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Five Little Pigs :: Christie Agatha
Страница: 130 из 147I remember her saying once: “I know you think I spoil Angela, but you see, I always feel there is nothing I can do to make up to herfor what I did.” And on another occasion she said: “To know you have permanently injured another human being is the heaviest burden any one could have to bear.” ’
‘Thank you, Miss Williams. That is all I wanted to know.’
Cecilia Williams said sharply:
‘I don’t understand you, M. Poirot. You showed Carla my account of the tragedy?’
Poirot nodded.
‘And yet you are still-’ She stopped.
Poirot said:
‘Reflect a minute. If you were to pass a fishmonger’s and saw twelve fish laid out on his slab, you would think they were all real fish, would you not? But one of them might be stuffed fish.’
Miss Williams replied with spirit:
‘Most unlikely and anyway-’
‘Ah, unlikely, yes, but not impossible-because a friend of mine once took down a stuffed fish (it was his trade, you comprehend) to compare it with the real thing! And if you saw a bowl of innias in a drawing-room in December you would say that they were false-but they might be real ones flown home from Baghdad.’
‘What is the meaning of all this nonsense?’ demanded Miss Williams.
‘It is to show you that it is the eyes of the mind with which one really sees…’
V
Poirot slowed up a little as he approached the big block of flats overlooking Regent’s Park.
Really, when he came to think of it, he did not want to ask Angela Warren any questions at all. The only question he did want to ask her could wait…
No, it was really only his insatiable passion for symmetry that was bringing him here. Five people-there should be five questions! It was neater so. It rounded off the thing better.
Ah well-he would think of something.
Angela Warren greeted him with something closely approaching eagerness. She said:
‘Have you found out anything? Have you got anywhere?’
Slowly Poirot nodded his head in his best China mandarin manner. He said:
‘At last I make progress.’
‘Philip Blake?’ It was halfway between statement and a question.
‘Mademoiselle, I do not wish to say anything at present. The moment has not yet come. What I will ask of you is to be so good as to come down to Handcross Manor. The others have consented.’
She said with a slight frown:
‘What do you propose to do? Reconstruct something that happened sixteen years ago?’
‘See it, perhaps, from a clearer angle. You will come?’
Angela Warren said slowly:
‘Oh, yes, I’ll come.
‘Thank you, Miss Williams. That is all I wanted to know.’
Cecilia Williams said sharply:
‘I don’t understand you, M. Poirot. You showed Carla my account of the tragedy?’
Poirot nodded.
‘And yet you are still-’ She stopped.
Poirot said:
‘Reflect a minute. If you were to pass a fishmonger’s and saw twelve fish laid out on his slab, you would think they were all real fish, would you not? But one of them might be stuffed fish.’
Miss Williams replied with spirit:
‘Most unlikely and anyway-’
‘Ah, unlikely, yes, but not impossible-because a friend of mine once took down a stuffed fish (it was his trade, you comprehend) to compare it with the real thing! And if you saw a bowl of innias in a drawing-room in December you would say that they were false-but they might be real ones flown home from Baghdad.’
‘What is the meaning of all this nonsense?’ demanded Miss Williams.
‘It is to show you that it is the eyes of the mind with which one really sees…’
V
Poirot slowed up a little as he approached the big block of flats overlooking Regent’s Park.
Really, when he came to think of it, he did not want to ask Angela Warren any questions at all. The only question he did want to ask her could wait…
No, it was really only his insatiable passion for symmetry that was bringing him here. Five people-there should be five questions! It was neater so. It rounded off the thing better.
Ah well-he would think of something.
Angela Warren greeted him with something closely approaching eagerness. She said:
‘Have you found out anything? Have you got anywhere?’
Slowly Poirot nodded his head in his best China mandarin manner. He said:
‘At last I make progress.’
‘Philip Blake?’ It was halfway between statement and a question.
‘Mademoiselle, I do not wish to say anything at present. The moment has not yet come. What I will ask of you is to be so good as to come down to Handcross Manor. The others have consented.’
She said with a slight frown:
‘What do you propose to do? Reconstruct something that happened sixteen years ago?’
‘See it, perhaps, from a clearer angle. You will come?’
Angela Warren said slowly:
‘Oh, yes, I’ll come.