There was a certain amount of excuse for her. These artists—difficult people to live with. With Crale, he understood, it had always been some woman or other.
And she herself had probably been the possessive type of woman. Unable to accept facts. Nowadays she’d simply have divorced him and got over it. He added cautiously:
‘Let me see—er—Lady Dittisham, I believe, was the girl in the case.’
Poirot said that he believed that that was so.
‘The newspapers bring it up from time to time,’ said Mayhew. ‘She’s been in the divorce court a good deal. She’s a very rich woman, as I expect you know. She was married to that explorer fellow before Dittisham. She’s always more or less in the public eye. The kind of woman who likes notoriety, I should imagine.’
‘Or possibly a hero worshipper,’ suggested Poirot.
The idea was upsetting to George Mayhew. He accepted it dubiously.
‘Well, possibly—yes, I suppose that might be so.’
He seemed to be turning the idea over in his mind.
Poirot said:
‘Had your firm acted for Mrs Crale for a long period of years?’
George Mayhew shook his head.
‘On the contrary. Jonathan and Jonathan were the Crale solicitors. Under the circumstances, however, Mr Jonathan felt that he could not very well act for Mrs Crale, and he arranged with us—with my father—to take over her case. You would do well, I think, M. Poirot, to arrange a meeting with old Mr Jonathan. He has retired from active work—he is over seventy—but he knew the Crale family intimately, and he could tell you far more than I can. Indeed, I myself can tell you nothing at all. I was a boy at the time. I don’t think I was even in court.’
Poirot rose and George Mayhew, rising too, added:
‘You might like to have a word with Edmunds, our managing clerk. He was with the firm then and took a great interest in the case.’
Edmunds was a man of slow speech. His eyes gleamed with legal caution. He took his time in sizing up Poirot before he let himself be betrayed into speech. He said:
‘Ay, I mind the Crale case.’
He added severely: ‘It was a disgraceful business.’
His shrewd eyes rested appraisingly on Hercule Poirot.
He said:
‘It’s a long time since to be raking things up again.’
‘A court verdict is not always an ending.’
Edmunds’s square head nodded slowly.
‘I’d not say that you weren’t in the right of it there.’
Hercule Poirot went on: ‘Mrs Crale left a daughter.’
‘Ay, I mind there was a child. Sent abroad to relatives, was she not?’
Poirot went on:
‘That daughter believes firmly in her mother’s innocence.’
The huge bushy eyebrows of Mr Edmunds rose.
‘That’s the way of it, is it?’
Poirot asked:
‘Is there anything you can tell me to support that belief?’
Edmunds reflected. Then, slowly, he shook his head.
‘I could not conscientiously say there was. I admired Mrs Crale. Whatever else she was, she was a lady! Not like the other. A hussy—no more, no less. Bold as brass! Jumped-up trash—that’s what she was—and showed it! Mrs Crale was quality.’
‘But none the less a murderess?’
Edmunds frowned. He said, with more spontaneity than he had yet shown:
‘That’s what I used to ask myself, day after day. Sitting there in the dock so calm and gentle. “I’ll not believe it,” I used to say to myself. But, if you take my meaning, Mr Poirot, there wasn’t anything else to believe. That hemlock didn’t get into Mr Crale’s beer by accident. It was put there. And if Mrs Crale didn’t put it there, who did?’
‘That is the question,’ said Poirot. ‘Who did?’
Again those shrewd old eyes searched his face.
‘So that’s your idea?’ said Mr Edmunds.
‘What do you think yourself?’
There was a pause before the officer answered. Then he said:
‘There was nothing that pointed that way—nothing at all.’
Poirot said:
‘You were in court during the hearing of the case?’
‘Every day.’
‘You heard the witnesses give evidence?’
‘I did.’
‘Did anything strike you about them—any abnormality, any insincerity?’
Edmunds said bluntly:
‘Was one of them lying, do you mean? Had one of them a reason to wish Mr Crale dead? If you’ll excuse me, Mr Poirot, that’s a very melodramatic idea.’
‘At least consider it,’ Poirot urged.
He watched the shrewd face, the screwed-up, thoughtful eyes. Slowly, regretfully, Edmunds shook his head.
‘That Miss Greer,’ he said, ‘she was bitter enough, and vindictive! I’d say she overstepped the mark in a good deal she said, but it was Mr Crale alive she wanted. He was no use to her dead. She wanted Mrs Crale hanged all right—but that was because death had snatched her man away from her. Like a baulked tigress she was! But, as I say, it was Mr Crale alive she’d wanted. Mr Philip Blake, he was against Mrs Crale too. Prejudiced. Got his knife into her whenever he could. But I’d say he was honest according to his lights. He’d been Mr Crale’s great friend. His brother, Mr Meredith Blake—a bad witness he was—vague, hesitating—never seemed sure of his answers. I’ve seen many witnesses like that. Look as though they’re lying when all the time they’re telling the truth. Didn’t want to say anything more than he could help, Mr Meredith Blake didn’t. Counsel got all the more out of him on that account. One of these quiet gentlemen who get easily flustered. The governess now, she stood up well to them. Didn’t waste words and answered pat and to the point. You couldn’t have told, listening to her, which side she was on. Got all her wits about her, she had. The brisk kind.’ He paused. ‘Knew a lot more than she ever let on about the whole thing, I shouldn’t wonder.’
‘I, too, should not wonder,’ said Hercule Poirot.
He looked sharply at the wrinkled, shrewd face of Mr Alfred Edmunds. It was quite bland and impassive. But Hercule Poirot wondered if he had been vouchsafed a hint.
Mr Caleb Jonathan lived in Essex. After a courteous exchange of letters, Poirot received an invitation, almost royal in its character, to dine and sleep. The old gentleman was decidedly a character. After the insipidity of young George Mayhew, Mr Jonathan was like a glass of his own vintage port.
He had his own methods of approach to a subject, and it was not until well on towards midnight, when sipping a glass of fragrant old brandy, that Mr Jonathan really unbent. In oriental fashion he had appreciated Hercule Poirot’s courteous refusal to rush him in any way. Now, in his own good time, he was willing to elaborate the theme of the Crale family.
‘Our firm, of course,