Five Little Pigs (7 page)

“And yet it has been told me that Mrs. Crale put up with many hard things in her married life?”

“Yes, and didn't she let everybody know about it! Always the martyr! Poor old Amyas. His married life was one long hell—or rather it would have been if it hadn't been for his exceptional quality. His art, you see—he always had that. It was an escape. When he was painting he didn't care, he shook off Caroline and her nagging and all the ceaseless rows and quarrels. They were endless, you know. Not a week passed without a thundering row over one thing or another.
She
enjoyed it. Having rows stimulated her, I believe. It was an outlet. She could say all the hard bitter stinging things she wanted to say. She'd positively purr after one of those set-tos—go off looking as sleek and well-fed as a cat. But it took it out of
him. He
wanted peace—rest—a quiet life. Of course a man like that ought never to marry—he isn't out for domesticity. A man like Crale should have affairs but no binding ties. They're bound to chafe him.”

“He confided in you?”

“Well—he knew that I was a pretty devoted pal. He let me see things. He didn't complain. He wasn't that kind of man. Sometimes he'd say, ‘Damn all women.' Or he'd say, ‘Never get married, old boy. Wait for hell till after this life.'”

“You knew about his attachment to Miss Greer?”

“Oh yes—at least I saw it coming on. He told me he'd met a marvellous girl. She was different, he said, from anything or anyone he'd ever met before. Not that I paid much attention to that. Amyas was always meeting one woman or other who was ‘different.' Usually a month later he'd stare at you if you mentioned them, and wonder who you were talking about! But this Elsa Greer really was different. I realized that when I came down to Alderbury to stay. She'd got him, you know, hooked him good and proper. The poor mutt fairly ate out of her hand.”

“You did not like Elsa Greer either?”

“No, I didn't like her. She was definitely a predatory creature. She, too, wanted to own Crale body and soul. But I think, all the same, that she'd have been better for him than Caroline. She might conceivably have let him alone once she was sure of him. Or she might have got tired of him and moved on to someone else. The best thing for Amyas would have been to be quite free of female entanglements.”

“But that, it would seem, was not to his taste?”

Philip Blake said with a sigh:

“The damned fool was always getting himself involved with some woman or other. And yet, in a way, women really meant very little to him. The only two women who really made any impression on him at all in his life were Caroline and Elsa.”

Poirot said:

“Was he fond of the child?”

“Angela? Oh! we all liked Angela. She was such a sport. She was always game for anything. What a life she led that wretched governess of hers. Yes, Amyas liked Angela all right—but sometimes she went too far and then he used to get really mad with her—and then Caroline would step in—Caro was always on Angela's side and that would finish Amyas altogether. He hated it when Caro sided with Angela against him. There was a bit of jealousy all round, you know. Amyas was jealous of the way Caro always put Angela first and would do anything for her. And Angela was jealous of Amyas and rebelled against his overbearing ways. It was his decision that she should go to school that autumn, and she was furious about it. Not, I think, because she didn't like the idea of school, she really rather wanted to go, I believe—but it was Amyas's high-handed way of settling it all offhand that infuriated her. She played all sorts of tricks on him in revenge. Once she put ten slugs in his bed. On the whole, I think Amyas was right. It was time she got some discipline. Miss Williams was very efficient, but even she confessed that Angela was getting too much for her.”

He paused. Poirot said:

“When I asked if Amyas was fond of the child—I referred to his own child, his daughter?”

“Oh, you mean little Carla? Yes, she was a great pet. He enjoyed playing with her when he was in the mood. But his affection for her wouldn't have deterred him from marrying Elsa, if that's what you mean. He hadn't
that
kind of feeling for her.”

“Was Caroline Crale very devoted to the child?” A kind of spasm contorted Philip's face. He said:

“I can't say that she wasn't a good mother. No, I can't say that. It's the one thing—”

“Yes, Mr. Blake?”

Philip said slowly and painfully:

“It's the one thing I really—regret—in this affair. The thought of that child. Such a tragic background to her young life. They sent her abroad to Amyas's cousin and her husband. I hope—I sincerely hope—they managed to keep the truth from her.”

Poirot shook his head. He said:

“The truth, Mr. Blake, has a habit of making itself known. Even after many years.”

The stockbroker murmured: “I wonder.”

Poirot went on:

“In the interests of truth, Mr. Blake, I am going to ask you to do something.”

“What is it?”

“I am going to beg that you will write me out an exact account of what happened on those days at Alderbury. That is to say, I am going to ask you to write me out a full account of the murder and its attendant circumstances.”

“But, my dear fellow, after all this time? I should be hopelessly inaccurate.”

“Not necessarily.”

“Surely.”

“No, for one thing, with the passage of time, the mind retains a hold on essentials and rejects superficial matters.”

“Ho! You mean a mere broad outline?”

“Not at all. I mean a detailed conscientious account of each event as it occurred, and every conversation you can remember.”

“And supposing I remember them wrong?”

“You can give the wording at least to the best of your reflection. There may be gaps, but that cannot be helped.”

Blake looked at him curiously.

“But what's the idea? The police files will give you the whole thing far more accurately.”

“No, Mr. Blake. We are speaking now from the psychological point of view. I do not want bare
facts. I want your own selections of facts
. Time and your memory are responsible for that selection. There may have been things done, words spoken, that I should seek for in vain in the police files. Things and words that you never mentioned because, maybe, you judged them irrelevant, or because you preferred not to repeat them.”

Blake said sharply:

“Is this account of mine for publication?”

“Certainly not. It is for my eye only. To assist me to draw my own deductions.”

“And you won't quote from it without my consent?”

“Certainly not.”

“Hm,” said Philip Blake. “I'm a very busy man, Mr. Poirot.”

“I appreciate that there will be time and trouble involved. I should be happy to agree to a—reasonable fee.”

There was a moment's pause. Then Philip Blake said suddenly:

“No, if I do it—I'll do it for nothing.”

“And you will do it?”

Philip said warningly:

“Remember, I can't vouch for the accuracy of my memory.”

“That is perfectly understood.”

“Then I think,” said Philip Blake, “that I should
like
to do it. I feel I owe it—in a way—to Amyas Crale.”

H
ercule Poirot was not a man to neglect details.

His advance towards Meredith Blake was carefully thought out. Meredith Blake was, he already felt sure, a very different proposition from Philip Blake. Rush tactics would not succeed here. The assault must be leisurely.

Hercule Poirot knew that there was only one way to penetrate the stronghold. He must approach Meredith Blake with the proper credentials. Those credentials must be social, not professional. Fortunately, in the course of his career, Hercule Poirot had made friends in many counties. Devonshire was no exception. He sat down to review what resources he had in Devonshire. As a result he discovered two people who were acquaintances or friends of Mr. Meredith Blake. He descended upon him therefore armed with two letters, one from Lady Mary Lytton-Gore, a gentle widow lady of restricted means, the most retiring of creatures; and the other from a retired Admiral, whose family had been settled in the county for four generations.

Meredith Blake received Poirot in a state of some perplexity.

As he had often felt lately, things were not what they used to be. Dash it all, private detectives used to be private detectives—fellows you got to guard wedding presents at country receptions, fellows you went to—rather shamefacedly—when there was some dirty business afoot and you'd got to get the hang of it.

But here was Lady Mary Lytton-Gore writing: “Hercule Poirot is a very old and valued friend of mine. Please do all you can to help him, won't you?” And Mary Lytton-Gore wasn't—no, decidedly she wasn't—the sort of woman you associate with private detectives and all that they stand for. And Admiral Cronshaw wrote: “Very good chap—absolutely sound. Grateful if you will do what you can for him. Most entertaining fellow, can tell you lots of good stories.”

And now here was the man himself. Really a most impossible person—the wrong clothes—button boots!—an incredible moustache! Not his—Meredith Blake's—kind of fellow at all. Didn't look as though he'd ever hunted or shot—or even played a decent game. A foreigner.

Slightly amused, Hercule Poirot read accurately these thoughts passing through the other's head.

He had felt his own interest rising considerably as the train brought him into the West Country. He would see now, with his own eyes, the actual place where these long past events happened.

It was here, at Handcross Manor, that two young brothers had lived and gone over to Alderbury and joked and played tennis and fraternized with a young Amyas Crale and a girl called Caroline. It was from here that Meredith had started out to Alderbury on that fatal morning. That had been sixteen years ago. Hercule Poirot
looked with interest at the man who was confronting him with somewhat uneasy politeness.

Very much what he had expected. Meredith Blake resembled superficially every other English country gentleman of straitened means and outdoor tastes.

A shabby old coat of Harris tweed, a weather-beaten, pleasant, middle-aged face with somewhat faded blue eyes, a weak mouth, half hidden by a rather straggly moustache. Poirot found Meredith Blake a great contrast to his brother. He had a hesitating manner, his mental processes were obviously leisurely. It was as though his tempo had slowed down with the years just as his brother's had been accelerated.

As Poirot had already guessed, he was a man whom you could not hurry. The leisurely life of the English countryside was in his bones.

He looked, the detective thought, a good deal older than his brother, though, from what Mr. Jonathan had said, it would seem that only a couple of years separated them.

Hercule Poirot prided himself on knowing how to handle an “old school tie.” It was no moment for trying to seem English. No, one must be a foreigner—frankly a foreigner—and be magnanimously forgiven for the fact. “Of course, these foreigners don't quite know the ropes.
Will
shake hands at breakfast. Still, a decent fellow really….”

Poirot set about creating this impression of himself. The two men talked, cautiously, of Lady Mary Lytton-Gore and of Admiral Cronshaw. Other names were mentioned. Fortunately Poirot knew someone's cousin and had met somebody else's sister-in-law. He
could see a kind of warmth dawning in the Squire's eye. The fellow seemed to know the right people.

Gracefully, insidiously, Poirot slid into the purpose of his visit. He was quick to counteract the inevitable recoil. This book was, alas! going to be written. Miss Crale—Miss Lemarchant, as she was now called—was anxious for him to exercise a judicious editorship. The facts, unfortunately, were public property. But much could be done in their presentation to avoid wounding susceptibilities. Poirot murmured that before now he had been able to use discreet influence to avoid certain purple passages in a book of memoirs.

Meredith Blake flushed angrily. His hand shook a little as he filled a pipe. He said, a slight stammer in his voice:

“It's—it's g-ghoulish the way they dig these things up. S-sixteen years ago. Why can't they let it be?”

Poirot shrugged his shoulders. He said:

“I agree with you. But what will you? There is a demand for such things. And anyone is at liberty to reconstruct a proved crime and to comment on it.”

“Seems disgraceful to me.”

Poirot murmured:

“Alas—we do not live in a delicate age…You would be surprised, Mr. Blake, if you knew the unpleasant publications I had succeeded in—shall we say—softening. I am anxious to do all I can to save Miss Crale's feeling in the matter.”

Meredith Blake murmured: “Little Carla! That child! A grown-up woman. One can hardly believe it.”

“I know. Time flies swiftly, does it not?”

Meredith Blake sighed. He said: “Too quickly.”

Poirot said:

“As you will have seen in the letter I handed you from Miss Crale, she is very anxious to know everything possible about the sad events of the past.”

Meredith Blake said with a touch of irritation:

“Why? Why rake up everything again? How much better to let it all be forgotten.”

“You say that, Mr. Blake, because you know all the past too well. Miss Crale, remember, knows nothing. That is to say she knows only the story as she has learnt it from the official accounts.”

Meredith Blake winced. He said:

“Yes, I forgot. Poor child. What a detestable position for her. The shock of learning the truth. And then—those soulless, callous reports of the trial.”

“The truth,” said Hercule Poirot, “can never be done justice to in a mere legal recital. It is the things that are left out that are the things that matter. The emotions, the feelings—the characters of the actors in the drama. The extenuating circumstances—”

He paused and the other man spoke eagerly like an actor who had received his cue.

“Extenuating circumstances! That's just it. If ever there were extenuating circumstances, there were in this case. Amyas Crale was an old friend—his family and mine had been friends for generations, but one has to admit that his conduct was, frankly, outrageous. He was an artist, of course, and presumably that explains it. But there it is—he allowed a most extraordinary set of affairs to arise. The position was one that no ordinary decent man could have contemplated for a moment.”

Hercule Poirot said:

“I am interested that you should say that. It had puzzled me, that situation. Not so does a well-bred man, a man of the world, go about his affairs.”

Blake's thin, hesitating face had lit up with animation. He said:

“Yes, but the whole point is that Amyas never was an ordinary man! He was a painter, you see, and with him painting came first—really sometimes in the most extraordinary way! I don't understand these so-called artistic people myself—never have. I understood Crale a little because, of course, I'd known him all my life. His people were the same sort as my people. And in many ways Crale ran true to type—it was only where art came in that he didn't conform to the usual standards. He wasn't, you see, an amateur in any way. He was first-class—really first-class. Some people say he's a genius. They may be right. But as a result, he was always what I should describe as unbalanced. When he was painting a picture—nothing else mattered, nothing could be allowed to get in the way. He was like a man in a dream. Completely obsessed by what he was doing. Not till the canvas was finished did he come out of this absorption and start to pick up the threads of ordinary life again.”

He looked questioningly at Poirot and the latter nodded.

“You understand, I see. Well, that explains, I think, why this particular situation arose. He was in love with this girl. He wanted to marry her. He was prepared to leave his wife and child for her. But he'd started painting her down here, and he wanted to finish that picture. Nothing else mattered to him. He didn't
see
anything else. And the fact that the situation was a perfectly impossible one for the two women concerned, doesn't seem to have occurred to him.”

“Did either of them understand his point of view?”

“Oh yes—in a way. Elsa did, I suppose. She was terrifically enthusiastic about his painting. But it was a difficult position for her—naturally. And as for Caroline—”

He stopped. Poirot said:

“For Caroline—yes, indeed.”

Meredith Blake said, speaking with a little difficulty:

“Caroline—I had always—well, I had always been very fond of Caroline. There was a time when—when I hoped to marry her. But that was soon nipped in the bud. Still, I remained, if I may say so, devoted to—to her service.”

Poirot nodded thoughtfully. That slightly old-fashioned phrase expressed, he felt, the man before him very typically. Meredith Blake was the kind of man who would devote himself readily to a romantic and honourable devotion. He would serve his lady faithfully and without hope of reward. Yes, it was all very much in character.

He said, carefully weighing the words:

“You must have resented this—attitude—on
her
behalf?”

“I did. Oh, I did. I—I actually remonstrated with Crale on the subject.”

“When was this?”

“Actually the day before—before it all happened. They came over to tea here, you know. I got Crale aside and I—I put it to him. I even said, I remember, that it wasn't fair on either of them.”

“Ah, you said that?”

“Yes. I didn't think—you see, that he
realized
.”

“Possibly not.”

“I said to him that it was putting Caroline in a perfectly unendurable position. If he meant to marry this girl, he ought not to
have her staying in the house and—well—more or less flaunt her in Caroline's face. It was, I said, an unendurable insult.”

Poirot asked curiously: “What did he answer?”

Meredith Blake replied with distaste:

“He said: ‘Caroline must lump it.'”

Hercule Poirot's eyebrows rose.

“Not,” he said, “a very sympathetic reply.”

“I thought it abominable. I lost my temper. I said that no doubt, not caring for his wife, he didn't mind how much he made her suffer, but what, I said, about the girl? Hadn't he realized it was a pretty rotten position for
her?
His reply to that was that Elsa must lump it too!

“Then he went on: ‘You don't seem to understand, Meredith, that this thing I'm painting is the best thing I've done. It's
good,
I tell you. And a couple of jealous quarrelling women aren't going to upset it—no, by hell, they're not.'

“It was hopeless talking to him. I said he seemed to have taken leave of all ordinary decency. Painting, I said, wasn't everything. He interrupted there. He said: ‘Ah, but it is to
me
.'

“I was still very angry. I said it was perfectly disgraceful the way he had always treated Caroline. She had had a miserable life with him. He said he knew that and he was sorry about it. Sorry! He said: ‘I know, Merry, you don't believe that—but it's the truth. I've given Caroline the hell of a life and she's been a saint about it. But she did know, I think, what she might be letting herself in for. I told her candidly the sort of damnable egoistic, loose-living kind of chap I was.'

“I put it to him then very strongly that he ought not to break up his married life. There was the child to be considered and ev
erything. I said that I could understand that a girl like Elsa could bowl a man over, but that even for her sake he ought to break off the whole thing. She was very young. She was going into this baldheaded, but she might regret it bitterly afterwards. I said couldn't he pull himself together, make a clean break and go back to his wife?”

“And what did he say?”

Blake said: “He just looked—embarrassed. He patted me on the shoulder and said: ‘You're a good chap, Merry. But you're too sentimental. You wait till the picture's finished and you'll admit that I was right.'

“I said: ‘Damn your picture.' And he grinned and said all the neurotic women in England couldn't do that. Then I said that it would have been more decent to have kept the whole thing from Caroline until after the picture was finished. He said that that wasn't
his
fault. It was Elsa who had insisted on spilling the beans. I said, Why? And he said that she had had some idea that it wasn't straight otherwise. She wanted everything to be clear and above board. Well, of course, in a way, one could understand that and respect the girl for it. However badly she was behaving, she did at least want to be honest.”

“A lot of additional pain and grief is caused by honesty,” remarked Hercule Poirot.

Meredith Blake looked at him doubtfully. He did not quite like the sentiment. He sighed:

“It was a—a most unhappy time for us all.”

“The only person who does not seem to have been affected by it was Amyas Crale,” said Poirot.