Five Little Pigs

The modesty of this remark had probably not been equalled before in Poirot’s conversation.

‘Of course you are. We all know that. The famous Hercule Poirot!’

But his tone held a subtly mocking note. Intrinsically, Philip Blake was too much of an Englishman to take the pretensions of a foreigner seriously.

To his cronies he would have said:

‘Quaint little mountebank. Oh well, I expect his stuff goes down with the women all right.’

And although that derisive patronizing attitude was exactly the one which Hercule Poirot had aimed at inducing, nevertheless he found himself annoyed by it.

This man, this successful man of affairs, was unimpressed by Hercule Poirot! It was a scandal.

‘I am gratified,’ said Poirot untruly, ‘that I am so well known to you. My success, let me tell you, has been founded on the psychology-the eternalwhy? of human behaviour. That, M. Blake, is what interests the world in crime today. It used to be romance. Famous crimes were retold from one angle only-the love-story connected with them. Nowadays it is very different. People read with interest that Dr Crippen murdered his wife because she was a big bouncing woman and he was little and insignificant and therefore she made him feel inferior. They read of some famous woman criminal that she killed because she’d been snubbed by her father when she was three years old. It is, as I say, thewhy of crime that interests nowadays.’

Philip Blake said, with a slight yawn:

‘The why of most crimes is obvious enough, I should say. Usually money.’

Poirot cried:

‘Ah, but my dear sir, the why must never be obvious. That is the whole point!’

‘And that’s whereyou come in?’

‘And that, as you say, is where I come in! It is proposed to rewrite the stories of certain bygone crimes-from the psychological angle. Psychology in crime, it is my speciality. I have accepted the commission.’

Philip Blake grinned.

‘Pretty lucrative, I suppose?’

‘I hope so-I certainly hope so.’

‘Congratulations. Now, perhaps, you’ll tell me whereI come in?’

‘Most certainly. The Crale case, Monsieur.’

Phillip Blake did not look startled. But he looked thoughtful. He said:

‘Yes, of course, the Crale case…’

Hercule Poirot said anxiously:

‘It is not displeasing to you, Mr Blake?’

‘Oh, as to that.’ Philip Blake shrugged his shoulders. ‘It’s no use resenting a thing that you’ve no power to stop. The trial of Caroline Crale is public property. Any one can go ahead and write it up. It’s no usemy objecting. In a way-I don’t mind telling you-I do dislike it a good deal. Amyas Crale was one of my best friends. I’m sorry the whole unsavoury business has to be raked up again. But these things happen.’

‘You are a philosopher, Mr Blake.’

‘No, no. I just know enough not to start kicking against the pricks. I dare say you’ll do it less offensively than many others.’

‘I hope, at least, to write with delicacy and good taste,’ said Poirot.

Philip Blake gave a loud guffaw but without any real amusement. ‘Makes me chuckle to hear you say that.’

‘I assure you, Mr Blake, I am really interested. It is not just a matter of money with me. I genuinely want to recreate the past, to feel and see the events that took place, to see behind the obvious and to visualize the thoughts and feelings of the actors in the drama.’

Philip Blake said:

‘I don’t know that there was much subtlety about it. It was a pretty obvious business. Crude female jealousy, that was all there was to it.’

‘It would interest me enormously, Mr Blake, if I could have your own reactions to the affair.’

Philip Blake said with sudden heat, his face deepening in colour.

‘Reactions! Reactions! Don’t speak so pedantically. I didn’t just stand there and react! You don’t seem to understand that my friend-my friend, I tell you, had been killed-poisoned! And that if I’d acted quicker I could have saved him.’

‘How do you make that out, Mr Blake?’

‘Like this. I take it that you’ve already read up the facts of the case?’ Poirot nodded. ‘Very well. Now on that morning my brother Meredith called me up. He was in a pretty good stew. One of his Hell brews was missing-and it was a fairly deadly Hell brew. What did I do? I told him to come along and we’d talk it over. Decide what was best to be done. “Decide what was best.” It beats me now how I could have been such a hesitating fool! I ought to have realized that there was no time to lose. I ought to have gone to Amyas straight away and warned him. I ought to have said: “Caroline’s pinched one of Meredith’s patent poisons, and you and Elsa had better look out for yourselves.” ’

Blake got up. He strode up and down in his excitement.