Five Little Pigs

‘In a way – yes…But there are gaps, you know…Great chunks missed out. I remember, for instance, the shock it was to me when I first learned that Amyas was going to leave Caroline – but I can’t remember whether it was he who told me or Elsa. I do remember arguing with Elsa on the subject – trying to show her, I mean, that it was a pretty rotten thing to do. And she only laughed at me in that cool way of hers and said I was old fashioned. Well, I dare say I am old fashioned, but I still think I was right. Amyas had a wife and child – he ought to have stuck to them.’

‘But Miss Greer thought that point of view out of date?’

‘Yes. Mind you, sixteen years ago, divorce wasn’t looked on quite so much as a matter of course as it is now. But Elsa was the kind of girl who went in for being modern. Her point of view was that when two people weren’t happy together it was better to make a break. She said that Amyas and Caroline never stopped having rows and that it was far better for the child that she shouldn’t be brought up in an atmosphere of disharmony.’

‘And her argument did not impress you?’

Meredith Blake said slowly:

‘I felt, all the time, that she didn’t really know what she was talking about. She was rattling these things off – things she’d read in books or heard from her friends – it was like a parrot. She was – it’s a queer thing to say – pathetic somehow. So young and so self-confident.’ He paused. ‘There is something about youth, M. Poirot, that is – that can be – terribly moving.’

Hercule Poirot said, looking at him with some interest: ‘I know what you mean…’

Blake went on, speaking more to himself than to Poirot.

‘That’s partly, I think, why I tackled Crale. He was nearly twenty years older than the girl. It didn’t seem fair.’

Poirot murmured:

‘Alas – how seldom one makes any effect. When a person has determined on a certain course – it is not easy to turn them from it.’

Meredith Blake said:

‘That is true enough.’ His tone was a shade bitter. ‘I certainly did no good by my interference. But then, I am not a very convincing person. I never have been.’

Poirot threw him a quick glance. He read into that slight acerbity of tone the dissatisfaction of a sensitive man with his own lack of personality. And he acknowledged to himself the truth of what Blake had just said. Meredith Blake was not the man to persuade any one into or out of any course. His well-meaning attempts would always be set aside – indulgently usually, without anger, but definitely set aside. They would not carry weight. He was essentially an ineffective man.

Poirot said, with an appearance of changing a painful subject: ‘You still have your laboratory of medicines and cordials, yes?’

‘No.’

The word came sharply – with an almost anguished rapidity Meridith Blake said, his face flushing:

‘I abandoned the whole thing – dismantled it. I couldn’t go on with it – how could I? – after what had happened. The whole thing, you see, might have been said to be my fault.’

‘No, no, Mr Blake, you are too sensitive.’

‘But don’t you see? If I hadn’t collected those damned drugs? If I hadn’t laid stress on them – boasted about them – forced them on those people’s notice that afternoon? But I never thought – I never dreamed – how could I-’

‘How indeed.’

‘But I went bumbling on about them. Pleased with my little bit of knowledge. Blind, conceited fool. I pointed out that damned coniine. I even, fool that I was, took them back into the library and read them out that passage from the Phaedo describing Socrates’ death. A beautiful piece of writing – I’ve always admired it. But it’s haunted me ever since.’

Poirot said:

‘Did they find any fingerprints on the coniine bottle?’

‘Hers.’

‘Caroline Crale’s?’

‘Yes.’

‘Not yours?’

‘No. I didn’t handle the bottle, you see. Only pointed to it.’

‘But at the same time, surely, you had handled it?’

‘Oh, of course, but I gave the bottles a periodic dusting from time to time – I never allowed the servants in there, of course – and I had done that about four or five days previously.’

‘You kept the room locked up?’

‘Invariably.’

‘When did Caroline Crale take the coniine from the bottle?’

Meredith Blake replied reluctantly:

‘She was the last to leave the room. I called her, I remember, and she came hurrying out. Her cheeks were just a little pink – and her eyes wide and excited. Oh, God, I can see her now.’

Poirot said: ‘Did you have any conversation with her at all that afternoon? I mean by that, did you discuss the situation as between her and her husband at all?’

Blake said slowly in a low voice: