Then I went off bathing with Angela. We had a good swim—across the creek and back, and then we lay out on the rocks sunbathing. Angela was a bit taciturn and that suited me. I made up my mind that directly after lunch I’d take Caroline aside and accuse her point-blank of having stolen the stuff. No use letting Meredith do it—he’d be too weak. No, I’d tax her with it outright. After that she’d have to give it back, or even if she didn’t she wouldn’t dare use it. I was pretty sure it must be her on thinking things over. Elsa was far too sensible and hard-boiled a young woman to risk tampering with poisons. She had a hard head and would take care of her own skin. Caroline was made of more dangerous stuff—unbalanced, carried away by impulses and definitely neurotic. And still, you know, at the back of my mind was the feeling that Meredith might have made a mistake. Or some servant might have been poking about in there and split the stuff and then not dared to own up. You see, poison seems such a melodramatic thing—you can’t believe in it.
Not till it happens.
It was quite late when I looked at my watch, and Angela and I fairly raced up to lunch. They were just sitting down—all but Amyas, who had remained down in the Battery painting. Quite a normal thing for him to do—and privately I thought him very wise to elect to do it today. Lunch was likely to have been an awkward meal.
We had coffee on the terrace. I wish I could remember better how Caroline looked and acted. She didn’t seem excited in any way. Quiet and rather sad is my impression. What a devil that woman was!
For it is a devilish thing to do, to poison a man in cold blood. If there had been a revolver about and she caught it up and shot him—well, that might have been understandable. But this cold, deliberate, vindictive poisoning…. And so calm and collected.
She got up and said she’d take his coffee to him in the most natural way possible. And yet she knew—she must have known—that by now she’d find him dead. Miss Williams went with her. I don’t remember if that was at Caroline’s suggestion or not. I rather think it was.
The two women went off together. Meredith strolled away shortly afterwards. I was just making an excuse to go after him, when he came running up the path again. His face was grey. He gasped out:
“We must get a doctor—quick—Amyas—”
I sprang up.
“Is he ill—dying?”
Meredith said:
“I’m afraid he’s dead….”
We’d forgotten Elsa for the minute. But she let out a sudden cry. It was like the wail of a banshee.
She cried:
“Dead? Dead?…” And then she ran. I didn’t know anyone could move like that—like a deer—like a stricken thing. And like an avenging Fury, too.
Meredith panted out:
“Go after her. I’ll telephone. Go after her. You don’t know what she’ll do.”
I did go after her—and it’s as well I did. She might quite easily have killed Caroline. I’ve never seen such grief and such frenzied hate. All the veneer of refinement and education was stripped off. You could see her father and her father’s mother and father had been millhands. Deprived of her lover, she was just elemental woman. She’d have clawed Caroline’s face, torn her hair, hurled her over the parapet if she could. She thought for some reason or other that Caroline had knifed him. She’d got it all wrong—naturally.
I held her off, and then Miss Williams took charge. She was good, I must say. She got Elsa to control herself in under a minute—told her she’d got to be quiet and that we couldn’t have this noise and violence going on. She was a tartar, that woman. But she did the trick. Elsa was quiet—just stood there gasping and trembling.
As for Caroline, so far as I am concerned, the mask was right off. She stood there perfectly quiet—you might have said dazed. But she wasn’t dazed. It was her eyes gave her away. They were watchful—fully aware and quietly watchful. She’d begun, I suppose, to be afraid….
I went up to her and spoke to her. I said it quite low. I don’t think either of the two women overheard.
I said:
“You damned murderess, you’ve killed my best friend.”
She shrank back. She said:
“No—oh no—he—he did it himself….”
I looked her full in the eyes. I said:
“You can tell that story—to the police.”
She did—and they didn’t believe her.
End of Philip Blake’s Statement.
Narrative of Meredith Blake