - if you don’t put your client into the box, the jury draw their own conclusions.”
Poirot said, “Is that what you meant when you said just now that one cannot do much without co-operation?”
“Absolutely, my dear fellow. We’re not magicians, you know. Half the battle is the impression the accused makes on the jury. I’ve known juries time and again bring in verdicts dead against the judge’s summing up. ‘He did it, all right’ - that’s the point of view. Or ‘He never did a thing like that - don’t tell me.’ Caroline Crale didn’t even try to put up a fight.”
“Why was that?”
Sir Montague shrugged his shoulders. “Don’t ask me. Of course, she was fond of the fellow. Broke her awful up when she came to and realized what she’d done. Don’t believe she ever rallied from the shock.”
“So in your opinion she was guilty?”
Depleach looked rather startled. He said, “Er - well, I thought we were taking that for granted.”
“Did she ever admit to you that she was guilty?”
Depleach looked shocked. “Of course not - of course not. We have our code, you know. Innocence is always - er - assumed. If you’re so interested it’s a pity you can’t get hold of old Mayhew. Mayhews were the solicitors who briefed me. Old Mayhew could have told you more than I can. But there - he’s joined the great majority. There’s young George Mayhew, of course, but he was only a boy at the time. It’s a long time ago, you know.”
“Yes, I know. It is fortunate for me that you remember so much. You have a remarkable memory.”
Depleach looked pleased. He murmured, “O
h, well, one remembers the main headings, you know. Especially when it’s a capital charge. And, of course, the Crale case got a lot of publicity from the press. Lot of sex interest and all that. The girl in the case was pretty striking. Hard-boiled piece of goods, I thought.”
“You will forgive me if I seem too insistent,” said Poirot, “but I repeat once more, you had no doubt of Caroline Crale’s guilt?”
Depleach shrugged his shoulders. “Frankly, as man to man,” he said, “I don’t think there’s much doubt about it. Oh, yes, she did it, all right.”
“What was the evidence against her?”
“Very damning indeed. First of all, there was motive. She and Crale had led a kind of cat-and-dog life for years with interminable rows. He was always getting mixed up with some woman or other. Couldn’t help it. He was that kind of man. She stood it pretty well on the whole. Made allowances for him on the score of temperament - and the man really was a first-class painter, you know. His stuff’s gone up enormously in price - enormously. Don’t care for that style of painting myself - ugly, forceful stuff, but it’s good - no doubt of that.
“Well, as I say, there had been trouble about women from time to time. Mrs Crale wasn’t the meek kind who suffers in silence. There were rows, all right. But he always came back to her in the end. These affairs of his blew over. But this final affair was rather different. It was a girl, you see - and quite a young girl. She was only twenty.
“Elsa Greer, that was her name. She was the only daughter of some Yorkshire manufacturer. She had money and determination and she knew what she wanted. What she wanted was Amyas Crale. She got him to paint her - he didn’t paint regular society portraits, ‘Mrs Blinkety Blank in pink satin and pearls’, but he painted figures. I don’t know that most women would have cared to be painted by him - he didn’t spare them! But he painted the Greer girl, by falling for her good and proper. He was getting on for forty, you know, and he’d been married a good many years. He was just ripe for making a fool of himself over some chit of a girl. Elsa Greer was the girl. He was crazy about her and his idea was to get a divorce from his wife and marry Elsa.”
“Caroline Crale wasn’t standing for that. She threatened him. She was overheard by two people to say that if he didn’t give the girl up she’d kill him. And she meant it all right! The day before it happened, they’d been having tea with a neighbour. He was by way of dabbling in herbs and home-brewed medicines. Among his patent brews was one of coniine - spotted hemlock. There was some talk about it and its deadly properties.”
“The next day he noticed that half the contents of the bottle were gone. Got the wind up about it. They found an almost empty bottle of it in Mrs Crale’s room, hidden away at the bottom of a drawer.”
Hercule Poirot moved uncomfortably. He said, “Somebody else might have put it there.”
“Oh, she admitted it to the police. Very unwise, of course, but she didn’t have a solicitor to advise her at that stage. When they asked her about it, she admitted quite frankly that she had taken it.”
“For what reason?”
“She made out that she’d taken it with the idea of doing herself in. She couldn’t explain how the bottle came to be empty - nor how it was that there were only her fingerprints on it. That part of it was pretty damning. She contended, you see, that Amyas Crale had committed suicide. But if he’d taken the coniine from the bottle she’d hidden in her room, his fingerprints would have been on the bottle as well as hers.”
“It was given him in beer, was it not?”
“Yes. She got out the bottle from the refrigerator and took it down herself to where he was painting in the garden. She poured it out and gave it to him and watched him drink it. Everyone went up to lunch and left him - he often didn’t come in to meals. Afterward she and the governess found him there dead. Her story was that the beer she gave him was all right. Our theory was that he suddenly felt so worried and remorseful that he slipped the poison in himself. All poppycock – he wasn’t that kind of man! And the fingerprint evidence was the most damning of all.”
“They found her fingerprints on the beer bottle?”
“No, they didn’t - they found only his - and they were phony ones. She was alone with the body, you see, while the governess went to call up a doctor. And what she must have done was to wipe the bottle and glass and then press his fingers on them. She wanted to pretend, you see, that she’d never even handled the stuff. Well, that didn’t work. Old Rudolph, who was prosecuting, had a lot of fun with that proved quite definitely by demonstration in court that a man couldn’t hold a bottle with his fingers in that position! Of course, we did our best to prove that he could - that his hands would take up a contorted attitude when he was dying - but frankly our stuff wasn’t very convincing.”
“The coniine in the beer bottle,” Poirot said, “must have been put there before she took it down to the garden.”
“There was no coniine in the bottle at all. Only in the glass -” Depleach paused - his large, handsome face suddenly altered - he turned his head sharply.
“Hullo,” he said. “Now, then, Poirot, what are you driving at?”
Poirot said, “If Caroline Crale was innocent, how did that coniine get into the beer? The defence said at the time that Amyas Crale himself put it there. But you say to me that that was in the highest degree unlikely - and for my part I agree with you. He was not that kind of man. Then, if Caroline Crale did not do it, someone else did.”
Depleach said with almost a splutter, “Oh, damn it all, man, you can’t flog a dead horse. It’s all over and done with years ago. Of course she did it. You’d know that well enough if you’d seen her at the time. It was written all over her! I even fancy that the verdict was a relief to her. She wasn’t frightened. No nerves at all. Just wanted to get through the trial and have it over. A very brave woman, really…”
“And yet,” said Hercule Poirot, “when she died she left a letter to be given to her daughter in which she swore solemnly that she was innocent. Now her daughter wants the truth.”
“H’m - I’m afraid she’ll find the truth unpalatable. Honestly, Poirot, I don’t think there’s any doubt about it. She killed him.”
“You will forgive me, my friend, but I must satisfy myself on that point.”
“Well, I don’t know what more you can do. You can read up the newspaper accounts of the trial. Humphrey Rudolph appeared for the Crown. He’s dead - let me see, who was his junior? Young Fogg, I think. Yes, Fogg. You can have a chat with him. And then there are the people who were there at the time. Don’t suppose they’ll enjoy your butting in and raking the whole thing up, but I dare say you’ll get what you want out of them. You’re a plausible devil.”
“Ah, yes, the people concerned. That is very important. You remember, perhaps, who they were?”
Depleach considered. “Let me see - it’s a long time ago. There were only five people who were really in it, so to speak - I’m not counting the servants - a couple of faithful old things, scared-looking creatures - they didn’t know anything about anything. No one could suspect them.”
“There are five people, you say. Tell me about them.”
“Well, there was Philip Blake. He was Crale’s greatest friend had known him all his life. He was staying in the house at the time. He’s alive. I see him now and again on the links. Lives at St George’s Hill. Stockbroker. Plays the markets and gets away with it. Successful man, running to fat a bit.”
“Yes. And who next?”
“Then there was Blake’s elder brother. Country squire - stay-at-home sort of chap.”
A jingle ran through Poirot’s head. He repressed it. He must not always be thinking of nursery rhymes. It seemed an obsession with him lately. And yet the jingle persisted:
“This little pig went to market, this little pig stayed at home…”
He murmured, “He stayed at home - yes?”
“He’s the fellow I was telling you about - messed about with drugs – and herbs - bi
t of a chemist. His hobby. What was his name, now? Literary sort of name - I’ve got it. Meredith. Meredith Blake. Don’t know whether he’s alive or not.”
“And who next?”
“Next? Well, there’s the cause of all the trouble. The girl in the case: Elsa Greer.”
“This little pig ate roast beef,” murmured Poirot.
Depleach stared at him. “They’ve fed her meat, all right,” he said. “She’s been a go-getter. She’s had three husbands since then. In and out of the divorce court as easy as you please. And every time she makes a change, it’s for the better. Lady Dittisham - that’s who she is now. Open any Tatler and you’re sure to find her.”
“And the other two?”
“There was the governess woman. I don’t remember her name. Nice, capable woman. Thompson - Jones - something like that. And there was the child. Caroline Crale’s half-sister. She must have been about fifteen. She’s made rather a name for herself. Digs up things and goes trekking to the back of beyond. Warren - that’s her name. Angela Warren. Rather an alarming young woman nowadays. I met her the other day.”
“She is not, then, the little pig who cried, ‘Wee-wee-wee’…?”
Sir Montague Depleach looked at him rather oddly. He said dryly, “She’s had something to cry wee-wee about in her life! She’s disfigured, you know. Got a bad scar down one side of her face. She oh, well, you’ll hear all about it, I dare say.”
Poirot stood up. He said, “I thank you. You have been very kind. If Mrs Crale did not kill her husband -”
Depleach interrupted him. “But she did, old boy, she did. Take my word for it.”
Poirot continued without taking any notice of the interruption. “Then it seems logical to suppose that one of these five people must have done so.”
“One of them could have done it, I suppose,” said Depleach doubtfully. “But I don’t see why any of them should. No reason at all! In fact, I’m quite sure none of them did do it. Do get this bee out of your bonnet, old boy!”
