Five Little Pigs

For it is a devilish thing to do, to poison a man in cold blood. If there had been a revolver about and she caught it up and shot him-well, that might have been understandable. But this cold, deliberate, vindictive poisoning… And so calm and collected.

She got up and said she’d take his coffee to him in the most natural way possible. And yet she knew-she must have known-that by now she’d find him dead. Miss Williams went with her. I don’t remember if that was at Caroline’s suggestion or not. I rather think it was.

The two women went off together. Meredith strolled away shortly afterwards. I was just making an excuse to go after him, when he came running up the path again. His face was grey. He gasped out:

‘We must get a doctor-quick-Amyas-’

I sprang up.

‘Is he ill-dying?’

Meredith said:

‘I’m afraid he’s dead…’

We’d forgotten Elsa for the minute. But she let out a sudden cry. It was like the wail of a banshee.

She cried:

‘Dead? Dead?…’ And then she ran. I didn’t know any one could move like that-like a deer-like a stricken thing. And like an avenging Fury, too.

Meredith panted out:

‘Go after her. I’ll telephone. Go after her. You don’t know what she’ll do.’

I did go after her-and it’s as well I did. She might quite easily have killed Caroline. I’ve never seen such grief and such frenzied hate. All the veneer of refinement and education was stripped off. You could see her father and her father’s mother and father had been millhands. Deprived of her lover, she was just elemental woman. She’d have clawed Caroline’s face, torn her hair, hurled her over the parapet if she could. She thought for some reason or other that Caroline had knifed him. She’d got it all wrong-naturally.

I held her off, and then Miss Williams took charge. She was good, I must say. She got Elsa to control herself in under a minute-told her she’d got to be quiet and that we couldn’t have this noise and violence going on. She was a tartar, that woman. But she did the trick. Elsa was quiet-just stood there gasping and trembling.

As for Caroline, so far as I am concerned, the mask was right off. She stood there perfectly quiet-you might have said dazed. But she wasn’t dazed. It was her eyes gave her away. They were watchful-fully aware and quietly watchful. She’d begun, I suppose, to be afraid…

I went up to her and spoke to her. I said it quite low. I don’t think either of the two women overheard.

I said:

‘You damned murderess, you’ve killed my best friend.’

She shrank back. She said:

‘No-oh no-he-he did it himself…’

I looked her full in the eyes. I said:

‘You can tell that story-to the police.’

She did-and they didn’t believe her.

End of Philip Blake’s Statement.

Narrative of Meredith Blake

Dear M. Poirot,

As I promised you, I have set down in writing an account of all I can remember relating to the tragic events that happened sixteen years ago. First of all I would like to say that I have thought over carefully all you said to me at our recent meeting. And on reflection I am more convinced than I was before that it is in the highest degree unlikely that Caroline Crale poisoned her husband. It always seemed incongruous, but the absence of any other explanation and her own attitude led me to follow, sheep-like, the opinion of other people and to say with them-that if she didn’t do it, what explanation could there be?

Since seeing you I have reflected very carefully on the alternative solution presented at the time and brought forward by the defence at the trial. That is, that Amyas Crale took his own life. Although from what I knew of him that solution seemed quite fantastic at the time, I now see fit to modify my opinion. To begin with, and highly significant, is the fact that Caroline believed it. If we are now to take it that that charming and gentle lady was unjustly convicted, then her own frequently reiterated belief must carry great weight. She knew Amyas better than anyone else. Ifshe thought suicide possible, then suicidemust have been possible in spite of the scepticism of his friends.

I will advance the theory, therefore, that there was in Amyas Crale some core of conscience, some undercurrent of remorse and even despair at the excesses to which his temperament led him, of which only his wife was aware. This, I think, is a not impossible supposition. He may have shown that side of himself only to her. Though it is inconsistent with anything I ever heard him say, yet it is nevertheless a truth that in most men there is some unsuspected and inconsistent streak which often comes as a surprise to people who have known them intimately. A respected and austere man is discovered to have had a coarser side to his life hidden. A vulgar money-maker has, perhaps, a secret appreciation of some delicate work of art. Hard and ruthless people have been convicted of unsuspected hidden kindnesses. Generous and jovial men have been shown to have a mean and cruel side to them.