“She then heard Mr. Crale ask his wife to be reasonable. And she heard Mrs. Crale say: “Sooner than let you go to that girl—I’ll kill you.” Soon after this Amyas Crale comes out and brusquely tells Elsa Greer to come down and pose for him. She gets a pullover and accompanies him.
“There is nothing so far that seems psychologically incorrect. Every one has behaved as they might be expected to behave. But we come now to something that is incongruous.
“Meredith Blake discovers his loss, telephones his brother; they meet down at the landing stage and they come up past the Battery garden, where Caroline Crale is having a discussion with her husband on the subject of Angela’s going to school. Now that does strike me as very odd. Husband and wife have a terrific scene, ending in a distinct threat on Caroline’s part, and yet, twenty minutes or so later, she goes down and starts a trivial domestic argument.”
Poirot turned to Meredith Blake.
“You speak in your narrative of certain words you overheard Crale say. These were: ‘It’s all settled—I’ll see to her packing.’ That is right?”
Meredith Blake said: “It was something like that—yes.”
Poirot turned to Philip Blake.
“Is your recollection the same?”
The latter frowned.
“I didn’t remember it till you say so—but I do remember now. Something was said about packing!”
“Said by Mr. Crale—not Mrs. Crale?”
“Amyas said it. All I heard Caroline say was something about its being very hard on the girl. Anyway, what does all this matter? We all know Angela was off to school in a day or two.”
Poirot said: “You do not see the force of my objection. Why should Amyas Crale pack for the girl? It is absurd, that! There was Mrs. Crale, there was Miss Williams, there was a housemaid. It is a woman’s job to pack—not a man’s.”
Philip Blake said impatiently:
“What does it matter? It’s nothing to do with the crime.”
“You think not? For me, it was the first point that struck me as suggestive. And it is immediately followed by another. Mrs. Crale, a desperate woman, broken-hearted, who has threatened her husband a short while before and who is certainly contemplating either suicide or murder, now offers in the most amicable manner to bring her husband down some iced beer.”
Meredith Blake said slowly: “That isn’t odd if she was contemplating murder. Then, surely, it is just what she would do. Dissimulate!”
“You think so? She has decided to poison her husband, she has already got the poison. Her husband keeps a supply of beer down in the Battery garden. Surely if she has any intelligence at all, she will put the poison in one of those bottles at a moment when there is no one about.”
Meredith Blake objected.
“She couldn’t have done that. Somebody else might have drunk it.”
“Yes, Elsa Greer. Do you tell me that having made up her mind to murder her husband, Caroline Crale would have scruples against killing the girl too?
“But let us not argue the point. Let us confine ourselves to facts. Caroline Crale says she will send her husband down some iced beer. She goes up to the house, fetches a bottle from the conservatory where it was kept and takes it down to him. She pours it out and gives it to him.
“Amyas Crale drinks it off and says: ‘Everything tastes foul today.’
“Mrs. Crale goes up again to the house. She has lunch and appears much as usual. It has been said of her that she looks a little worried and preoccupied. That does not help us—for there is no criterion of behaviour for a murderer. There are calm murderers and excited murderers.
“After lunch she goes down again to the Battery. She discovers her husband dead and does, shall we say, the obviously expected things. She registers emotion and she sends the governess to telephone for a doctor. We now come to a fact which has previously not been known.” He looked at Miss Williams. “You do not object?”
Miss Williams was rather pale. She said: “I did not pledge you to secrecy.”
Quietly, but with telling effect, Poirot recounted what the governess had seen.
Elsa Dittisham moved her position. She stared at the drab little woman in the big chair. She said incredibly:
“You actually saw her do that?”
Philip Blake sprang up.
“But that settles it!” he shouted. “That settles it once and for all.”
Hercule Poirot looked at him mildly. He said: “Not necessarily.”
Angela Warren said sharply: “I don’t believe it.” There was a quick hostile glint in the glance she shot at the little governess.
Meredith Blake was pulling at his moustache, his face dismayed. Alone, Miss Williams remained undisturbed. She sat very upright and there was a spot of colour in each cheek.
She said: “That is what I saw.”
Poirot said slowly: “There is, of course, only your word for it….”
“There is only my word for it.” The indomitable grey eyes met his. “I am not accustomed, Mr. Poirot, to having my word doubted.”
Hercule Poirot bowed his head. He said:
“I do not doubt your word, Miss Williams. What you saw took place exactly as you say it did—and because of what you saw I realized that Caroline Crale was not guilty—could not possibly be guilty.”
For the first time, that tall, anxious-faced young man, John Rattery, spoke. He said: “I’d be interested to know why you say that, Mr. Poirot.”
Poirot turned to him.
“Certainly. I will tell you. What did Miss Williams see—she saw Caroline Crale very carefully and anxiously wiping off fingerprints and subsequently imposing her dead husband’s fingerprints on the beer bottle. On the beer bottle, mark. But the coniine was in the glass—not in the bottle. The police found no traces of coniine in the bottle. There had never been any coniine in the bottle. And Caroline Crale didn’t know that.
“She who is supposed to have poisoned her husband didn’t know how he had been poisoned. She thought the poison was in the bottle.”
Meredith objected: “But why—”
Poirot interrupted him in a flash.
“Yes—why? Why did Caroline Crale try so desperately to establish the theory of suicide? The answer is—must be—quite simple. Because she knew who had poisoned him and she was willing to do anything—endure anything—rather than let that person be suspected.
“There is not far to go now. Who could that person be? Would she have shielded Philip Blake? Or Meredith? Or Elsa Greer? Or Cecilia Williams? No, there is only one person whom she would be willing to protect at all costs.”
He paused: “Miss Warren, if you have brought your sister’s last letter with you, I should like to read it aloud.”
Angela Warren said: “No.”
“But, Miss Warren—”
Angela got up. Her voice rang out, cold as steel.
“I realize very well what you are suggesting. You are saying, are you not, that I killed Amyas Crale and that my sister knew it. I deny that allegation utterly.”
Poirot said: “The letter….”
“That letter was meant for my eyes alone.”
Poirot looked to where the two youngest people in the room stood together.
Carla Lemarchant said: “Please, Aunt Angela, won’t you do as Mr. Poirot asks?”
Angela Warren said bitterly: “Really, Carla! Have you no sense of decency? She was your mother—you—”
Carla’s voice rang out clear and fierce.
“Yes, she was my mother. That’s why I’ve a right to ask you. I’m speaking for her. I want that letter read.”
Slowly, Angela Warren took out the letter from her bag and handed it to Poirot. She said bitterly:
“I wish I had never shown it to you.”
Turning away from them she stood looking out of the window.
As Hercule Poirot read aloud Caroline Crale’s last letter, the shadows were deepening in the corners of the room. Carla had a sudden feeling of someone i
n the room, gathering shape, listening, breathing, waiting. She thought: “She’s here—my mother’s here. Caroline—Caroline Crale is here in this room!”
Hercule Poirot’s voice ceased. He said:
“You will all agree, I think, that that is a very remarkable letter. A beautiful letter, too, but certainly remarkable. For there is one striking omission in it—it contains no protestation of innocence.”
Angela Warren said without turning her head: “That was unnecessary.”
“Yes, Miss Warren, it was unnecessary. Caroline Crale had no need to tell her sister that she was innocent—because she thought her sister knew that fact already—knew it for the best of all reasons. All Caroline Crale was concerned about was to comfort and reassure and to avert the possibility of a confession from Angela. She reiterates again and again—It’s all right, darling, it’s all right.”
Angela Warren said: “Can’t you understand? She wanted me to be happy, that’s all.”
“Yes, she wanted you to be happy, that is abundantly clear. It is her one preoccupation. She has a child, but it is not that child of whom she is thinking—that is to come later. No, it is her sister who occupies her mind to the exclusion of everything else. Her sister must be reassured, must be encouraged to live her life, to be happy and successful. And so that the burden of acceptance may not be too great, Caroline includes that one very significant phrase: ‘One must pay one’s debts.’
“That one phrase explains everything. It refers explicitly to the burden that Caroline has carried for so many years ever since, in a fit of uncontrolled adolescent rage, she hurled a paperweight at her baby sister and injured that sister for life. Now, at last, she has the opportunity to pay the debt she owes. And if it is any consolation, I will say to you all that I earnestly believe that in the payment of that debt, Caroline Crale did achieve a peace and serenity greater than any she had ever known. Because of her belief that she was paying that debt, the ordeal of trial and condemnation could not touch her. It is a strange thing to say of a condemned murderess—but she had everything to make her happy. Yes, more than you imagine, as I will show you presently.
“See how, by this explanation, everything falls into its place where Caroline’s own reactions are concerned. Look at the series of events from her point of view. To begin with, on the preceding evening, an event occurs which reminds her forcibly of her own undisciplined girlhood. Angela throws a paperweight at Amyas Crale. That, remember, is what she herself did many years ago. Angela shouts out that she wishes Amyas was dead. Then, on the next morning, Caroline comes into the little conservatory and finds Angela tampering with the beer. Remember Miss Williams’s words: ‘Angela was there. She looked guilty…’ Guilty of playing truant, was what Miss Williams meant, but to Caroline, Angela’s guilty face, as she was caught unawares, would have a different meaning. Remember that on at least one occasion before Angela had put things in Amyas’s drink. It was an idea which might readily occur to her.
“Caroline takes the bottle that Angela gives her and goes down with it to the Battery. And there she pours it out and gives it to Amyas, and he makes a face as he tosses it off and utters those significant words: ‘Everything tastes foul today.’
“Caroline has no suspicions then—but after lunch she goes down to the Battery and finds her husband dead—and she has no doubt at all but that he has been poisoned. She had not done it. Who, then, has? And the whole thing comes over her with a rush—Angela’s threats, Angela’s face stooping over the beer and caught unawares—guilty—guilty—guilty. Why has the child done it? As a revenge on Amyas, perhaps not meaning to kill, just to make him ill or sick? Or has she done it for her, Caroline’s sake? Has she realized and resented Amyas’s desertion of her sister? Caroline remembers—oh, so well—her own undisciplined violent emotions at Angela’s age. And only one thought springs to her mind. How can she protect Angela? Angela handled that bottle—Angela’s fingerprints will be on it. She quickly wipes it and polishes it. If only everybody can be got to believe it is suicide. If Amyas’s fingerprints are the only ones found. She tries to fit his dead fingers round the bottle—working desperately—listening for someone to come….
“Once take that assumption as true, and everything from then on fits in. Her anxiety about Angela all along, her insistence on getting her away, keeping her out of touch with what was going on. Her fear of Angela’s being questioned unduly by the police. Finally, her overwhelming anxiety to get Angela out of England before the trial comes on. Because she is always terrified that Angela might break down and confess.”
Four
TRUTH
Slowly, Angela Warren swung round. Her eyes, hard and contemptuous, ranged over the faces turned towards her.
She said:
“You’re blind fools—all of you. Don’t you know that if I had done it I would have confessed! I’d never have let Caroline suffer for what I’d done. Never!”
Poirot said:
“But you did tamper with the beer.”
“I? Tamper with the beer?”
Poirot turned to Meredith Blake.
“Listen, monsieur. In your account here of what happened, you describe having heard sounds in this room, which is below your bedroom, on the morning of the crime.”
Blake nodded.
“But it was only a cat.”
“How do you know it was a cat?”
“I—I can’t remember. But it was a cat. I am quite sure it was a cat. The window was open just wide enough for a cat to get through.”
“But it was not fixed in that position. The sash moves freely. It could have been pushed up and a human being could have got in and out.”
“Yes, but I know it was a cat.”
“You did not see a cat?”
Blake said perplexedly and slowly:
“No, I did not see it—” He paused, frowning. “And yet I know.”
“I will tell you why you know presently. In the meantime I put this point to you. Someone could have come up to the house that morning, have got into your laboratory, taken something from the shelf and gone again without your seeing them. Now if that someone had come over from Alderbury it could not have been Philip Blake, nor Elsa Greer, nor Amyas Crale nor Caroline Crale. We know quite well what all those four were doing. That leaves Angela Warren and Miss Williams. Miss Williams was over here—you actually met her as you went out. She told you then that she was looking for Angela. Angela had gone bathing early, but Miss Williams did not see her in the water, nor anywhere on the rocks. She could swim across to this side easily—in fact she did so later in the morning when she was bathing with Philip Blake. I suggest that she swam across here, came up to the house, got in through the window, and took something from the shelf.”
Angela Warren said: “I did nothing of the kind—not—at least—”
“Ah!” Poirot gave a yelp of triumph. “You have remembered. You told me, did you not, that to play a malicious joke on Amyas Crale you pinched some of what you called ‘the cat stuff’—that is how you put it—”
Meredith Blake said sharply:
“Valerian! Of course.”
“Exactly. That is what made you sure in your mind that it was a cat who had been in the room. Your nose is very sensitive. You smelled the faint, unpleasant odour of valerian without knowing, perhaps, that you did so—but it suggested to your subconscious mind ‘Cat.’ Cats love valerian and will go anywhere for it. Valerian is particularly nasty to taste, and it was your account of it the day before which made mischievous Miss Angela plan to put some in her brother-in-law’s beer, which she knew he always tossed down his throat in a draught.”
Angela Warren said wonderingly: “Was it really that day? I remember taking it perfectly. Yes, and I remember getting out the beer and Caroline coming in and nearly catching me! Of course I remember…But I’ve never connected it with that particular day.”
“Of course not—because there was no connection in your mind. The two events were entirely dissimilar to
you. One was on a par with other mischievous pranks—the other was a bombshell of tragedy arriving without warning and succeeding in banishing all lesser incidents from your mind. But me, I noticed when you spoke of it that you said: ‘I pinched, etc., etc., to put it in Amyas’s drink.’ You did not say you had actually done so.”
“No, because I never did. Caroline came in just when I was unscrewing the bottle. Oh!” It was a cry. “And Caroline thought—she thought it was me—!”
She stopped. She looked round. She said quietly in her usual cool tones: “I suppose you all think so, too.”
She paused and then said: “I didn’t kill Amyas. Not as the result of a malicious joke nor in any other way. If I had I would never have kept silence.”
Miss Williams said sharply:
“Of course you wouldn’t, my dear.” She looked at Hercule Poirot. “Nobody but a fool would think so.”
Hercule Poirot said mildly:
“I am not a fool and I do not think so. I know quite well who killed Amyas Crale.”
He paused.
“There is always a danger of accepting facts as proved which are really nothing of the kind. Let us take the situation at Alderbury. A very old situation. Two women and one man. We have taken it for granted that Amyas Crale proposed to leave his wife for the other woman. But I suggest to you now that he never intended to do anything of the kind.
“He had had infatuations for women before. They obsessed him while they lasted, but they were soon over. The women he had fallen in love with were usually women of a certain experience—they did not expect too much of him. But this time the woman did. She was not, you see, a woman at all. She was a girl, and in Caroline Crale’s words, she was terribly sincere…She may have been hard-boiled and sophisticated in speech, but in love she was frighteningly single-minded. Because she herself had a deep and overmastering passion for Amyas Crale she assumed that he had the same for her. She assumed without any question that their passion was for life. She assumed without asking him that he was going to leave his wife.