thing that youâve no power to stop. The trial of Caroline Crale is public property. Anyone can go ahead and write it up. Itâs no use my objecting. In a wayâI donât mind telling youâI do dislike it a good deal. Amyas Crale was one of my best friends. Iâm sorry the whole unsavoury business has to be raked up again. But these things happen.â
âYou are a philosopher, Mr. Blake.â
âNo, no. I just know enough not to start kicking against the pricks. I dare say youâll do it less offensively than many others.â
âI hope, at least, to write with delicacy and good taste,â said Poirot.
Philip Blake gave a loud guffaw but without any real amusement. âMakes me chuckle to hear you say that.â
âI 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.â
Philip Blake said:
âI donât know that there was much subtlety about it. It was a pretty obvious business. Crude female jealousy, that was all there was to it.â
âIt would interest me enormously, Mr. Blake, if I could have your own reactions to the affair.â
Philip Blake said with sudden heat, his face deepening in colour.
âReactions! Reactions! Donât speak so pedantically. I didnât just stand there and react! You donât seem to understand that my friendâ my friend, I tell you, had been killedâpoisoned! And that if Iâd acted quicker I could have saved him.â
âHow do you make that out, Mr. Blake?â
âLike this. I take it that youâve already read up the facts of the case?â Poirot nodded. âVery well. Now on that morning my brother Meredith called me up. He was in a pretty good stew. One of his Hell brews was missingâand it was a fairly deadly Hell brew. What did I do? I told him to come along and weâd talk it over. Decide what was best to be done. âDecide what was best.â 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: âCarolineâs pinched one of Meredithâs patent poisons, and you and Elsa had better look out for yourselves.ââ
Blake got up. He strode up and down in his excitement.
âGood God, man. Do you suppose I havenât gone over it in my mind again and again? I knew. I had the chance to save himâand I dallied aboutâwaiting for Meredith! Why hadnât I the sense to realize that Caroline wasnât going to have any qualms or hesitancies. Sheâd taken that stuff to useâand, by God, sheâd used it at the very first opportunity. She wouldnât wait till Meredith discovered his loss. I knewâof course I knewâthat Amyas was in deadly dangerâand I did nothing!â
âI think you reproach yourself unduly, Monsieur. You had not much timeââ
The other interrupted him:
âTime? I had plenty of time. Any amount of courses opento me. I could have gone to Amyas, as I sayâbut there was the chance, of course, that he wouldnât believe me. Amyas wasnât the sort of man whoâd believe easily in his own danger. Heâd 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: âI know what youâre up to. I know what youâre planning to do. But if Amyas or Elsa die of coniine poisoning, youâll be hanged by your neck!â That would have stopped her. Or I might have rung up the police. Oh! there were things that could have been doneâand instead, I let myself be influenced by Meredithâs slow, cautious methods. âWe must be
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