Five Little Pigs

‘I agree with you. But what will you? There is a demand for such things. And any one 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?’