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Five Little Pigs :: Christie Agatha
Страница: 120 из 147Angela was at the refrigerator and was just taking out a bottle of beer.
Mrs Crale went in ahead of me. She said:
‘I want a bottle of beer to take down to Amyas.’
It is so difficult now to know whether I ought to have suspected anything. Her voice, I feel almost convinced, was perfectly normal. But I must admit that at that moment I was intent, not on her, but on Angela. Angela was by the refrigerator and I was glad to see that she looked red and rather guilty.
I was rather sharp with her, and to my surprise she was quite meek. I asked her where she had been, and she said she had been bathing. I said: ‘I didn’t see you on the beach.’ And she laughed. Then I asked her where her jersey was, and she said she must have left it down on the beach.
I mention these details to explain why I let Mrs Crale take the beer down to the Battery garden.
The rest of the morning is quite blank in my mind. Angela fetched her needle-book and mended her skirt without any more fuss. I rather think that I mended some of the household linen. Mr Crale did not come up for lunch. I was glad that he had at leastthat much decency.
After lunch, Mrs Crale said she was going down to the Battery. I wanted to retrieve Angela’s jersey from the beach. We started down together. She went into the Battery-I was going on when her cry called me back. As I told you when you came to see me, she asked me to go up and telephone. On the way up I met Mr Meredith Blake and then went back to Mrs Crale.
That was my story as I told it at the inquest and later at the trial.
What I am about to write down I have never told to any living soul. I was not asked any question to which I returned an untrue answer. Nevertheless Iwas guilty of withholding certain facts-I do not repent of that. I would do it again. I am fully aware that in revealing this I may be laying myself open to censure, but I do not think that after this lapse of time any one will take the matter very seriously-especially since Caroline Crale was convicted without my evidence.
This, then, is what happened.
I met Mr Meredith Blake as I said, and I ran down the path again as quickly as I could. I was wearing sandshoes and I have always been light on my feet. I came to the open Battery door, and this is what I saw.
Mrs Crale was busily polishing the beer bottle on the table with her handkerchief. Having done so, she took her dead husband’s hand and pressed the fingers of it on the beer bottle. All the time she was listening and on the alert. It was the fear I saw on her face that told me the truth.
Mrs Crale went in ahead of me. She said:
‘I want a bottle of beer to take down to Amyas.’
It is so difficult now to know whether I ought to have suspected anything. Her voice, I feel almost convinced, was perfectly normal. But I must admit that at that moment I was intent, not on her, but on Angela. Angela was by the refrigerator and I was glad to see that she looked red and rather guilty.
I was rather sharp with her, and to my surprise she was quite meek. I asked her where she had been, and she said she had been bathing. I said: ‘I didn’t see you on the beach.’ And she laughed. Then I asked her where her jersey was, and she said she must have left it down on the beach.
I mention these details to explain why I let Mrs Crale take the beer down to the Battery garden.
The rest of the morning is quite blank in my mind. Angela fetched her needle-book and mended her skirt without any more fuss. I rather think that I mended some of the household linen. Mr Crale did not come up for lunch. I was glad that he had at leastthat much decency.
After lunch, Mrs Crale said she was going down to the Battery. I wanted to retrieve Angela’s jersey from the beach. We started down together. She went into the Battery-I was going on when her cry called me back. As I told you when you came to see me, she asked me to go up and telephone. On the way up I met Mr Meredith Blake and then went back to Mrs Crale.
That was my story as I told it at the inquest and later at the trial.
What I am about to write down I have never told to any living soul. I was not asked any question to which I returned an untrue answer. Nevertheless Iwas guilty of withholding certain facts-I do not repent of that. I would do it again. I am fully aware that in revealing this I may be laying myself open to censure, but I do not think that after this lapse of time any one will take the matter very seriously-especially since Caroline Crale was convicted without my evidence.
This, then, is what happened.
I met Mr Meredith Blake as I said, and I ran down the path again as quickly as I could. I was wearing sandshoes and I have always been light on my feet. I came to the open Battery door, and this is what I saw.
Mrs Crale was busily polishing the beer bottle on the table with her handkerchief. Having done so, she took her dead husband’s hand and pressed the fingers of it on the beer bottle. All the time she was listening and on the alert. It was the fear I saw on her face that told me the truth.