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.

Dear M. Poirot,

As I promised you, I have set down in writing an account of all I can remember relating to the tragic events that happened sixteen years ago. First of all I would like to say that I have thought over carefully all you said to me at our recent meeting. And on reflection I am more convinced than I was before that it is in the highest degree unlikely that Caroline Crale poisoned her husband. It always seemed incongruous, but the absence of any other explanation and her own attitude led me to follow, sheep-like, the opinion of other people and to say with them-that if she didn’t do it, what explanation could there be?

Since seeing you I have reflected very carefully on the alternative solution presented at the time and brought forward by the defence at the trial. That is, that Amyas Crale took his own life. Although from what I knew of him that solution seemed quite fantastic at the time, I now see fit to modify my opinion. To begin with, and highly significant, is the fact that Caroline believed it. If we are now to take it that that charming and gentle lady was unjustly convicted, then her own frequently reiterated belief must carry great weight. She knew Amyas better than anyone else. Ifshe thought suicide possible, then suicidemust have been possible in spite of the scepticism of his friends.

I will advance the theory, therefore, that there was in Amyas Crale some core of conscience, some undercurrent of remorse and even despair at the excesses to which his temperament led him, of which only his wife was aware. This, I think, is a not impossible supposition. He may have shown that side of himself only to her. Though it is inconsistent with anything I ever heard him say, yet it is nevertheless a truth that in most men there is some unsuspected and inconsistent streak which often comes as a surprise to people who have known them intimately. A respected and austere man is discovered to have had a coarser side to his life hidden. A vulgar money-maker has, perhaps, a secret appreciation of some delicate work of art. Hard and ruthless people have been convicted of unsuspected hidden kindnesses. Generous and jovial men have been shown to have a mean and cruel side to them.

So it may be that in Amyas Crale there ran a strain of morbid self-accusation, and that the more he blustered out his egoism and his right to do as he pleased, the more strongly that secret conscience of his worked. It is improbable, on the face of it, but I now believe that it must have been so. And I repeat again, Caroline herself held steadfastly to that view. That, I repeat, is significant!

And now to examinefacts, or rather my memory of facts, in the light of that new belief.

I think that I might with relevance include here a conversation I held with Caroline some weeks before the actual tragedy. It was during Elsa Greer’s first visit to Alderbury.

Caroline, as I have told you, was aware of my deep affection and friendship for her. I was, therefore, the person in whom she could most easily confide. She had not been looking very happy. Nevertheless I was surprised when she suddenly asked me one day whether I thought Amyas really cared very much for this girl he had brought down.

I said: ‘He’s interested in painting her. You know what Amyas is.’

She shook her head and said:

‘No, he’s in love with her.’

‘Well-perhaps a little.’

‘A great deal, I think.’

I said: ‘She is unusually attractive, I admit. And we both know that Amyas is susceptible. But you must know by now, my dear, that Amyas really only cares for one person-and that is you. He has these infatuations-but they don’t last. You are the one person to him, and though he behaves badly, it does not really affect his feeling for you.’

Caroline said: ‘That is what I always used to think.’

‘Believe me, Caro,’ I said. ‘It is so.’

She said: ‘But this time, Merry, I’m afraid. That girl is so-so terribly sincere. She’s so young-and so intense. I’ve a feeling that this time-it’s serious.’

I said: ‘But the very fact that she is so young and, as you say, so sincere, will protect her. On the whole, women are fair game to Amyas, but in the case of a girl like this it will be different.’

She said: ‘Yes, that’s what I’m afraid of-it will be different.’

And she went on. ‘I’m thirty-four, you know, Merry. And we’ve been married ten years. In looks I can’t hold a candle to this Elsa child, and I know it.’

I said: ‘But you know, Caroline, youknow -that Amyas is really devoted to you?’

She said to that: ‘Does one ever know with men?’ And then she laughed a little ruefully and said: ‘I’m a very primitive woman, Merry. I’d like to take a hatchet to that girl.’

I told her that the child probably didn’t understand in the least what she was doing. She had a great admiration and hero-worship for Amyas, and she probably didn’t realize at all that Amyas was falling in love with her.

Caroline just said to me:

‘Dear Merry!’ and began to talk about the garden. I hoped that she was not going to worry any more about the matter.

Shortly afterwards, Elsa went back to London. Amyas was away too for several weeks. I had really forgotten all about the business. And then I heard that Elsa was back again at Alderbury in order that Amyas might finish the picture.

I was a little disturbed by the news. But Caroline, when I saw her, was not in a communicative mood. She seemed quite her usual self-not worried or upset in any way. I imagined that everything was all right.

That’s why it was such a shock to me to learn how far the thing had gone.

I have told you of my conversations with Crale and with Elsa. I had no opportunity of talking to Caroline. We were only able to exchange those few words about which I have already told you.

I can see her face now, the wide dark eyes and the restrained emotion. I can still hear her voice as she said:

‘Everything’s finished…’

I can’t describe to you the infinite desolation she conveyed in those words. They were a literal statement of truth. With Amyas’s defection, everything was finished for her. That, I am convinced, was why she took the conune. It was a way out. A way suggested to her by my stupid dissertation on the drug. And the passage I read from the Ph?do gives a gracious picture of death.

Here is my present belief. She took the coniine, resolved to end her own life when Amyas left her. He may have seen her take it-or he may have discovered that she had it later.

That discovery acted upon him with terrific force. He was horrified at what his actions had led her to contemplate. But notwithstanding his horror and remorse, he still felt himself incapable of giving up Elsa. I can understand that. Any one who had fallen in love with her would find it almost impossible to tear himself away.

Hecould not envisage life without Elsa. He realized that Caroline could not live withouthim. He decided there was only one way out-to use the coniine himself.

And the manner in which he did it might be characteristic of the man, I think. His painting was the dearest thing in life to him. He chose to die literally with his brush in his hand. And the last thing his eyes would see was the face of the girl he loved so desperately. He might have thought, too, that his death would be the best thing for her…

I admit that this theory leaves certain curious facts unexplained. Why, for instance, were only Caroline’s fingerprints found on the empty coniine bottle. I suggest that after Amyas had handled it, all prints got smudged or rubbed off by the soft piles of stuffs that were lying over the bottle and that, after his death, Caroline handled it to see if any one had touched it. Surely that is possible and plausible? As to the evidence about the fingerprints on the beer bottle, the witnesses for the defence were of opinion that a man’s handmight be distorted after taking poison and so could manage to grasp a beer bottle in a wholly unnatural way.

One other thing remains to be explained. Caroline’s own attitude throughout the trial. But I think I have now seen the cause for that. It wasshe who actually took the poison from my laboratory. It washer determination to do away with herself that impelled her husband to take his own life instead. Surely it is not unreasonable to suppose that in a morbid excess of responsibility she considered herself responsible for his death-that she persuaded herself that shewas guilty of murder-though not the kind of murder of which she was being accused?

I think all that could be so. And if that is the case, then surely it will be easy for you to persuade little Carla of the fact? And she can marry her young man and rest contented that the only thing of which her mother was guilty was an impulse (no more) to take her own life.

All this, alas, is not what you asked me for-which was an account of the happenings as I remember them. Let me now repair that omission. I have already told you fully what happened on the day preceding Amyas’s death. We now come to the day itself.

I had slept very badly-worried by the disastrous turn of events for my friends. After a long wakeful period whilst I vainly tried to think of something helpful I could do to avert the catastrophe, I fell into a heavy sleep about six a.m. The bringing of my early tea did not awaken me, and I finally woke up heavy-headed and unrefreshed about half-past nine. It was shortly after that that I thought I heard movements in the room below me, which was the room I used as a laboratory.

I may say here that actually the sounds were probably caused by a cat getting in. I found the window-sash raised a little way as it had carelessly been left from the day before. It was just wide enough to admit the passage of a cat. I merely mention the sounds to explain how I came to enter the laboratory.