Poirot said: ‘The letter…’
‘That letter was meant for my eyes alone.’
Poirot looked to where the two youngest people in the room stood together.
Carla Lemarchant said: ‘Please, Aunt Angela, won’t you do as M. Poirot asks?’
Angela Warren said bitterly: ‘Really, Carla! Have you no sense of decency? She was your mother-you-’
Carla’s voice rang out clear and fierce.
‘Yes, she was my mother. That’s why I’ve a right to ask you. I’m speaking for her. I want that letter read.’
Slowly, Angela Warren took out the letter from her bag and handed it to Poirot. She said bitterly:
‘I wish I had never shown it to you.’
Turning away from them she stood looking out of the window.
As Hercule Poirot read aloud Caroline Crale’s last letter, the shadows were deepening in the corners of the room. Carla had a sudden feeling of someone in the room, gathering shape, listening, breathing, waiting. She thought: ‘She’s here-my mother’s here. Caroline-Caroline Crale ishere in this room!’
Hercule Poirot’s voice ceased. He said:
‘You will all agree, I think, that that is a very remarkable letter. A beautiful letter, too, but certainly remarkable. For there is one striking omission in it-it contains no protestation of innocence.’
Angela Warren said without turning her head: ‘That was unnecessary.’
‘Yes, Miss Warren, it was unnecessary. Caroline Crale had no need to tell her sister that she was innocent- because she thought her sister knew that fact already-knew it for the best of all reasons. All Caroline Crale was concerned about was to comfort and reassure and to avert the possibility of a confession from Angela. She reiterates again and again-It’s all right, darling, it’s all right.’
Angela Warren said: ‘Can’t you understand? She wanted me to be happy, that’s all.’
‘Yes, she wanted you to be happy, that is abundantly clear. It is her one preoccupation. She has a child, but it is not that child of whom she is thinking-that is to come later. No, it is her sister who occupies her mind to the exclusion of everything else. Her sister must be reassured, must be encouraged to live her life, to be happy and successful. And so that the burden of acceptance may not be too great, Caroline includes that one very significant phrase: “One must pay one’s debts.”
‘That one phrase explains everything. It refers explicitly to the burden that Caroline has carried for so many years ever since, in a fit of uncontrolled adolescent rage, she hurled a paperweight at her baby sister and injured that sister for life. Now, at last, she has the opportunity to pay the debt she owes. And if it is any consolation, I will say to you all that I earnestly believe that in the payment of that debt, Caroline Crale did achieve a peace and serenity greater than any she had ever known. Because of her belief that she was paying that debt, the ordeal of trial and condemnation could not touch her. It is a strange thing to say of a condemned murderess-but she had everything to make her happy. Yes, more than you imagine, as I will show you presently.
‘See how, by this explanation, everything falls into its place where Caroline’s own reactions are concerned. Look at the series of events from her point of view. To begin with, on the preceding evening, an event occurs which reminds her forcibly of her own undisciplined girlhood. Angela throws a paperweight at Amyas Crale. That, remember, is what she herself did many years ago. Angela shouts out that she wishes Amyas was dead. Then, on the next morning, Caroline comes into the little conservatory and finds Angela tampering with the beer. Remember Miss Williams’s words: “Angela was there. She looked guilty…” Guilty of playing truant, was what Miss Williams meant, but to Caroline, Angela’s guilty face, as she was caught unawares, would have a different meaning. Remember that on at least one occasion before Angela had put things in Amyas’s drink. It was an idea which might readily occur to her.
‘Caroline takes the bottle that Angela gives her and goes down with it to the Battery. And there she pours it out and gives it to Amyas, and he makes a face as he tosses it off and utters those significant words: “Everything tastes foul today.”
‘Caroline has no suspicions then-but after lunch she goes down to the Battery and finds her husband dead-and she has no doubt at all but that he has been poisoned. She had not done it? Who, then, has? And the whole thing comes over her with a rush-Angela’s threats, Angela’s face stooping over the beer and caught unawares-guilty-guilty-guilty. Why has the child done it? As a revenge on Amyas, perhaps not meaning to kill, just to make him ill or sick? Or has she done it for her, Caroline’s sake? Has she realized and resented Amyas’s desertion of her sister? Caroline remembers-oh, so well-her own undisciplined violent emotions at Angela’s age. And only one thought springs to her mind. How can she protect Angela? Angela handled that bottle- Angela’s fingerprints will be on it. She quickly wipes it and polishes it. If only everybody can be got to believe it is suicide. If Amyas’s fingerprints are the only ones found. She tries to fit his dead fingers round the bottle-working desperately-listening for someone to come…
‘Once take that assumption as true, and everything from then on fits in. Her anxiety about Angela all along, her insistence on getting her away, keeping her out of touch with what was going on. Her fear of Angela’s being questioned unduly by the police. Finally, her overwhelming anxiety to get Angela out of England before the trial comes on. Because she is always terrified that Angela might break down and confess.’
Chapter 4. Truth
Slowly, Angela Warren swung round. Her eyes, hard and contemptuous, ranged over the faces turned towards her.
She said:
‘You’re blind fools-all of you. Don’t you know that if I had done it I would have confessed! I’d never have let Caroline suffer for what I’d done. Never!’
Poirot said:
‘But you did tamper with the beer.’
‘I? Tamper with the beer?’
Poirot turned to Meredith Blake.
‘Listen, monsieur. In your account here of what happened, you describe having heard sounds in this room, which is below your bedroom, on the morning of the crime.’
Blake nodded.
‘But it was only a cat.’
‘How do you know it was a cat?’
‘I-I can’t remember. But it was a cat. I am quite sure it was a cat. The window was open just wide enough for a cat to get through.’
‘But it was not fixed in that position. The sash moves freely. It could have been pushed up and a human being could have got in and out.’
‘Yes, but I know it was a cat.’
‘You did not see a cat?’
Blake said perplexedly and slowly:
‘No, I did not see it-’ He paused, frowning. ‘And yet I know.’
‘I will tell you why you know presently. In the meantime I put this point to you. Someone could have come up to the house that morning, have got into your laboratory, taken something from the shelf and gone again without your seeing them. Now if that someone had come over from Alderbury it could not have been Philip Blake, nor Elsa Greer, nor Amyas Crale nor Caroline Crale. We know quite well what all those four were doing. That leaves Angela Warren and Miss Williams. Miss Williams was over here-you actually met her
