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Five Little Pigs :: Christie Agatha
Страница: 145 из 147When she saw Elsa come up to the house (this time really to fetch a pullover), Caroline slipped quickly down to the Battery garden and tackled her husband. What he is doing is shameful! She won’t stand for it! It’s unbelievably cruel and hard on the girl! Amyas, irritable at being interrupted, says it’s all settled-when the picture is done he’ll send the girl packing! “It’s all settled-I’ll send her packing. I tell you.”
‘And then they hear the footsteps of the two Blakes, and Caroline comes out and, slightly embarrassed, murmurs something about Angela and school and having a lot to do, and by a natural association of ideas the two men judge the conversation they have overheard refers toAngela, and “I’ll send her packing” becomes “I’ll see to her packing.”
‘And Elsa, pullover in hand, comes down the path, cool and smiling, and takes up the pose once more.
‘She has counted, no doubt, upon Caroline’s being suspected and the coniine bottle being found in her room. But Caroline now plays into her hands completely. She brings down some iced beer and pours it out for her husband.
‘Amyas tosses it off, making a face and says: “Everything tastes foul today.”
‘Do you not see how significant that remark is?Everything tastes foul? Then there has been something elsebefore that beer that has tasted unpleasant and the taste of which isstill in his mouth. And one other point. Philip Blake speaks of Crale’s staggering a little and wonders “if he has been drinking.” But that slight stagger was thefirst sign of the coniine working, and that meansthat it had already been administered to him some time before Caroline brought him the iced bottle of beer.
‘And so Elsa Greer sat on the grey wall and posed and, since she must keep him from suspecting until it was too late, she talked to Amyas Crale brightly and naturally. Presently she saw Meredith on the bench above and waved her hand to him and acted her part even more thoroughly for his behalf.
‘And Amyas Crale, a man who detested illness and refused to give in to it, painted doggedly on till his limbs failed and his speech thickened, and he sprawled there on that bench, helpless, but with his mind still clear.
‘The bell sounded from the house and Meredith left the bench to come down to the Battery. I think in that brief moment Elsa left her place and ran across to the table and dropped the last few drops of the poison into the beer glass that held that last innocent drink. (She got rid of the dropper on the path up to the house-crushing it to powder.) Then she met Meredith in the doorway.
‘There is a glare there coming in out of the shadows.
‘And then they hear the footsteps of the two Blakes, and Caroline comes out and, slightly embarrassed, murmurs something about Angela and school and having a lot to do, and by a natural association of ideas the two men judge the conversation they have overheard refers toAngela, and “I’ll send her packing” becomes “I’ll see to her packing.”
‘And Elsa, pullover in hand, comes down the path, cool and smiling, and takes up the pose once more.
‘She has counted, no doubt, upon Caroline’s being suspected and the coniine bottle being found in her room. But Caroline now plays into her hands completely. She brings down some iced beer and pours it out for her husband.
‘Amyas tosses it off, making a face and says: “Everything tastes foul today.”
‘Do you not see how significant that remark is?Everything tastes foul? Then there has been something elsebefore that beer that has tasted unpleasant and the taste of which isstill in his mouth. And one other point. Philip Blake speaks of Crale’s staggering a little and wonders “if he has been drinking.” But that slight stagger was thefirst sign of the coniine working, and that meansthat it had already been administered to him some time before Caroline brought him the iced bottle of beer.
‘And so Elsa Greer sat on the grey wall and posed and, since she must keep him from suspecting until it was too late, she talked to Amyas Crale brightly and naturally. Presently she saw Meredith on the bench above and waved her hand to him and acted her part even more thoroughly for his behalf.
‘And Amyas Crale, a man who detested illness and refused to give in to it, painted doggedly on till his limbs failed and his speech thickened, and he sprawled there on that bench, helpless, but with his mind still clear.
‘The bell sounded from the house and Meredith left the bench to come down to the Battery. I think in that brief moment Elsa left her place and ran across to the table and dropped the last few drops of the poison into the beer glass that held that last innocent drink. (She got rid of the dropper on the path up to the house-crushing it to powder.) Then she met Meredith in the doorway.
‘There is a glare there coming in out of the shadows.