Five Little Pigs - Agatha Christie [49]
Hercule Poirot nodded.
“Yes, there was evidence of that. They quarrelled like cat and dog, it was said.”
Angela Warren said:
“Exactly. That’s what is so stupid and misleading about evidence. Of course Caro and Amyas quarrelled! Of course they said bitter and outrageous and cruel things to each other! What nobody appreciates is that they enjoyed quarrelling. But they did! Amyas enjoyed it too. They were that kind of couple. They both of them liked drama and emotional scenes. Most men don’t. They like peace. But Amyas was an artist. He liked shouting and threatening and generally being outrageous. It was like letting off steam to him. He was the kind of man who when he loses his collar stud bellows the house down. It sounds very odd, I know, but living that way with continual rows and makingsup was Amyas’s and Caroline’s idea of fun!”
She made an impatient gesture.
“If they’d only not hustled me away and let me give evidence, I’d have told them that.” Then she shrugged her shoulders. “But I don’t suppose they would have believed me. And anyway then it wouldn’t have been as clear in my mind as it is now. It was the kind of thing I knew but hadn’t thought about and certainly had never dreamed of putting into words.”
She looked across at Poirot.
“You do see what I mean?”
He nodded vigorously.
“I see perfectly—and I realize the absolute rightness of what you have said. There are people to whom agreement is monotony. They require the stimulant of dissension to create drama in their lives.”
“Exactly.”
“May I ask you, Miss Warren, what were your own feelings at the time?”
Angela Warren sighed.
“Mostly bewilderment and helplessness, I think. It seemed a fantastic nightmare. Caroline was arrested very soon—about three days afterwards, I think. I can still remember my indignation, my dumb fury—and, of course, my childish faith that it was just a silly mistake, that it would be all right. Caro was chiefly perturbed about me—she wanted me kept right away from it all as far as possible. She got Miss Williams to take me away to some relations almost at once. The police had no objection. And then, when it was decided that my evidence would not be needed, arrangements were made for me to go to school abroad.
“I hated going, of course. But it was explained to me that Caro had me terribly on her mind and that the only way I could help her was by going.”
She paused. Then she said:
“So I went to Munich. I was there when—when the verdict was given. They never let me go to see Caro. Caro wouldn’t have it. That’s the only time, I think, when she failed in understanding.”
“You cannot be sure of that, Miss Warren. To visit someone dearly loved in a prison might make a terrible impression on a young sensitive girl.”
“Possibly.”
Angela Warren got up. She said:
“After the verdict, when she had been condemned, my sister wrote me a letter. I have never shown it to anyone. I think I ought to show it to you now. It may help you to understand the kind of person Caroline was. If you like you may take it to show to Carla also.”
She went to the door, then turning back she said:
“Come with me. There is a portrait of Caroline in my room.”
For a second time, Poirot stood gazing up at a portrait.
As a painting, Caroline Crale’s portrait was mediocre. But Poirot looked at it with interest—it was not its artistic value that interested him.
He saw a long oval face, a gracious line of jaw and a sweet, slightly timid expression. It was a face uncertain of itself, emotional, with a withdrawn hidden beauty. It lacked the forcefulness and vitality of her daughter’s face—that energy and joy of life Carla Lemarchant had doubtless inherited from her father. This was a less positive creature. Yet, looking at the painted face, Hercule Poirot understood why an