Five Little Pigs

‘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 thesort 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. Istill 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 forme marrying 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. Andyou’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 bedifficult! Nobody butyou could do it!’

Hercule Poirot’s eyes twinkled slightly. He said:

‘You give me the best butter-hein?’ 

Carla said:

‘I’ve heard about you. The things you’ve done. Theway 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 andthink. 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 proud head went back. She said: 

‘I’m her daughter. I want thetruth!’

Hercule Poirot said:

‘En avant, then. Though it is not that, that I should say. On the contrary.En arriere…’

Book I

 

Chapter 1. Counsel for the Defence

‘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 withoutco-operation. Wedid 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 the complete ignorant to Sir Montague.

‘Oh, suicide. Only thing youcould 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 womanizer, beer drinker-all the rest of it. 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 youdon’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?’