Five Little Pigs - Agatha Christie [46]
Miss Williams raised her head. She said firmly:
“No, I did not. But please understand, Mr. 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 attitude 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 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.”
“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 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, Mr. Poirot. It doesn’t matter my saying this now—so long afterwards. You see, I happen to know 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 withhold it. But you must take it from me, quite definitely, that I know Caroline Crale was guilty….”
Ten
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 passing 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