Hercule Poirot 100 Years (1916 - 2016)

by Mark Place

  It was then that he said, “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. While 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 September 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 Elsa Greer’s scornful honesty - with Caroline everything 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 were 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 old 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.”

  “Is it true, Amyas?” Caroline said very quietly.

  He looked a bit ashamed of himself. Like 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 bull ring. 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 to 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 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 had 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.”

  “Then,” she said, “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 toward a bed of dahlias and began picking off some of the overblown flowers. Amyas turned around 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 he 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 we 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 around 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, too, 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 upset. 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 pucka 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’s 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’s 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 afterward. 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.

  Afterward 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. Someday 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 toward 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 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 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 - 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 together 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 just 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 rather a 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. “It seems to me, Meredith, that there are some very nasty possibilities.”

  He asked 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, stupid 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 has 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 the path to the house as we talked. As we were rounding the Battery Garden again 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, “Hullo, 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.”