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Five Little Pigs :: Christie Agatha
Страница: 135 из 147These accounts were very valuable for they contained certain matter which the police files could not give me-that is to say: A, certain conversations and incidents which, from the police point of view, were not relevant; B, the opinions of the people themselves as to what Caroline Crale was thinking and feeling (not admissible legally as evidence); C, certain facts which had been deliberately withheld from the police.
‘I was in a position now to judge the case formyself. There seems no doubt whatever that Caroline Crale had ample motive for the crime. She loved her husband, he had publicly admitted that he was about to leave her for another woman, and by her own admission she was a jealous woman.
‘To come from motives to means, an empty scent bottle that had contained coniine was found in her bureau drawer. There were no fingerprints upon it but hers. When asked about it by the police, she admitted taking it from this room we are in now. The coniine bottle here also had her fingerprints upon it. I questioned Mr Meredith Blake as to the order in which the five people left this room on that day-for it seemed to me hardly conceivable thatany one should be able to help themselves to the poison whilst five people were in the room. The people left the room in this order-Elsa Greer, Meredith Blake, Angela Warren and Philip Blake, Amyas Crale, and lastly Caroline Crale. Moreover, Mr Meredith Blake has his back to the room whilst he was waiting for Mrs Crale to come out, so that it was impossible for him to see what she was doing. She had, that is to say, the opportunity. I am therefore satisfied that she did take the coniine. There is indirect confirmation of it. Mr Meredith Blake said to me the other day: ‘I can remember standing here and smelling the jasmine through the open window.’ But the month was September, and the jasmine creeper outside that window would have finished flowering. It is the ordinary jasmine which blooms in June and July. But the scent bottle found in her room and which contained the dregs of coniine had originally contained jasmine scent. I take it as certain, then, that Mrs Crale decided to steal the coniine, and surreptitiously emptied out the scent from a bottle she had in her bag.
‘I tested that a second time the other day when I asked Mr Blake to shut his eyes and try and remember the order of leaving the room. A whiff of jasmine scent stimulated his memory immediately. We are all more influenced by smell than we know.
‘So we come to the morning of the fatal day. So far the facts are not in dispute. Miss Greer’s sudden revealing of the fact that she and Mr Crale contemplate marriage, Amyas Crale’s confirmation of that, and Caroline Crale’s deep distress.
‘I was in a position now to judge the case formyself. There seems no doubt whatever that Caroline Crale had ample motive for the crime. She loved her husband, he had publicly admitted that he was about to leave her for another woman, and by her own admission she was a jealous woman.
‘To come from motives to means, an empty scent bottle that had contained coniine was found in her bureau drawer. There were no fingerprints upon it but hers. When asked about it by the police, she admitted taking it from this room we are in now. The coniine bottle here also had her fingerprints upon it. I questioned Mr Meredith Blake as to the order in which the five people left this room on that day-for it seemed to me hardly conceivable thatany one should be able to help themselves to the poison whilst five people were in the room. The people left the room in this order-Elsa Greer, Meredith Blake, Angela Warren and Philip Blake, Amyas Crale, and lastly Caroline Crale. Moreover, Mr Meredith Blake has his back to the room whilst he was waiting for Mrs Crale to come out, so that it was impossible for him to see what she was doing. She had, that is to say, the opportunity. I am therefore satisfied that she did take the coniine. There is indirect confirmation of it. Mr Meredith Blake said to me the other day: ‘I can remember standing here and smelling the jasmine through the open window.’ But the month was September, and the jasmine creeper outside that window would have finished flowering. It is the ordinary jasmine which blooms in June and July. But the scent bottle found in her room and which contained the dregs of coniine had originally contained jasmine scent. I take it as certain, then, that Mrs Crale decided to steal the coniine, and surreptitiously emptied out the scent from a bottle she had in her bag.
‘I tested that a second time the other day when I asked Mr Blake to shut his eyes and try and remember the order of leaving the room. A whiff of jasmine scent stimulated his memory immediately. We are all more influenced by smell than we know.
‘So we come to the morning of the fatal day. So far the facts are not in dispute. Miss Greer’s sudden revealing of the fact that she and Mr Crale contemplate marriage, Amyas Crale’s confirmation of that, and Caroline Crale’s deep distress.