by Mark Place
Poirot said, “After all, it is likely enough.”
“Perhaps, M. Poirot. But it doesn’t square with what she was overheard to say. And then there was a further scene on the following morning. Mr Philip Blake overheard a portion of it. Miss Greer overheard a different portion of it. It took place in the library between Mr and Mrs Crale. Mr Blake was in the hall and caught a fragment or two. Miss Greer was sitting outside near the open library window and heard a good deal more.”
“And what did they hear?”
“Mr Blake heard Mrs Crale say, ‘You and your women. I’d like to kill you. Someday I will kill you.’”
“No mention of suicide?”
“Exactly. None at all. No words like ‘If you do this thing, I’ll kill myself.’
Miss Greer’s evidence was much the same. According to her, Mr Crale said, ‘Do try and be reasonable about this, Caroline. I’m fond of you and will always wish you well - you and the child. But I’m going to marry Elsa. We’ve always agreed to leave each other free.’ Mrs Crale answered to that, ‘Very well, don’t, say I haven’t warned you.’ He said, ‘What do you mean?’ And she said, ‘I mean that I love you and I’m not going to lose you. I’d rather kill you than let you go to that girl.’”
Poirot made a slight gesture. “It occurs to me,” he murmured, “that Miss Greer was singularly unwise to raise this issue. Mrs Crale could easily have refused her husband a divorce.”
“We had some evidence bearing on that point,” said Hale. “Mrs Crale, it seems, confided partly, in Mr Meredith Blake. He was an old and trusted friend. He was very distressed and managed to get a word with Mr Crale about it. This, I may say, was on the preceding afternoon. Mr Blake remonstrated delicately with his friend, said how distressed he would be if the marriage between Mr and Mrs Crale was to break up so disastrously. He also stressed the point that Miss Greer was a very young girl and that it was a very serious thing to drag a young girl through the divorce court. To this Mr Crale replied, with a chuckle (callous sort of brute he must have been), ‘That isn’t Elsa’s idea at all. She isn’t going to appear. We shall fix it up in the usual way.’”
“Therefore,” Poirot said, “even more imprudent of Miss Greer to have broken out the way she did.”
Superintendent Hale said, “Oh, you know what women are! Have to get at one another’s throats. It must have been a difficult situation anyhow. I can’t understand Mr Crale allowing it to happen. According to Mr Meredith Blake he wanted to finish his picture. Does that make sense to you?”
“Yes, my friend, I think it does.”
“It doesn’t to me. The man was asking for trouble!”
“He was probably seriously annoyed with his young woman for breaking out the way she did.”
“Oh, he was. Meredith Blake said so. If he had to finish the picture I don’t see why he couldn’t have taken some photographs and worked from them. I know a chap - does water colours of places - he does that.”
Poirot shook his head. “No - I can understand Crale the artist. You must realize, my friend, that at that moment, probably, his picture was all that mattered to Crale. However much he wanted to marry the girl, the picture came first. That’s why he hoped to get through her visit without its coming to an open issue. The girl, of course, didn’t see it that way. With women, love always comes first.”
“Don’t I know it,” said Superintendent Hale with feeling.
“Men,” continued Poirot, “and especially artists, are different.”
“Art!” said the superintendent with scorn. “All this talk about art! I never have understood it and I never shall! You should have seen that picture Crale was painting. All lopsided. He’d made the girl look as though she had toothache and the battlements were all cockeyed. Unpleasant-looking, the whole thing. I couldn’t get it out of my mind for a long time afterward. I even dreamed about it. And, what’s more, it affected my eyesight - I began to see battlements and walls and things all out of drawing. Yes, and women, too!”
Poirot smiled. He said, “Although you do not know it, you are paying a tribute to the greatness of Amyas Crale’s art.”
“Nonsense. Why can’t a painter paint something nice and cheerful to look at? Why go out of your way to look for ugliness?”
“Some of us, mon cher, see beauty in curious places.”
“The girl was a good-looker, all right,” said Hale. “Lots of make-up and next to no clothes on. It isn’t decent the way these girls go about. And that was sixteen years ago, mind you. Nowadays one wouldn’t think anything of it. But then - well, it shocked me. Trousers and one of those sports shirts, open at the neck - and not another thing, I should say!”
“You seem to remember these points very well,” murmured Poirot slyly. Superintendent Hale blushed. “I’m just passing on the impression I got,” he said austerely.
“Quite - quite,” said Poirot soothingly. He went on: “So it would seem that the principal witnesses against Mrs Crale were Philip Blake and Elsa Greer?”
“Yes. Vehement, they were, both of them. But the governess was called by the prosecution, too, and what she said carried more weight than the other two. She was on Mrs Crale’s side entirely, you see. Up in arms for her. But she was an honest woman and gave her evidence truthfully, without trying to minimize it in any way.”
“And Meredith Blake?”
“He was very distressed by the whole thing, poor gentleman. As well he might be! Blamed himself for his drug brewing - and the chief constable blamed him for it, too. Coniine, I understand, was in Schedule I of the Poison Act. He was a friend of both parties, and it hit him very hard - besides being the kind of country gentleman who shrinks from notoriety and being in the public eye.”
“Did not Mrs Crale’s young sister give evidence?”
“No. It wasn’t necessary. She wasn’t there when Mrs Crale threatened her husband, and there was nothing she could tell us that we couldn’t get from someone else equally well. She saw Mrs Crale go to the refrigerator and get the iced beer out and, of course, the defence could have subpoenaed her to say that Mrs Crale took it straight down without tampering with it in any way. But that point wasn’t relevant because we never claimed that the coniine was in the beer bottle.”
“How did she manage to put it in the glass with those two looking on?”
“Well, first of all, they weren’t looking on. That is to say, Mr Crale was painting - looking at his canvas and at the sitter. And Miss Greer was posed, sitting with her back almost to where Mrs Crale was standing and her eyes looking over Mr Crale’s shoulder.” Poirot nodded.
“As I say, neither of the two was looking at Mrs Crale. She had the stuff in one of those pipette things - one used to fill fountain pens with them. We found it crushed to splinters on the path up to the house.”
“You have an answer to everything,” Poirot murmured.
“Well, come, now, M. Poirot! Without prejudice. She threatens to kill him. She takes the stuff from the laboratory. The empty bottle is found in her room and nobody has handled it but her. She deliberately takes down iced beer to him - a funny thing, anyway, when you realize that they weren’t on speaking terms -”
“A very curious thing. I had already remarked on it.”
“Yes. Bit of a giveaway. Why was she so amiable all of a sudden? He complains of the taste of the stuff - and coniine has a nasty taste. She arranges to find the body and sends the other woman off to telephone. Why? So that she can wipe that bottle and glass and then press his fingers on it. After that she can pipe up and say that it was remorse and that he committed suicide. A likely story.”
“It was certainly not very well imagined.”
“No. If you ask me, she didn’t take the trouble to think. She was so eaten up with hate and jealousy. All she thought of was doing him in. And then, when it’s over, when she sees him there dead - well, then, I should say, she suddenly comes to herself and realizes that what she’s done is murder - and that you get hanged for murder. And desperate
ly she goes bald-headed for the only thing she can think of - which is suicide.”
Poirot said, “It is very sound what you say there - yes. Her mind might work that way.”
“In a way it was a premeditated crime and in a way it wasn’t,” said Superintendent Hale. “I don’t believe she really thought it out, you know. Just went on with it blindly.”
Poirot murmured, “I wonder…”
Chapter 3
Hale looked at Poirot curiously. “Have I convinced you that it was a straightforward case?” he said.
“Almost. Not quite. There are one or two peculiar points.”
“Can you suggest an alternative solution that will hold water?”
Poirot said, “What were the movements of the other people on that morning?”
“We went into them, I can assure you. We checked up on everybody. Nobody had what you could call an alibi - you can’t have with poisoning. Why, there’s nothing to prevent a would-be murderer from handing his victim some poison in a capsule the day before, telling him it’s a specific cure for indigestion and he must take it just before lunch - and then going away to the other end of England.”
“But you don’t think that happened in this case?”
“Mr Crale didn’t suffer from indigestion. And in any case I can’t see that kind of thing happening. It’s true that Mr Meredith Blake was given to recommending quack nostrums of his own concocting, but I don’t see Mr Crale trying any of them. And if he did he’d probably talk and joke about it. Besides, why should Mr Meredith Blake want to kill Mr Crale? Everything goes to show that he was on very good terms with him. They all were. Mr Philip Blake was his best friend. Miss Greer was in love with him. Miss Williams disapproved of him, I imagine, very strongly - but moral disapprobation doesn’t lead to poisoning. Little Miss Warren scrapped with him a lot, she was at a tiresome age - just off to school, I believe - but he was quite fond of her and she of him. She was treated, you know, with particular tenderness and consideration in that house. You may have heard why. She was badly injured when she was a child - injured by Mrs Crale in a kind of maniacal fit of rage. That rather shows - doesn’t it? - that she was a pretty uncontrolled sort of person. To go for a child - and maim her for life!”
“It might show,” said Poirot, “that Angela Warren had good reason to bear a grudge against Caroline Crale.”
“Perhaps, but not against Amyas Crale. And, anyway, Mrs Crale was devoted to her young sister - gave her a home when her parents died and, as I say, treated her with special affection - spoiled her badly, so they say. The girl was obviously very fond of Mrs Crale. She was kept away from the trial and sheltered from it all as far as possible – Mrs Crale was very insistent about that, I believe. But the child was terribly upset and longed to be taken to see her sister in prison. Caroline Crale wouldn’t agree. She said that sort of thing might injure a girl’s mentality for life. She arranged for her to go to school abroad.”
He added, “Miss Warren turned out to be a very distinguished woman. Traveller to weird places. Lectures at the Royal Geographical - all that sort of thing.”
“And no one remembers the trial?”
“Well, it’s a different name for one thing. They hadn’t even the same maiden name. They had the same mother but different fathers. Mrs Crale’s name was Spalding.”
“This Miss Williams, was she the child’s governess or Angela Warren’s?”
“Angela’s. There was a nurse for the child, but she used to do a few little lessons with Miss Williams every day, I believe.”
“Where was the child at the time?”
“She’d gone with the nurse to pay a visit to her godmother. A Lady Tressillian. A widow lady who’d lost her own two little girls and who was devoted to this kid.”
Poirot nodded. “I see.”
Hale continued. “As to the movements of the other people on the day of the murder, I can give them to you. Miss Greer sat on the terrace near the library window after breakfast. There, as I say, she overheard the quarrel between Crale and his wife. After that she accompanied Crale down to the Battery and sat for him until lunchtime, with a couple of breaks to ease her muscles.
“Philip Blake was in the house after breakfast and overheard part of the quarrel. After Crale and Miss Greer went off, he read the paper until his brother telephoned him. Thereupon, he went down to the shore to meet his brother. They walked together up the path again past the Battery Garden. Miss Greer had just gone up to the house to fetch a pullover, as she felt chilly, and Mrs Crale was with her husband discussing arrangements for Angela’s departure to school.”
“Ah, an amicable interview,” said Poirot.
“Well, no, not amicable. Crale was fairly shouting at her, I understand. Annoyed at being bothered with domestic details. I suppose she wanted to get things straightened up if there was going to be a break.” Poirot nodded.
Hale went on. “The two brothers exchanged a few words with Amyas Crale. Then Miss Greer reappeared and took up her position, and Crale picked up his brush again, obviously wanting to get rid of them. They took the hint and went up to the house. It was when they were at the Battery, by the way, that Amyas Crale complained that all the beer down there was hot, and his wife promised to send him down some iced beer.”
“Aha!”
“Exactly - aha! Sweet as sugar she was about it. They went up to the house and sat on the terrace outside. Mrs Crale and Angela Warren brought them beer out there.
“Later, Angela Warren went down to bathe and Philip Blake went with her. Meredith Blake went down to a clearing with a seat just above the Battery Garden. He could just see Miss Greer as she posed on the battlements, and could hear her voice and Crale’s as they talked. He sat there and thought over the coniine business. He was still very worried about it and didn’t know quite what to do. Elsa Greer saw him and waved her hand to him. When the bell went for lunch he came down to the battery, and Elsa Greer and he went back to the house together. He noticed then that Crale was looking, as he put it, very queer, but he didn’t really think anything of it at the time. Crale was the kind of man who is never ill - and so one didn’t imagine he would be. On the other hand, he did have moods of fury and despondency according as to whether his painting was not going as he liked it. On those occasions one left him alone and said as little as possible to him. That’s what these two did on this occasion.”
“As to the others, the servants were busy with housework and cooking lunch. Miss Williams was in the schoolroom part of the morning, correcting some exercise books. Afterward, she took some household mending to the terrace. Angela Warren spent most of the morning wandering about the garden, climbing trees and eating things – you know what a girl of fifteen is - plums, sour apples, hard pears, etc. After that she came back to the house and, as I say, went down with Philip Blake to the beach and had a swim before lunch.”
Superintendent Hale paused. “Now, then,” he said belligerently, “do you find anything phony about that?”
“Nothing at all,” Poirot said.
“Well, then!” The two words expressed volumes.
“But all the same,” said Hercule Poirot, “I am going to satisfy myself. I…”
“What are you going to do?”
“I am going to visit these five people - and from each one I am going to get his or her own story.”
Superintendent Hale sighed with a deep melancholy. He said, “Man, you’re nuts! None of their stories are going to agree. Don’t you grasp that elementary fact? No two people remember a thing in the same order anyway. And after all this time! Why, you’ll hear five accounts of five separate murders!”
“That,” said Poirot, “is what I am counting upon. It will be very instructive.”
Philip Blake was recognizably like the description given of him by Depleach - a prosperous, shrewd, jovial-looking man - slightly running to fat. Hercule Poirot had timed his appointment for half past six on a Saturday afternoon. Philip Blake had just finished his eighteen hol
es, and he had been on his game - winning a fiver from his opponent. He was in the mood to be friendly and expansive. Hercule Poirot explained himself and his errand. On this occasion at least, he showed no undue passion for unsullied truth. It was a question, Blake gathered, of a series of books dealing with famous crimes.
Philip Blake frowned. He said, “Why rake up these things?”
Hercule Poirot shrugged his shoulders. He was at his most foreign today. He was out to be despised but patronized. “It is the public,” he murmured. “They eat it up - yes, eat it up.”
“Ghouls,” said Philip Blake. But he said it good-humouredly - not with the fastidiousness and the distaste that a more sensitive man might have displayed. Hercule Poirot said with a shrug of the shoulders, “It is human nature. You and I, Mr Blake, who know the world, have no illusions about our fellow human beings. Not bad people, most of them, but certainly not to be idealized.”
Blake said heartily, “I’ve parted with my illusions long ago.”
“Instead, you tell a very good story, so I have been told.”
Philip Blake’s eyes twinkled. “Heard this one?”
Poirot’s laugh came at the right place. It was not an edifying story, but it was funny. Philip Blake lay back in his chair, his muscles relaxed, his eyes creased with good humour. Hercule Poirot thought suddenly that he looked rather like a contented pig. A pig. This little pig went to market…What was he like, this man, this Philip Blake A man, it would seem, without cares. Prosperous, contented. No remorseful thoughts, no uneasy twinges of conscience from the past, no haunting memories here. No, a well-fed pig who had gone to market - and fetched the full price…But once, perhaps, there had been more to Philip Blake. He must have been, when young, a handsome man. Eyes always a shade too small, a fraction too near together, perhaps - but otherwise a well-made, well-set-up young man. How old was he now? At a guess between fifty and sixty. Nearing forty, then, at the time of Crale’s death. Less stultified, then, less sunk in the gratifications of the minute. Asking more of life, perhaps, and receiving less…Poirot murmured as a mere catch phrase, “You comprehend my position.”
