Five Little Pigs

‘That’s difficult to say…On the face of it, there was no reason for suspecting anybody else. There isn’t now when I look back…’

‘All the same, let us consider the possibility. Who of those intimately concerned would you say was-shall we say-the most likely person?’

‘Let me think. Well, I didn’t kill him. And the Elsa creature certainly didn’t. She was mad with rage when he died. Who else was there? Meredith Blake? He was always very devoted to Caroline, quite a tame cat about the house. I suppose thatmight give him a motive in a way. In a book he might have wanted to get Amyas out of the way so that he himself could marry Caroline. But he could have achieved that just as well by letting Amyas go off with Elsa and then in due time consoling Caroline. Besides I really can’tsee Meredith as a murderer. Too mild and too cautious. Who else was there?’

Poirot suggested: ‘Miss Williams? Philip Blake?’

Angela’s grave face relaxed into a smile for a minute.

‘Miss Williams? One can’t really make oneself believe that one’s governess could commit a murder! Miss Williams was always so unyielding and so full of rectitude.’

She paused a minute and then went on:

‘She was devoted to Caroline, of course. Would have done anything for her. And she hated Amyas. She was a great feminist and disliked men. Is that enough for murder? Surely not.’

‘It would hardly seem so,’ agreed Poirot.

Angela went on:

‘Philip Blake?’ She was silent for some few moments. Then she said quietly: ‘I think, you know, if we’re just talking oflikelihoods,he’s the most likely person.’

Poirot said:

‘You interest me very much, Miss Warren. May I ask why you say that?’

‘Nothing at all definite. But from what I remember of him, I should say he was a person of rather limited imagination.’

‘And a limited imagination predisposes you to murder?’

‘It might lead you to take a crude way of settling your difficulties. Men of that type get a certain satisfaction from action of some kind or other. Murder is a very crude business, don’t you think so?’

‘Yes-I think you are right…It is definitely a point of view, that. But all the same, Miss Warren, there must be more to it than that. What motive could Philip Blake possibly have had?’

Angela Warren did not answer at once. She stood frowning down at the floor.

Hercule Poirot said:

‘He was Amyas Crale’s best friend, was he not?’

She nodded.

‘But there is something in your mind, Miss Warren. Something that you have not yet told me. Were the two men rivals, perhaps, over the girl-over Elsa?’

Angela Warren shook her head.

‘Oh, no, not Philip.’

‘What is there then?’

Angela Warren said slowly:

‘Do you know the way that things suddenly come back to you-after years perhaps. I’ll explain what I mean. Somebody told me a story once, when I was eleven. I saw no point in that story whatsoever. It didn’t worry me-it just passed straight over my head. I don’t believe I ever, as they say, thought of it again. But about two years ago, sitting in the stalls at a revue, that story came back to me, and I was so surprised that I actually said aloud, “Oh,now I see the point of that silly story about the rice pudding.” And yet there had been no direct allusion on the same lines-only some fun sailing rather near the wind.’

Poirot said: ‘I understand what you mean, mademoiselle.’

‘Then you will understand what I am going to tell you. I was once staying at a hotel. As I walked along a passage, one of the bedroom doors opened and a woman I knew came out. It was not her bedroom-and she registered the fact plainly on her face when she saw me.

‘And I knew then the meaning of the expression I had once seen on Caroline’s face when at Alderbury she came out of Philip Blake’s room one night.’

She leant forward, stopping Poirot’s words.

‘I had no idea at thetime, you understand. Iknew things-girls of the age I was usually do-but I didn’t connect them with reality. Caroline coming out of Philip Blake’s bedroom was just Caroline coming out of Philip Blake’s bedroom to me. It might have been Miss William’s room or my room. But what Idid notice was the expression on her face-a queer expression that I didn’t know and couldn’t understand. I didn’t understand it until, as I have told you, the night in Paris when I saw that same expression on another woman’s face.’

Poirot said slowly:

‘But what you tell me, Miss Warren, is sufficiently astonishing. From Philip Blake himself I got the impression that he disliked your sister and always had done so.’

Angela said:

‘I know. I can’t explain it but there it is.’

Poirot nodded slowly. Already, in his interview with Philip Blake, he had felt vaguely that something did not ring true. That overdone animosity against Caroline-it had not, somehow, been natural.

And the words and phrases from his conversation with Meredith Blake came back to him. ‘Very upset when Amyas married-did not go near them for over a year…’

Had Philip, then, always been in love with Caroline? And had his love, when she chose Amyas, turned to bitterness and hate?