She and Crale had led a kind of cat and dog life for years—interminable rows. He was always getting mixed up with some woman or other. Couldn’t help it. He was that kind of man. She stood it pretty well on the whole. Made allowances for him on the score of temperament—and the man really was a first-class painter, you know. His stuff’s gone up enormously in price—enormously. Don’t care for that style of painting myself—ugly forceful stuff, but it’s good—no doubt of that.
‘Well, as I say, there had been trouble about women from time to time. Mrs Crale wasn’t the meek kind who suffers in silence. There were rows all right. But he always came back to her in the end. These affairs of his blew over. But this final affair was rather different. It was a girl, you see—and quite a young girl. She was only twenty.
‘Elsa Greer, that was her name. She was the only daughter of some Yorkshire manufacturer. She’d got money and determination, and she knew what she wanted. What she wanted was Amyas Crale. She got him to paint her—he didn’t paint regular Society portraits, “Mrs Blinkety Blank in satin and pearls”, but he painted figures. I don’t know that most women would have cared to be painted by him—he didn’t spare them! But he painted the Greer girl, and he ended by falling for her good and proper. He was getting on for forty, you know, and he’d been married a good many years. He was just ripe for making a fool of himself over some chit of a girl. Elsa Greer was the girl. He was crazy about her, and his idea was to get a divorce from his wife and marry Elsa.
‘Caroline Crale wasn’t standing for that. She threatened him. She was overheard by two people to say that if he didn’t give the girl up she’d kill him. And she meant it all right! The day before it happened, they’d been having tea with a neighbour. He was by way of dabbling in herbs and home-brewed medicines. Amongst his patent brews was one of coniine—spotted hemlock. There was some talk about it and its deadly properties.
‘The next day he noticed that half the contents of the bottle had gone. Got the wind up about it. They found an almost empty bottle of it in Mrs Crale’s room, hidden away at the bottom of a drawer.’
Hercule Poirot moved uncomfortably. He said:
‘Somebody else might have put it there.’
‘Oh! She admitted to the police she’d taken it. Very unwise, of course, but she didn’t have a solicitor to advise her at that stage. When they asked her about it, she admitted quite frankly that she had taken it.’
‘For what reason?’
‘She made out that she’d taken it with the idea of doing herself in. She couldn’t explain how the bottle came to be empty—nor how it was that there were only her fingerprints on it. That part of it was pretty damaging. She contended, you see, that Amyas Crale had committed suicide. But if he’d taken the coniine from the bottle she’d hidden in her room, his fingerprints would have been on the bottle as well as hers.’
‘It was given him in beer, was it not?’
‘Yes. She got out the bottle from the refrigerator and took it down herself to where he was painting in the garden. She poured it out and gave it to him and watched him drink it. Every one went up to lunch and left him—he often didn’t come in to meals. Afterwards she and the governess found him there dead. Her story was that the beer she gave him was all right. Our theory was that he suddenly felt so worried and remorseful that he slipped the poison in himself. All poppycock—he wasn’t that kind of man! And the fingerprint evidence was the most damning of all.’
‘They found her fingerprints on the bottle?’
‘No, they didn’t—they found only his—and they were phoney ones. She was alone with the body, you see, while the governess went to call up a doctor. And what she must have done was to wipe the bottle and glass and then press his fingers on them. She wanted to pretend, you see, that she’d never even handled the stuff. Well, that didn’t work. Old Rudolph, who was prosecuting, had a lot of fun with that—proved quite definitely by demonstration in court that a man couldn’t hold a bottle with his fingers in that position! Of course we did our best to prove that he could—that his hands would take up a contorted attitude when he was dying—but frankly our stuff wasn’t very convincing.’
Hercule Poirot said:
‘The coniine in the bottle must have been put there before she took it down to the garden.’
‘There was no coniine in the bottle at all. Only in the glass.’
He paused—his large handsome face suddenly altered—he turned his head sharply. ‘Hallo,’ he said. ‘Now then, Poirot, what are you driving at?’
Poirot said:
‘If Caroline Crale was innocent, how did that coniine get into the beer? The defence said at the time that Amyas Crale himself put it there. But you say to me that that was in the highest degree unlikely—and for my part I agree with you. He was not that kind of man. Then, if Caroline Crale did not do it, someone else did.’
Depleach said with almost a splutter:
‘Oh, damn it all, man, you can’t flog a dead horse. It’s all over and done with years ago. Of course she did it. You’d know that well enough if you’d seen her at the time. It was written all over her! I even fancy that the verdict was a relief to her. She wasn’t frightened. No nerves at all. Just wanted to get through the trial and have it over. A very brave woman, really…’
‘And yet,’ said Hercule Poirot, ‘when she died she left a letter to be given to her daughter in which she swore solemnly that she was innocent.’
‘I dare say she did,’ said Sir Montague Depleach. ‘You or I would have done the same in her place.’
‘Her daughter says she was not that kind of woman.’
‘The daughter says—pah! What does she know about it? My dear Poirot, the daughter was a mere infant at the time of the trial. What was she—four—five? They changed her name and sent her out of England somewhere to some relatives. What can she know or remember?’
‘Children know people very well sometimes.’
‘Maybe they do. But that doesn’t follow in this case. Naturally the girl wants to believe her mother didn’t do it. Let her believe it. It doesn’t do any harm.’
‘But unfortunately she demands proof.’
‘Proof that Caroline Crale didn’t kill her husband?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well,’ said Depleach. ‘She won’t get it.’
‘You think not?’
The famous K.C. looked thoughtfully at his companion.
‘I’ve always thought you were an honest man, Poirot. What are you doing? Trying to make money by playing on a girl’s natural affections?’
‘You do not know the girl. She is an unusual girl. A girl of great force of character.’
‘Yes, I should imagine the daughter of Amyas and Caroline Crale might be that. What does she want?’
‘She wants the truth.’
‘Hm—I’m afraid she’ll find the truth unpalatable. Honestly, Poirot, I don’t think there’s any doubt about it. She killed him.’
‘You will forgive me, my friend, but I must satisfy myself on that point.’
‘Well, I don’t know what more you can do. You can read up the newspaper accounts of the trial. Humphrey Rudolph appeared for the Crown. He’s dead—let me see, who was his junior? Young Fogg, I think. Yes, Fogg. You can have a chat with him. And then there are the people who were there at the time. Don’t suppose they’ll enjoy your butting in and raking the whole thing up, but I dare say you’ll get what you want out of them. You’re a plausible devil.’
‘Ah yes, the people concerned. That is very important. You remember, perhaps, who they were?’
Depleach