Five Little Pigs - Agatha Christie [71]
I met Mr. Crale as I went along to my room. He said good night, but I did not answer.
The next morning was, I remember, a beautiful day. One felt when waking that surely with such peace all around even a man must come to his senses.
I went into Angela’s room before going down to breakfast, but she was already up and out. I picked up a torn skirt which she had left lying on the floor and took it down with me for her to mend after breakfast.
She had, however, obtained bread and marmalade from the kitchen and gone out. After I had had my own breakfast I went in search of her. I mention this to explain why I was not more with Mrs. Crale on that morning as perhaps I should have been. At the time, however, I felt it was my duty to look for Angela. She was very naughty and obstinate about mending her clothes, and I had no intention of allowing her to defy me in the matter.
Her bathing dress was missing and I accordingly went down to the beach. There was no sign of her in the water or on the rocks, so I conceived it possible that she had gone over to Mr. Meredith Blake’s. She and he were great friends. I accordingly rowed myself across and resumed my search. I did not find her and eventually returned. Mrs. Crale, Mr. Blake and Mr. Philip Blake were on the terrace.
It was very hot that morning if one was out of the wind, and the house and terrace were sheltered. Mrs. Crale suggested they might like some iced beer.
There was a little conservatory which had been built on to the house in Victorian days. Mrs. Crale disliked it, and it was not used for plants, but it had been made into a kind of bar, with various bottles of gin, vermouth, lemonade, ginger beer, etc., on shelves, and a small refrigerator which was filled with ice every morning and in which some beer and ginger beer was always kept.
Mrs. Crale went there to get the beer and I went with her. Angela was at the refrigerator and was just taking out a bottle of beer.
Mrs. Crale went in ahead of me. She said:
“I want a bottle of beer to take down to Amyas.”
It is so difficult now to know whether I ought to have suspected anything. Her voice, I feel almost convinced, was perfectly normal. But I must admit that at that moment I was intent, not on her, but on Angela. Angela was by the refrigerator and I was glad to see that she looked red and rather guilty.
I was rather sharp with her, and to my surprise she was quite meek. I asked her where she had been, and she said she had been bathing. I said: “I didn’t see you on the beach.” And she laughed. Then I asked her where her jersey was, and she said she must have left it down on the beach.
I mention these details to explain why I let Mrs. Crale take the beer down to the Battery garden.
The rest of the morning is quite blank in my mind. Angela fetched her needlebook and mended her skirt without any more fuss. I rather think that I mended some of the household linen. Mr. Crale did not come up for lunch. I was glad that he had at least that much decency.
After lunch, Mrs. Crale said she was going down to the Battery. I wanted to retrieve Angela’s jersey from the beach. We started down together. She went into the Battery—I was going on when her cry called me back. As I told you when you came to see me, she asked me to go up and telephone. On the way up I met Mr. Meredith Blake and then went back to Mrs. Crale.
That was my story as I told it at the inquest and later at the trial.
What I am about to write down I have never told to any living soul. I was not asked any question to which I returned an untrue answer. Nevertheless I was guilty of withholding certain facts—I do not repent of that. I would do it again. I am fully aware that in revealing this I may be laying myself open to censure, but I do not think that after this lapse of time anyone will take the matter very seriously—especially since Caroline Crale was convicted without my evidence.
This, then, is what happened.
I met Mr. Meredith Blake as I said, and I ran down the path again as quickly