Authors: Agatha Christie
Philip Blake said impatiently:
“What does it matter? It's nothing to do with the crime.”
“You think not? For me, it was the first point that struck me as suggestive. And it is immediately followed by another. Mrs. Crale, a desperate woman, broken-hearted, who has threatened her hus
band a short while before and who is certainly contemplating either suicide or murder, now offers in the most amicable manner to bring her husband down some iced beer.”
Meredith Blake said slowly: “That isn't odd if she was contemplating murder. Then, surely, it is just what she
would
do. Dissimulate!”
“You think so? She has decided to poison her husband, she has already got the poison. Her husband keeps a supply of beer down in the Battery garden. Surely if she has any intelligence at all, she will put the poison in one of
those
bottles at a moment when there is no one about.”
Meredith Blake objected.
“She couldn't have done that. Somebody else might have drunk it.”
“Yes, Elsa Greer. Do you tell me that having made up her mind to murder her husband, Caroline Crale would have scruples against killing the girl too?
“But let us not argue the point. Let us confine ourselves to facts. Caroline Crale says she will send her husband down some iced beer. She goes up to the house, fetches a bottle from the conservatory where it was kept and takes it down to him. She pours it out and gives it to him.
“Amyas Crale drinks it off and says: âEverything tastes foul today.'
“Mrs. Crale goes up again to the house. She has lunch and appears much as usual. It has been said of her that she looks a little worried and preoccupied. That does not help usâfor there is no criterion of behaviour for a murderer. There are calm murderers and excited murderers.
“After lunch she goes down again to the Battery. She discovers her husband dead and does, shall we say, the obviously expected things. She registers emotion and she sends the governess to telephone for a doctor. We now come to a fact which has previously not been known.” He looked at Miss Williams. “You do not object?”
Miss Williams was rather pale. She said: “I did not pledge you to secrecy.”
Quietly, but with telling effect, Poirot recounted what the governess had seen.
Elsa Dittisham moved her position. She stared at the drab little woman in the big chair. She said incredibly:
“You actually saw her do
that?
”
Philip Blake sprang up.
“But that settles it!” he shouted. “That settles it once and for all.”
Hercule Poirot looked at him mildly. He said: “Not necessarily.”
Angela Warren said sharply: “I don't believe it.” There was a quick hostile glint in the glance she shot at the little governess.
Meredith Blake was pulling at his moustache, his face dismayed. Alone, Miss Williams remained undisturbed. She sat very upright and there was a spot of colour in each cheek.
She said: “That is what I saw.”
Poirot said slowly: “There is, of course, only your word for itâ¦.”
“There is only my word for it.” The indomitable grey eyes met his. “I am not accustomed, Mr. Poirot, to having my word doubted.”
Hercule Poirot bowed his head. He said:
“I do not doubt your word, Miss Williams. What you saw took place exactly as you say it didâand because of what you saw I realized that Caroline Crale was not guiltyâcould not possibly be guilty.”
For the first time, that tall, anxious-faced young man, John Rattery, spoke. He said: “I'd be interested to know
why
you say that, Mr. Poirot.”
Poirot turned to him.
“Certainly. I will tell you. What did Miss Williams seeâshe saw Caroline Crale very carefully and anxiously wiping off fingerprints and subsequently imposing her dead husband's fingerprints on the beer bottle. On the beer
bottle,
mark. But the coniine was in the glassânot in the bottle. The police found no traces of coniine in the bottle. There had never been any coniine in the bottle.
And Caroline Crale didn't know that
.
“She who is supposed to have poisoned her husband didn't know
how
he had been poisoned. She thought the poison was in the bottle.”
Meredith objected: “But whyâ”
Poirot interrupted him in a flash.
“Yesâ
why?
Why did Caroline Crale try so desperately to establish the theory of suicide? The answer isâmust beâquite simple. Because she knew who
had
poisoned him and she was willing to do anythingâendure anythingârather than let that person be suspected.
“There is not far to go now. Who could that person be? Would she have shielded Philip Blake? Or Meredith? Or Elsa Greer? Or Cecilia Williams? No, there is only one person whom she would be willing to protect at all costs.”
He paused: “Miss Warren, if you have brought your sister's last letter with you, I should like to read it aloud.”
Angela Warren said: “No.”
“But, Miss Warrenâ”
Angela got up. Her voice rang out, cold as steel.
“I realize very well what you are suggesting. You are saying, are you not, that I killed Amyas Crale and that my sister knew it. I deny that allegation utterly.”
Poirot said: “The letterâ¦.”
“That letter was meant for my eyes alone.”
Poirot looked to where the two youngest people in the room stood together.
Carla Lemarchant said: “Please, Aunt Angela, won't you do as Mr. Poirot asks?”
Angela Warren said bitterly: “Really, Carla! Have you no sense of decency? She was your motherâyouâ”
Carla's voice rang out clear and fierce.
“Yes, she was my mother. That's why I've a right to ask you. I'm speaking for
her
. I
want
that letter read.”
Slowly, Angela Warren took out the letter from her bag and handed it to Poirot. She said bitterly:
“I wish I had never shown it to you.”
Turning away from them she stood looking out of the window.
As Hercule Poirot read aloud Caroline Crale's last letter, the shadows were deepening in the corners of the room. Carla had a sudden feeling of someone in the room, gathering shape, listening, breathing, waiting. She thought: “
She's
hereâmy mother's here. CarolineâCaroline Crale is
here
in this room!”
Hercule Poirot's voice ceased. He said:
“You will all agree, I think, that that is a very remarkable letter. A beautiful letter, too, but certainly remarkable. For there is one striking omission in itâit contains no protestation of innocence.”
Angela Warren said without turning her head: “That was unnecessary.”
“Yes, Miss Warren, it was unnecessary. Caroline Crale had no need to tell her sister that she was innocentâbecause she thought her sister knew that fact alreadyâknew it for the best of all reasons. All Caroline Crale was concerned about was to comfort and reassure and to avert the possibility of a confession from Angela. She reiterates again and againâ
It's all right, darling, it's all right
.”
Angela Warren said: “Can't you understand? She wanted me to be happy, that's all.”
“Yes, she wanted you to be happy, that is abundantly clear. It is her one preoccupation. She has a child, but it is not that child of whom she is thinkingâthat is to come later. No, it is her sister who occupies her mind to the exclusion of everything else. Her sister must be reassured, must be encouraged to live her life, to be happy and successful. And so that the burden of acceptance may not be too great, Caroline includes that one very significant phrase:
âOne must pay one's debts.'
“That one phrase explains everything. It refers explicitly to the burden that Caroline has carried for so many years ever since, in a fit of uncontrolled adolescent rage, she hurled a paperweight at her baby sister and injured that sister for life. Now, at last, she has the opportunity to pay the debt she owes. And if it is any consolation, I will say to you all that I earnestly believe that in the payment of that debt, Caroline Crale did achieve a peace and serenity greater than any she had ever known. Because of her belief that she was paying
that debt, the ordeal of trial and condemnation could not touch her. It is a strange thing to say of a condemned murderessâbut she had everything to make her happy. Yes, more than you imagine, as I will show you presently.
“See how, by this explanation, everything falls into its place where Caroline's own reactions are concerned. Look at the series of events from her point of view. To begin with, on the preceding evening, an event occurs which reminds her forcibly of her own undisciplined girlhood. Angela throws a
paperweight
at Amyas Crale. That, remember, is what she herself did many years ago. Angela shouts out that she wishes Amyas was dead. Then, on the next morning, Caroline comes into the little conservatory and finds Angela tampering with the beer. Remember Miss Williams's words: âAngela was there. She looked guiltyâ¦' Guilty of playing truant, was what Miss Williams meant, but to Caroline, Angela's guilty face, as she was caught unawares, would have a different meaning. Remember that on at least one occasion before Angela had put things in Amyas's drink. It was an idea which might readily occur to her.
“Caroline takes the bottle
that Angela gives her
and goes down with it to the Battery. And there she pours it out and gives it to Amyas, and he makes a face as he tosses it off and utters those significant words: âEverything tastes foul today.'
“Caroline has no suspicions thenâbut after lunch she goes down to the Battery and finds her husband deadâand she has no doubt at all but that he has been poisoned.
She
had not done it. Who, then, has? And the whole thing comes over her with a rushâAngela's threats, Angela's face stooping over the beer and caught unawaresâguiltyâguiltyâguilty. Why has the child done it? As
a revenge on Amyas, perhaps not meaning to kill, just to make him ill or sick? Or has she done it for her, Caroline's sake? Has she realized and resented Amyas's desertion of her sister? Caroline remembersâoh, so wellâher own undisciplined violent emotions at Angela's age. And only one thought springs to her mind. How can she protect Angela? Angela handled that bottleâAngela's fingerprints will be on it. She quickly wipes it and polishes it. If only everybody can be got to believe it is suicide. If Amyas's fingerprints are the only ones found. She tries to fit his dead fingers round the bottleâworking desperatelyâlistening for someone to comeâ¦.
“Once take that assumption as true, and everything from then on fits in. Her anxiety about Angela all along, her insistence on getting her away, keeping her out of touch with what was going on. Her fear of Angela's being questioned unduly by the police. Finally, her overwhelming anxiety to get Angela out of England before the trial comes on. Because she is always terrified that Angela might break down and confess.”
S
lowly, Angela Warren swung round. Her eyes, hard and contemptuous, ranged over the faces turned towards her.
She said:
“You're blind foolsâall of you. Don't you know that if I had done it I
would
have confessed! I'd never have let Caroline suffer for what I'd done. Never!”
Poirot said:
“But you did tamper with the beer.”
“I? Tamper with the beer?”
Poirot turned to Meredith Blake.
“Listen, monsieur. In your account here of what happened, you describe having heard sounds in this room, which is below your bedroom, on the morning of the crime.”
Blake nodded.
“But it was only a cat.”
“How do you know it was a cat?”
“IâI can't remember. But it was a cat. I am quite sure it was
a cat. The window was open just wide enough for a cat to get through.”
“But it was not fixed in that position. The sash moves freely. It could have been pushed up and a human being could have got in and out.”
“Yes, but I know it was a cat.”
“You did not
see
a cat?”
Blake said perplexedly and slowly:
“No, I did not see itâ” He paused, frowning. “And yet I know.”
“I will tell you
why
you know presently. In the meantime I put this point to you. Someone could have come up to the house that morning, have got into your laboratory, taken something from the shelf and gone again without your seeing them. Now if that someone had come over from Alderbury it could not have been Philip Blake, nor Elsa Greer, nor Amyas Crale nor Caroline Crale. We know quite well what all those four were doing. That leaves Angela Warren and Miss Williams. Miss Williams was over hereâyou actually met her as you went out. She told you then that she was looking for Angela. Angela had gone bathing early, but Miss Williams did not see her in the water, nor anywhere on the rocks. She could swim across to this side easilyâin fact she did so later in the morning when she was bathing with Philip Blake. I suggest that she swam across here, came up to the house, got in through the window, and took something from the shelf.”
Angela Warren said: “I did nothing of the kindânotâat leastâ”
“Ah!” Poirot gave a yelp of triumph. “
You have remembered
. You told me, did you not, that to play a malicious joke on Amyas Crale
you pinched some of what you called âthe cat stuff'âthat is how you put itâ”
Meredith Blake said sharply:
“Valerian! Of course.”
“Exactly.
That
is what made you sure in your mind that it was a cat who had been in the room. Your nose is very sensitive. You smelled the faint, unpleasant odour of valerian without knowing, perhaps, that you did soâbut it suggested to your subconscious mind âCat.' Cats love valerian and will go anywhere for it. Valerian is particularly nasty to taste, and it was your account of it the day before which made mischievous Miss Angela plan to put some in her brother-in-law's beer, which she knew he always tossed down his throat in a draught.”
Angela Warren said wonderingly: “Was it really that day? I remember taking it perfectly. Yes, and I remember getting out the beer and Caroline coming in and nearly catching me! Of course I rememberâ¦But I've never connected it with that particular day.”
“Of course notâbecause there was no connection
in your mind
. The two events were entirely dissimilar to you. One was on a par with other mischievous pranksâthe other was a bombshell of tragedy arriving without warning and succeeding in banishing all lesser incidents from your mind. But me, I noticed when you spoke of it that you said: âI pinched, etc., etc.,
to put it
in Amyas's drink.' You did not say you had actually
done
so.”
“No, because I never did. Caroline came in just when I was unscrewing the bottle. Oh!” It was a cry. “And Caroline thoughtâshe thought it was
me
â!”
She stopped. She looked round. She said quietly in her usual cool tones: “I suppose you all think so, too.”
She paused and then said: “
I didn't kill Amyas
. Not as the result of a malicious joke nor in any other way. If I had I would never have kept silence.”
Miss Williams said sharply:
“Of course you wouldn't, my dear.” She looked at Hercule Poirot. “Nobody but a
fool
would think so.”
Hercule Poirot said mildly:
“I am not a fool and I do not think so.
I know quite well who killed Amyas Crale
.”
He paused.
“There is always a danger of accepting facts as proved which are really nothing of the kind. Let us take the situation at Alderbury. A very old situation. Two women and one man. We have taken it for granted that Amyas Crale proposed to leave his wife for the other woman. But I suggest to you now
that he never intended to do anything of the kind
.
“He had had infatuations for women before. They obsessed him while they lasted, but they were soon over. The women he had fallen in love with were usually women of a certain experienceâthey did not expect too much of him. But this time the woman did. She was not, you see, a woman at all. She was a girl, and in Caroline Crale's words, she was terribly sincereâ¦She may have been hard-boiled and sophisticated in speech, but in love she was frighteningly single-minded.
Because
she herself had a deep and overmastering passion for Amyas Crale she assumed that he had the same for her. She assumed without any question that their passion was for life. She assumed without asking him that he was going to leave his wife.
“But why, you will say, did Amyas Crale not undeceive her? And my answer isâthe picture. He wanted to finish his picture.
“To some people that sounds incredibleâbut not to anybody who knows about artists. And we have already accepted that explanation in principle. That conversation between Crale and Meredith Blake is more intelligible now. Crale is embarrassedâpats Blake on the back, assures him optimistically the whole thing is going to pan out all right. To Amyas Crale, you see, everything is simple. He is painting a picture, slightly encumbered by what he describes as a couple of jealous, neurotic womenâbut neither of them is going to be allowed to interfere with what to him is the most important thing in life.
“If he were to tell Elsa the truth it would be all up with the picture. Perhaps in the first flush of his feelings for her he did talk about leaving Caroline. Men do say these things when they are in love. Perhaps he merely let it be assumed, as he is letting it be assumed now. He doesn't care what Elsa assumes. Let her think what she likes. Anything to keep her quiet for another day or two.
“Thenâhe will tell her the truthâthat things between them are over. He has never been a man to be troubled with scruples.
“He did, I think, make an effort not to get embroiled with Elsa to begin with. He warned her what kind of a man he wasâbut she would not take warning. She rushed on her Fate. And to a man like Crale women were fair game. If you had asked him he would have said easily that Elsa was youngâshe'd soon get over it. That was the way Amyas Crale's mind worked.
“His wife was actually the only person he cared about at all. He wasn't worrying much about her. She'd only got to put up with
things for a few days longer. He was furious with Elsa for blurting out things to Caroline, but he still optimistically thought it would be âall right.' Caroline would forgive him as she had done so often before, and ElsaâElsa would just have to âlump it.' So simple are the problems of life to a man like Amyas Crale.
“But I think that that last evening he became really worried. About Caroline, not about Elsa. Perhaps he went to her room and she refused to speak with him. At any rate, after a restless night, he took her aside after breakfast and blurted out the truth. He had been infatuated with Elsa, but it was all over. Once he'd finished the picture he'd never see her again.
“And it was in answer to that that Caroline Crale cried out indignantly: âYou and your women!' That phrase, you see, put Elsa in a class with othersâthose others who had gone their way. And she added indignantly: âSome day I'll kill you.'
“She was angry, revolted by his callousness and by his cruelty to the girl. When Philip Blake saw her in the hall and heard her murmur to herself, âIt's too cruel!' it was of Elsa she was thinking.
“As for Crale, he came out of the library, found Elsa with Philip Blake, and brusquely ordered her down to go on with the sitting. What he did not know was that Elsa Greer had been sitting just outside the library window and had overheard everything. And the account she gave later of that conversation was not the true one. There is only her word for it, remember.
“Imagine the shock it must have been to her to hear the truth, brutally spoken!
“On the previous afternoon Meredith Blake has told us that whilst he was waiting for Caroline to leave this room he was
standing in the doorway with his back to the room. He was talking to Elsa Greer. That means that she would have been
facing
him and that
she
could see exactly what Caroline was doing over his shoulderâand that she
was the only person who could do so
.
“She saw Caroline take that poison. She said nothing, but she remembered it as she sat outside the library window.
“When Amyas Crale came out she made the excuse of wanting a pullover, and went up to Caroline Crale's room to look for that poison. Women know where other women are likely to hide things. She found it, and being careful not to obliterate any fingerprints or to leave her own, she drew off the fluid into a fountain-pen filler.
“Then she came down again and went off with Crale to the Battery garden. And presently, no doubt, she poured him out some beer and he tossed it down in his usual way.
“Meanwhile, Caroline Crale was seriously disturbed. When she saw Elsa come up to the house (this time really to fetch a pullover), Caroline slipped quickly down to the Battery garden and tackled her husband. What he is doing is shameful! She won't stand for it! It's unbelievably cruel and hard on the girl! Amyas, irritable at being interrupted, says it's all settledâwhen the picture is done he'll send the girl packing!
âIt's all settledâI'll send her packing. I tell you.'
“And then they hear the footsteps of the two Blakes, and Caroline comes out and, slightly embarrassed, murmurs something about Angela and school and having a lot to do, and by a natural association of ideas the two men judge the conversation they have overheard refers to
Angela,
and âI'll send her packing' becomes âI'll see to her packing.'
“And Elsa, pullover in hand, comes down the path, cool and smiling, and takes up the pose once more.
“She has counted, no doubt, upon Caroline's being suspected and the coniine bottle being found in her room. But Caroline now plays into her hands completely. She brings down some iced beer and pours it out for her husband.
“Amyas tosses it off, making a face and says: âEverything tastes foul today.'
“Do you not see how significant that remark is?
Everything
tastes foul? Then there has been something else
before
that beer that has tasted unpleasant and the taste of which is
still in his mouth
. And one other point. Philip Blake speaks of Crale's staggering a little and wonders âif he has been drinking.' But that slight stagger was the
first sign of the coniine working,
and that means
that it had already been administered to him some time before Caroline brought him the iced bottle of beer
.
“And so Elsa Greer sat on the grey wall and posed and, since she must keep him from suspecting until it was too late, she talked to Amyas Crale brightly and naturally. Presently she saw Meredith on the bench above and waved her hand to him and acted her part even more thoroughly for his behalf.
“And Amyas Crale, a man who detested illness and refused to give in to it, painted doggedly on till his limbs failed and his speech thickened, and he sprawled there on that bench, helpless, but with his mind still clear.
“The bell sounded from the house and Meredith left the bench to come down to the Battery. I think in that brief moment Elsa left her place and ran across to the table and dropped the last few drops of the poison into the beer glass that held that last innocent drink.
(She got rid of the dropper on the path up to the houseâcrushing it to powder.) Then she met Meredith in the doorway.
“There is a glare there coming in out of the shadows. Meredith did not see very clearlyâonly his friend sprawled in a familiar position and saw his eyes turn from the picture in what he described as a malevolent glare.
“How much did Amyas know or guess? How much his conscious mind knew we cannot tell, but his hand and his eye were faithful.”
Hercule Poirot gestured towards the picture on the wall
.
“I should have known when I first saw that picture. For it is a very remarkable picture. It is the picture of a murderess painted by her victimâit is the picture of a girl watching her lover dieâ¦.”