‘Not, perhaps, a very good defence to have chosen?’

Fogg shrugged his thin shoulders. He said:

‘What else was there? Couldn’t sit back and plead that there was no case for the jury-that the prosecution had got to prove their case against the accused. There was a great deal too much proof. She’d handled the poison-admitted pinching it, in fact. There was means, motive, opportunity-everything.’

‘One might have attempted to show that these things were artificially arranged?’

Fog said bluntly:

‘She admitted most of them. And, in any case, it’s too far-fetched. You’re implying, I presume, that somebody else murdered him and fixed it up to look as though she had done it.’

‘You think that quite untenable?’

Fogg said slowly:

‘I’m afraid I do. You’re suggesting the mysterious X. Where do we look for him?’

Poirot said:

‘Obviously in a close circle. There were five people, were there not, whocould have been concerned?’

‘Five? Let me see. There was the old duffer who messed about with his herb brewing. A dangerous hobby-but an amiable creature. Vague sort of person. Don’t see him as X. There was the girl-she might have polished off Caroline, but certainly not Amyas. Then there was the stockbroker-Crale’s best friend. That’s popular in detective stories, but I don’t believe in it in real life. There’s no one else-oh yes, the kid sister, but one doesn’t seriously consider her. That’s four.’

Hercule Poirot said:

‘You forget the governess.’

‘Yes, that’s true. Wretched people, governesses, one never does remember them. I do recall her dimly though. Middle-aged, plain, competent. I suppose a psychologist would say that she had a guilty passion for Crale and therefore killed him. The repressed spinster! It’s no good-I just don’t believe it. As far as my dim remembrance goes she wasn’t the neurotic type.’

‘It is a long time ago.’

‘Fifteen or sixteen years, I suppose. Yes, quite that. You can’t expect my memories of the case to be very acute.’

Hercule Poirot said:

‘But on the contrary, you remember it amazingly well. That astounds me. You can see it, can you not? When you talk the picture is there before your eyes.’

Fogg said slowly:

‘Yes, you’re right-I do see it-quite plainly.’

Poirot said:

‘It would interest me, my friend, very much, if you would tell mewhy?’

‘Why?’ Fogg considered the question. His thin intellectual face was alert-interested. ‘Yes, nowwhy?’

Poirot asked:

‘Whatdo you see so plainly? The witnesses? The counsel? The judge? The accused standing in the dock?’

Fogg said quietly:

‘That’s the reason, of course! You’ve put your finger on it. I shall always seeher…Funny thing, romance. She had the quality of it. I don’t know if she was really beautiful…She wasn’t very young-tired looking-circles under her eyes. But it all centered round her. The interest-the drama. And yet, half the time,she wasn’t there. She’d gone away somewhere, quite far away-just left her body there, quiescent, attentive, with the little polite smile on her lips. She was all half tones, you know, lights and shades. And yet, with it all, she was more alive than the other-that girl with the perfect body, and the beautiful face, and the crude young strength. I admired Elsa Greer because she had guts, because she could fight, because she stood up to her tormentors and never quailed! But I admired Caroline Crale because she didn’t fight, because she retreated into her world of half lights and shadows. She was never defeated because she never gave battle.’

He paused:

‘I’m only sure of one thing. She loved the man she killed. Loved him so much that half of her died with him…’

Mr Fogg, K.C., paused and polished his glasses.

‘Dear me,’ he said. ‘I seem to be saying some very strange things! I was quite a young man at the time, you know. Just an ambitious youngster. These things make an impression. But all the same I’m sure that Caroline Crale was a very remarkable woman. I shall never forget her. No-I shall never forget her…’

George Mayhew was cautious and non-committal.

He remembered the case, of course, but not at all clearly. His father had been in charge-he himself had been only nineteen at the time.

Yes, the case had made a great stir. Because of Crale being such a well-known man. His pictures were very fine-very fine indeed. Two of them were in the Tate. Not that that meant anything.

M. Poirot would excuse him, but he didn’t see quite what M. Poirot’s interest was in the matter. Oh, thedaughter! Really? Indeed? Canada? He had always heard it was New Zealand.

George Mayhew became less rigid. He unbent.

A shocking thing in a girl’s life. He had the deepest sympathy for her. Really it would have been better if she had never learned the truth. Still, it was no use saying thatnow.

She wanted to know? Yes, but whatwas there to know? There were the reports of the trial, of course. He himself didn’t really know anything.

No, he was afraid there wasn’t much doubt as to Mrs Crale’s being guilty. 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 whatshe 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 verymelodramatic 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.’