Poirot perceived that, according to Miss Williams, the last word had been said. He abandoned the subject of art.

He said: 'You were with Mrs Crale when she found the body?'

'Yes. She and I went down from the house together after lunch. Angela had left her pullover on the beach after bathing, or else in the boat. She was always very careless about her things. I parted from Mrs Crale at the door of the Battery garden, but she called me back almost at once. I believe Mr Crale had been dead over an hour. He was sprawled on the bench near his easel.'

'Was she terribly upset at the discovery?'

'What exactly do you mean by that, M. Poirot?'

'I am asking you what your impressions were at the time.'

'Oh, I see. Yes, she seemed to me quite dazed. She sent me off to telephone for the doctor. After all, we couldn't be absolutely sure he was dead-it might have been a cataleptic seizure.'

'Did she suggest such a possibility?'

'I don't remember.'

'And you went and telephoned?'

Miss William's tone was dry and brusque.

'I had gone half up the path when I met Mr Meredith Blake. I entrusted my errand to him and returned to Mrs Crale. I thought, you see, she might have collapsed-and men are no good in a matter of that kind.'

'And had she collapsed?'

Miss Williams said drily: 'Mrs Crale was quite in command of herself. She was quite different from Miss Greer, who made a hysterical and very unpleasant scene.'

'What kind of a scene?'

'She tried to attack Mrs Crale.'

'You mean she realized that Mrs Crale was responsible for Mr Crale's death?'

Miss Williams considered for a moment or two.

'No, she could hardly be sure of that. That-er-terrible suspicion had not yet arisen. Miss Greer just screamed out: "It's all your doing, Caroline. You killed him. It's all your fault." She did not actually say "You've poisoned him," but I think there is no doubt that she thought so.'

'And Mrs Crale?'

Miss Williams moved restlessly.

'Must we be hypocritical, M. Poirot? I cannot tell you what Mrs Crale really felt or thought at that moment. Whether it was horror at what she had done-'

'Did it seem like that?'

'N-no, n-no, I can't say it did. Stunned, yes-and, I think, frightened. Yes, I am sure, frightened. But that is natural enough.'

Hercule Poirot said in a dissatisfied tone: 'Yes, perhaps that is natural enough...What view did she adopt officially as to her husband's death?'

'Suicide. She said, very definitely from the first, that it must be suicide.'

'Did she say the same when she was talking to you privately, or did she put forward any other theory.'

'No. She-she-took pains to impress upon me that it must be suicide.'

Miss Williams sounded embarra.s.sed.

'And what did you say to that?'

'Really, M. Poirot, does it matter what what I said?' I said?'

'Yes, I think it does.'

'I don't see why-'

But as though his expectant silence hypnotized her, she said reluctantly: 'I think I said: "Certainly, Mrs Crale. It must have been suicide." '

'Did you believe your own words?'

Miss Williams raised her head. She said firmly: 'No, I did not. But please understand, M. Poirot, that I was entirely on Mrs Crale's side, if you like to put it that way. My sympathies were with her, not with the police.'

'You would have liked to have seen her acquitted?'

Miss Williams said defiantly: 'Yes, I would.'

Poirot said: 'Then you are in sympathy with her daughter's feelings?'

'I have every sympathy with Carla.'

'Would you have any objection to writing out for me a detailed account of the tragedy?'

'You mean for her to read?'

'Yes.'

Miss Williams said slowly: 'No, I have no objection. She is quite determined to go into the matter, is she?'

'Yes. I dare say it would have been preferable if the truth had been kept from her-'

Miss Williams interrupted him: 'No. It is always better to face the truth. It is no use evading unhappiness by tampering with facts. Carla has had a shock learning the truth-now she wants to know exactly how the tragedy came about. That seems to me the right att.i.tude for a brave young woman to take. Once she knows all about it she will be able to forget it again and go on with the business of living her own life.'

'Perhaps you are right,' said Poirot.

'I'm quite sure I'm right.'

'But you see, there is more to it than that. She not only wants to know-she wants to prove her mother innocent.'

Miss Williams said: 'Poor child.'

'That is what you say, is it?'

Miss Williams said: 'I see now why you said that it might be better if she had never known. All the same, I think it is best as it is. To wish to find her mother innocent is a natural hope-and hard though the actual revelation may be, I think from what you say of her that Carla is brave enough to learn the truth and not flinch from it.'

'You are sure it is is the truth?' the truth?'

'I don't understand you?'

'You see no loophole for believing that Mrs Crale was innocent?'

'I don't think that possibility has ever been seriously considered.'

'And yet she herself clung to the theory of suicide?'

Miss Williams said drily: 'The poor woman had to say something something.'

'Do you know that when Mrs Crale was dying she left a letter for her daughter in which she solemnly swears that she is innocent?'

Miss Williams stared.

'That was very wrong of her,' she said sharply.

'You think so?'

'Yes, I do. Oh, I dare say you are a sentimentalist like most men-'

Poirot interrupted indignantly: 'I am not not a sentimentalist.' a sentimentalist.'

'But there is such a thing as false sentiment. Why write that, a lie, at such a solemn moment? To spare your child pain? Yes, many women would do that. But I should not have thought it of Mrs Crale. She was a brave woman and a truthful woman. I should have thought it far more like her to have told her daughter not to judge.'

Poirot said with slight exasperation: 'You will not even consider then the possibility that what Caroline Crale wrote was the truth?'

'Certainly not!'

'And yet you profess to have loved her?'

'I did love her. I had a great affection and deep sympathy for her.'

'Well, then-'

Miss Williams looked at him in a very odd way.

'You don't understand, M. Poirot. It doesn't matter my saying this now-so long afterwards. You see, I happen to know know that Caroline Crale was guilty!' that Caroline Crale was guilty!'

'What?'

'It's true. Whether I did right in withholding what I knew at the time I cannot be sure-but I did did withhold it. But you must take it from me, quite definitely, that I withhold it. But you must take it from me, quite definitely, that I know know Caroline Crale was guilty...' Caroline Crale was guilty...'

Chapter 10.

This Little Pig Cried This Little Pig Cried.

'Wee Wee Wee'

Angela Warren's flat overlooked Regent's Park. Here, on this spring day, a soft air wafted in through the open window and one might have had the illusion that one was in the country if it had not been for the steady menacing roar of the traffic pa.s.sing below.

Poirot turned from the window as the door opened and Angela Warren came into the room.

It was not the first time he had seen her. He had availed himself of the opportunity to attend a lecture she had given at the Royal Geographical. It had been, he considered, an excellent lecture. Dry, perhaps, from the view of popular appeal. Miss Warren had an excellent delivery, she neither paused nor hesitated for a word. She did not repeat herself. The tones of her voice were clear and not unmelodious. She made no concessions to romantic appeal or love of adventure. There was very little human interest in the lecture. It was an admirable recital of concise facts, adequately ill.u.s.trated by excellent slides, and with intelligent deductions from the facts recited. Dry, precise, clear, lucid, highly technical.

The soul of Hercule Poirot approved. Here, he considered, was an orderly mind.

Now that he saw her at close quarters he realized that Angela Warren might easily have been a very handsome woman. Her features were regular, though severe. She had finely marked dark brows, clear intelligent brown eyes, a fine pale skin. She had very square shoulders and a slightly mannish walk.

There was certainly about her no suggestion of the little pig who cries 'Wee Wee.' But on the right cheek, disfiguring and puckering the skin, was that healed scar. The right eye was slightly distorted, the corner pulled downwards by it but no one would have realized that the sight of that eye was destroyed. It seemed to Hercule Poirot almost certain that she had lived with her disability so long that she was now completely unconscious of it. And it occurred to him that of the five people in whom he had become interested as a result of his investigations, those who might have been said to start with the fullest advantages were not those who had actually wrested the most success and happiness from life. Elsa, who might have been said to start with all advantages-youth, beauty, riches-had done worst. She was like a flower overtaken by untimely frost-still in bud-but without life. Cecilia Williams, to outward appearances, had no a.s.sets of which to boast. Nevertheless, to Poirot's eye, there was no despondency there and no sense of failure. Miss Williams's life had been interesting to her-she was still interested in people and events. She had that enormous mental and moral advantage of a strict Victorian upbringing denied to us in these days-she had done her duty in that station of life to which it had pleased G.o.d to call her, and that a.s.surance encased her in an armour impregnable to the slings and darts of envy, discontent and regret. She had her memories, her small pleasures, made possible by stringent economies, and sufficient health and vigour to enable her still to be interested in life.

Now, in Angela Warren-that young creature handicapped by disfigurement and its consequent humiliation, Poirot believed he saw a spirit strengthened by its necessary fight for confidence and a.s.surance. The undisciplined schoolgirl had given place to a vital and forceful woman, a woman of considerable mental power and gifted with abundant energy to accomplish ambitious purposes. She was a woman, Poirot felt sure, both happy and successful. Her life was full and vivid and eminently enjoyable.

She was not, incidentally, the type of woman that Poirot really liked. Though admiring the clear-cut precision of her mind, she had just a sufficient nuance nuance of the of the femme formidable femme formidable about her to alarm him as a mere man. His taste had always been for the flamboyant and extravagant. about her to alarm him as a mere man. His taste had always been for the flamboyant and extravagant.

With Angela Warren it was easy to come to the point of his visit. There was no subterfuge. He merely recounted Carla Lemarchant's interview with him.

Angela Warren's severe face lighted up appreciatively.

'Little Carla? She is over here? I would like to see her so much.'

'You have not kept in touch with her?'

'Hardly as much as I should have done. I was a schoolgirl at the time she went to Canada, and I realized, of course, that in a year or two she would have forgotten us. Of late years, an occasional present at Christmas has been the only link between us. I imagined that she would, by now, be completely immersed in the Canadian atmosphere and that her future would lie over there. Better so, in the circ.u.mstances.'

Poirot said: 'One might think so, certainly. A change of name-a change of scene. A new life. But it was not to be so easy as that.'

And he then told of Carla's engagement, the discovery she had made upon coming of age and her motives in coming to England.

Angela Warren listened quietly, her disfigured cheek resting on one hand. She betrayed no emotion during the recital, but as Poirot finished, she said quietly: 'Good for Carla.'

Poirot was startled. It was the first time that he had met with this reaction. He said: 'You approve, Miss Warren?'

'Certainly. I wish her every success. Anything I can do to help, I will. I feel guilty, you know, that I haven't attempted anything myself.'

'Then you think that there is a possibility that she is right in her views.'

Angela Warren said sharply: 'Of course she's right. Caroline didn't do it. I've always known that.'