Five Little Pigs

There was certainly about her no suggestion of the little pig who cries ‘Wee Wee.’ But on the right cheek, disfiguring and puckering the skin, was that healed scar. The right eye was slightly distorted, the corner pulled downwards by it but no one would have realized that the sight of that eye was destroyed. It seemed to Hercule Poirot almost certain that she had lived with her disability so long that she was now completely unconscious of it. And it occurred to him that of the five people in whom he had become interested as a result of his investigations, those who might have been said to start with the fullest advantages were not those who had actually wrested the most success and happiness from life. Elsa, who might have been said to start with all advantages-youth, beauty, riches-had done worst. She was like a flower overtaken by untimely frost-still in bud-but without life. Cecilia Williams, to outward appearances, had no assets of which to boast. Nevertheless, to Poirot’s eye, there was no despondency there and no sense of failure. Miss Williams’s life had been interesting to her-she was still interested in people and events. She had that enormous mental and moral advantage of a strict Victorian upbringing denied to us in these days-she had done her duty in that station of life to which it had pleased God to call her, and that assurance encased her in an armour impregnable to the slings and darts of envy, discontent and regret. She had her memories, her small pleasures, made possible by stringent economies, and sufficient health and vigour to enable her still to be interested in life.

Now, in Angela Warren-that young creature handicapped by disfigurement and its consequent humiliation, Poirot believed he saw a spirit strengthened by its necessary fight for confidence and assurance. The undisciplined schoolgirl had given place to a vital and forceful woman, a woman of considerable mental power and gifted with abundant energy to accomplish ambitious purposes. She was a woman, Poirot felt sure, both happy and successful. Her life was full and vivid and eminently enjoyable.

She was not, incidentally, the type of woman that Poirot really liked. Though admiring the clear-cut precision of her mind, she had just a sufficientnuance of thefemme formidable about her to alarm him as a mere man. His taste had always been for the flamboyant and extravagant.

With Angela Warren it was easy to come to the point of his visit. There was no subterfuge. He merely recounted Carla Lemarchant’s interview with him.

Angela Warren’s severe face lighted up appreciatively.

‘Little Carla? She is over here? I would like to see her so much.’

‘You have not kept in touch with her?’

‘Hardly as much as I should have done. I was a schoolgirl at the time she went to Canada, and I realized, of course, that in a year or two she would have forgotten us. Of late years, an occasional present at Christmas has been the only link between us. I imagined that she would, by now, be completely immersed in the Canadian atmosphere and that her future would lie over there. Better so, in the circumstances.’

Poirot said: ‘One might think so, certainly. A change of name-a change of scene. A new life. But it was not to be so easy as that.’

And he then told of Carla’s engagement, the discovery she had made upon coming of age and her motives in coming to England.

Angela Warren listened quietly, her disfigured cheek resting on one hand. She betrayed no emotion during the recital, but as Poirot finished, she said quietly:

‘Good for Carla.’

Poirot was startled. It was the first time that he had met with this reaction. He said:

‘You approve, Miss Warren?’

‘Certainly. I wish her every success. Anything I can do to help, I will. I feel guilty, you know, that I haven’t attempted anything myself.’

‘Then you think that there is a possibility that she is right in her views.’

Angela Warren said sharply:

‘Of course she’s right. Caroline didn’t do it. I’ve always known that.’

Hercule Poirot murmured:

‘You surprise me very much indeed, mademoiselle. Everybody else I have spoken to-’

She cut in sharply:

‘You mustn’t go by that. I’ve no doubt that the circumstantial evidence is overwhelming. My own conviction is based on knowledge-knowledge of my sister. I just know quite simply and definitely that Carocouldn’t have killed any one.’

‘Can one say that with certainty of any human creature?’

‘Probably not in most cases. I agree that the human animal is full of curious surprises. But in Caroline’s case there were special reasons-reasons which I have a better chance of appreciating than any one else could.’

She touched her damaged cheek.

‘You see this? You’ve probably heard about it?’ Poirot nodded. ‘Caroline did that. That’s why I’m sure-Iknow -that she didn’t do murder.’

‘It would not be a convincing argument to most people.’