He turned sharply on Poirot.
“And you? What do you think?”
There was a silence.
“As yet,” said Poirot at last, “I think nothing. I collect only the impressions. What Caroline Crale was like. What Amyas Crale was like. What the other people who were there at the time were like. What happened exactly on those two days. That is what I need. To go over the facts laboriously one by one. Your brother is going to help me there. He is sending me an account of the events as he remembers them.”
Meredith Blake said sharply:
“You won’t get much from that. Philip’s a busy man. Things slip his memory once they’re past and done with. Probably he’ll remember things all wrong.”
“There will be gaps, of course. I realize that.”
“I tell you what—” Meredith paused abruptly, then went on, reddening a little as he spoke. “If you like, I—I could do the same. I mean, it would be a kind of check, wouldn’t it?”
Hercule Poirot said warmly:
“It would be most valuable. An idea of the first excellence!”
“Right. I will. I’ve got some old diaries somewhere. Mind you,” he laughed awkwardly. “I’m not much of a hand at literary language. Even my spelling’s not too good. You—you won’t expect too much?”
“Ah, it is not the style I demand. Just a plain recital of everything you can remember. What every one said, how they looked—just what happened. Never mind if it doesn’t seem relevant. It all helps with the atmosphere, so to speak.”
“Yes, I can see that. It must be difficult visualizing people and places you have never seen.”
Poirot nodded.
“There is another thing I wanted to ask you. Alderbury is the adjoining property to this, is it not? Would it be possible to go there—to see with my own eyes where the tragedy occurred?”
Meredith Blake said slowly:
“I can take you over there right away. But, of course, it is a good deal changed.”
“It has not been built over?”
“No, thank goodness—not quite so bad as that. But it’s a kind of hostel now—it was bought by some society. Hordes of young people come down to it in the summer, and of course all the rooms have been cut up and partitioned into cubicles, and the grounds have been altered a good deal.”
“You must reconstruct it for me by your explanations.”
“I’ll do my best. I wish you could have seen it in the old days. It was one of the loveliest properties I know.”
He led the way out through the window and began walking down a slope of lawn.
“Who was responsible for selling it?”
“The executors on behalf of the child. Everything Crale had came to her. He hadn’t made a will, so I imagine that it would be divided automatically between his wife and the child. Caroline’s will left what she had to the child also.”
“Nothing to her half sister?”
“Angela had a certain amount of money of her own left her by her father.”
Poirot nodded. “I see.”
Then he uttered an exclamation:
“But where is it that you take me? This is the seashore ahead of us!”
“Ah, I must explain our geography to you. You’ll see for yourself in a minute. There’s a creek, you see, Camel Creek, they call it, runs inland—looks almost like a river mouth, but it isn’t—it’s just sea. To get to Alderbury by land you have to go right inland and round the creek, but the shortest way from one house to the other is to row across this narrow bit of the creek. Alderbury is just opposite—there, you can see the house through the trees.”