Five Little Pigs - Agatha Christie [25]
“No, Mr. Blake. We are speaking now from the psychological point of view. I do not want bare facts. I want your own selections of facts. Time and your memory are responsible for that selection. There may have been things done, words spoken, that I should seek for in vain in the police files. Things and words that you never mentioned because, maybe, you judged them irrelevant, or because you preferred not to repeat them.”
Blake said sharply:
“Is this account of mine for publication?”
“Certainly not. It is for my eye only. To assist me to draw my own deductions.”
“And you won’t quote from it without my consent?”
“Certainly not.”
“Hm,” said Philip Blake. “I’m a very busy man, Mr. Poirot.”
“I appreciate that there will be time and trouble involved. I should be happy to agree to a—reasonable fee.”
There was a moment’s pause. Then Philip Blake said suddenly:
“No, if I do it—I’ll do it for nothing.”
“And you will do it?”
Philip said warningly:
“Remember, I can’t vouch for the accuracy of my memory.”
“That is perfectly understood.”
“Then I think,” said Philip Blake, “that I should like to do it. I feel I owe it—in a way—to Amyas Crale.”
Seven
THIS LITTLE PIG STAYED AT HOME
Hercule Poirot was not a man to neglect details.
His advance towards Meredith Blake was carefully thought out. Meredith Blake was, he already felt sure, a very different proposition from Philip Blake. Rush tactics would not succeed here. The assault must be leisurely.
Hercule Poirot knew that there was only one way to penetrate the stronghold. He must approach Meredith Blake with the proper credentials. Those credentials must be social, not professional. Fortunately, in the course of his career, Hercule Poirot had made friends in many counties. Devonshire was no exception. He sat down to review what resources he had in Devonshire. As a result he discovered two people who were acquaintances or friends of Mr. Meredith Blake. He descended upon him therefore armed with two letters, one from Lady Mary Lytton-Gore, a gentle widow lady of restricted means, the most retiring of creatures; and the other from a retired Admiral, whose family had been settled in the county for four generations.
Meredith Blake received Poirot in a state of some perplexity.
As he had often felt lately, things were not what they used to be. Dash it all, private detectives used to be private detectives—fellows you got to guard wedding presents at country receptions, fellows you went to—rather shamefacedly—when there was some dirty business afoot and you’d got to get the hang of it.
But here was Lady Mary Lytton-Gore writing: “Hercule Poirot is a very old and valued friend of mine. Please do all you can to help him, won’t you?” And Mary Lytton-Gore wasn’t—no, decidedly she wasn’t—the sort of woman you associate with private detectives and all that they stand for. And Admiral Cronshaw wrote: “Very good chap—absolutely sound. Grateful if you will do what you can for him. Most entertaining fellow, can tell you lots of good stories.”
And now here was the man himself. Really a most impossible person—the wrong clothes—button boots!—an incredible moustache! Not his—Meredith Blake’s—kind of fellow at all. Didn’t look as though he’d ever hunted or shot—or even played a decent game. A foreigner.
Slightly amused, Hercule Poirot read accurately these thoughts passing through the other’s head.
He had felt his own interest rising considerably as the train brought him into the West Country. He would see now, with his own eyes, the actual place where these long past events happened.
It was here, at Handcross Manor, that two young brothers had lived and gone over to Alderbury and joked and played tennis and fraternized with a young Amyas Crale and a girl called Caroline. It was from here that Meredith had started out to Alderbury on that fatal morning. That had been sixteen years ago. Hercule Poirot looked with interest at the man who was confronting him with somewhat uneasy politeness.
Very much what he had expected. Meredith Blake resembled superficially every other English