Five Little Pigs (Hercule Poirot 25)

Aloud he said:

“I am quite sure of it. That was the order. Elsa, myself, Philip, Angela and Caroline. Does that help you at all?”

Poirot said:

“It all fits in. Listen. I want to arrange a meeting here. It will not, I think, be difficult….”

III

“Well?”

Elsa Dittisham said it almost eagerly—like a child.

“I want to ask you a question, madame.”

“Yes?”

Poirot said:

“After it was all over—the trial, I mean—did Meredith Blake ask you to marry him?”

Elsa stared. She looked contemptuous—almost bored.

“Yes—he did. Why?”

“Were you surprised?”

“Was I? I don’t remember.”

“What did you say?”

Elsa laughed. She said:

“What do you think I said? After Amyas—Meredith? It would have been ridiculous! It was stupid of him. He always was rather stupid.”

She smiled suddenly.

“He wanted, you know, to protect me—to ‘look after me’—that’s how he put it! He thought like everybody else that the Assizes had been a terrible ordeal for me. And the reporters! And the booing crowds! And all the mud that was slung at me.”

She brooded a minute. Then said:

“Poor old Meredith! Such an ass!” And laughed again.

IV

Once again Hercule Poirot encountered the shrewd penetrating glance of Miss Williams, and once again felt the years falling away and himself a meek and apprehensive little boy.

There was, he explained, a question he wished to ask.

Miss Williams intimated her willingness to hear what the question was.

Poirot said slowly, picking his words carefully:

“Angela Warren was injured as a very young child. In my notes I find two references to that fact. In one of them it is stated that Mrs. Crale threw a paperweight at the child. In the other that she attacked the baby with a crowbar. Which of those versions is the right one?”

Miss Williams replied briskly:

“I never heard anything about a crowbar. The paperweight is the correct story.”