I’ll kill you.’ Philip Blake overheard this from the hall. And Miss Greer overheard it from the terrace outside.
‘She then heard Mr Crale ask his wife to be reasonable. And she heard Mrs Crale say: ‘Sooner than let you go to that girl-I’ll kill you.’ Soon after this Amyas Crale comes out and brusquely tells Elsa Greer to come down and pose for him. She gets a pullover and accompanies him.
‘There is nothing so far that seems psychologically incorrect. Every one has behaved as they might be expected to behave. But we come now to something thatis incongruous.
‘Meredith Blake discovers his loss, telephones his brother; they meet down at the landing stage and they come up past the Battery garden, where Caroline Crale is having a discussion with her husband on the subject of Angela’s going to school. Now that does strike me as very odd. Husband and wife have a terrific scene, ending in a distinct threat on Caroline’s part, and yet, twenty minutes or so later, she goes down and starts a trivial domestic argument.’
Poirot turned to Meredith Blake.
‘You speak in your narrative of certain words you overheard Crale say. These were: “It’s all settled-I’ll see to her packing.” That is right?’
Meredith Blake said: ‘It was something like that-yes.’
Poirot turned to Philip Blake.
‘Is your recollection the same?’
The latter frowned.
‘I didn’t remember it till you say so-but I do remember now. Something was said about packing!’
‘Said by Mr Crale-not Mrs Crale?’
‘Amyas said it. All I heard Caroline say was something about its being very hard on the girl. Anyway, what does all this matter? We all know Angela was off to school in a day or two.’
Poirot said: ‘You do not see the force of my objection. Why should Amyas Crale pack for the girl? It is absurd, that! There was Mrs Crale, there was Miss Williams, there was a housemaid. It is a woman’s job to pack-not a man’s.’
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 husband 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: “Everything 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 us-for 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 it…’
‘There is only my word for it.’ The indomitable grey eyes met his. ‘I am not accustomed, M. 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 did-and because of what you saw I realized that Caroline Crale was not guilty-could 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, M. Poirot.’
Poirot turned to him.
‘Certainly. I will tell you. What did Miss Williams see-she saw Caroline Crale very carefully and anxiously wiping off fingerprints and subsequently imposing her dead husband’s fingerprints on the beer bottle. On the beerbottle, mark. But the coniine was in the glass-not 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 why-’
Poirot interrupted him in a flash.
‘Yes-why? Why did Caroline Crale try so desperately to establish the theory of suicide? The answer is-must be-quite simple. Because she knew who had poisoned him and she was willing to do anything-endure anything- rather 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 Warren-’
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.’
