Hercule 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 shame-facedly-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 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
