“And that, as you say, is where I come in! It is proposed to rewrite the stories of certain bygone crimes—from the psychological angle. Psychology in crime, it is my speciality. I have accepted the commission.”
Philip Blake grinned.
“Pretty lucrative, I suppose?”
“I hope so—I certainly hope so.”
“Congratulations. Now, perhaps, you’ll tell me where I come in?”
“Most certainly. The Crale case, Monsieur.”
Phillip Blake did not look startled. But he looked thoughtful. He said:
“Yes, of course, the Crale case….”
Hercule Poirot said anxiously:
“It is not displeasing to you, Mr. Blake?”
“Oh, as to that.” Philip Blake shrugged his shoulders. “It’s no use resenting a thing that you’ve no power to stop. The trial of Caroline Crale is public property. Anyone can go ahead and write it up. It’s no use my objecting. In a way—I don’t mind telling you—I do dislike it a good deal. Amyas Crale was one of my best friends. I’m sorry the whole unsavoury business has to be raked up again. But these things happen.”
“You are a philosopher, Mr. Blake.”
“No, no. I just know enough not to start kicking against the pricks. I dare say you’ll do it less offensively than many others.”
“I hope, at least, to write with delicacy and good taste,” said Poirot.
Philip Blake gave a loud guffaw but without any real amusement. “Makes me chuckle to hear you say that.”
“I assure you, Mr. Blake, I am really interested. It is not just a matter of money with me. I genuinely want to recreate the past, to feel and see the events that took place, to see behind the obvious and to visualize the thoughts and feelings of the actors in the drama.”
Philip Blake said:
“I don’t know that there was much subtlety about it. It was a pretty obvious business. Crude female jealousy, that was all there was to it.”
“It would interest me enormously, Mr. Blake, if I could have your own reactions to the affair.”
Philip Blake said with sudden heat, his face deepening in colour.
“Reactions! Reactions! Don’t speak so pedantically. I didn’t just stand there and react! You don’t seem to understand that my friend—my friend, I tell you, had been killed—poisoned! And that if I’d acted quicker I could have saved him.”
“How do you make that out, Mr. Blake?”
“Like this. I take it that you’ve already read up the facts of the case?” Poirot nodded. “Very well. Now on that morning my brother Meredith called me up. He was in a pretty good stew. One of his Hell brews was missing—and it was a fairly deadly Hell brew. What did I do? I told him to come along and we’d talk it over. Decide what was best to be done. ‘Decide what was best.’ It beats me now how I could have been such a hesitating fool! I ought to have realized that there was no time to lose. I ought to have gone to Amyas straight away and warned him. I ought to have said: ‘Caroline’s pinched one of Meredith’s patent poisons, and you and Elsa had better look out for yourselves.’”
Blake got up. He strode up and down in his excitement.
“Good God, man. Do you suppose I haven’t gone over it in my mind again and again? I knew. I had the chance to save him—and I dallied about—waiting for Meredith! Why hadn’t I the sense to realize that Caroline wasn’t going to have any qualms or hesitancies. She’d taken that stuff to use—and, by God, she’d used it at the very first opportunity. She wouldn’t wait till Meredith discovered his loss. I knew—of course I knew—that Amyas was in deadly danger—and I did nothing!”
“I think you reproach yourself unduly, Monsieur. You had not much time—”
The other interrupted him:
“Time? I had plenty of time. Any amount of courses open to me. I could have gone to Amyas, as I say—but there was the chance, of course, that he wouldn’t believe me. Amyas wasn’t the sort of man who’d believe easily in his own danger. He’d have scoffed at the notion. And he never thoroughly understood the sort of devil Caroline was. But I could have gone to her. I could have said: ‘I know what you’re up to. I know what you’re planning to do. But if Amyas or Elsa die of coniine poisoning, you’ll be hanged by your neck!’ That would have stopped her. Or I might have rung up the police. Oh! there were things that could have been done—and instead, I let myself be influenced by Meredith’s slow, cautious methods. ‘We must be sure—talk it over—make quite certain who could have taken it…’ Damned old fool—never made a quick decision in his life! A good thing for him he was the eldest son and has an estate to live on. If he’d ever tried to make money he’d have lost every penny he had.”
Poirot asked:
“You had no doubt yourself who had taken the poison?”