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Five Little Pigs :: Christie Agatha
Страница: 61 из 147Against one wall wassome derelict chemical apparatus and a sink. The room was thick in dust.
Meredith Blake was looking out of the window. He said:
‘How easily it all comes back. Standing here, smelling the jasmine-and talking-talking-like the damned fool I was-about my precious potions and distillations!’
Absently, Poirot stretched a hand through the window. He pulled off a spray of jasmine leaves just breaking from their woody stem.
Meredith Blake moved resolutely across the floor. On the wall was a picture covered with a dust sheet. He jerked the dust sheet away.
Poirot caught his breath. He had seen so far, four pictures of Amyas Crale’s: two at the Tate, one at a London dealer’s, one, the still life of roses. But now he was looking at what the artist himself had called his best picture, and Poirot realized at once what a superb artist the man had been.
The painting had an old superficial smoothness. At first sight it might have been a poster, so seemingly crude were its contrasts. A girl, a girl in a canary-yellow shirt and dark-blue slacks, sitting on a grey wall in full sunlight against a background of violent blue sea. Just the kind of subject for a poster.
But the first appearance was deceptive; there was a subtle distortion-an amazing brilliance and clarity in the light. And the girl-
Yes, here was life. All there was, all there could be of life, of youth, of sheer blazing vitality. The face was alive and the eyes…
So much life! Such passionate youth! That, then, was what Amyas Crale had seen in Elsa Greer, which had made him blind and deaf to the gentle creature, his wife. Elsawas life. Elsa was youth.
A superb, slim, straight creature, arrogant, her head turned, her eyes insolent with triumph. Looking at you, watching you-waiting…
Hercule Poirot spread out his hands. He said:
‘It is a great-yes, it is great-’
Meredith Blake said, a catch in his voice:
‘She was so young-’
Poirot nodded. He thought to himself.
‘What do most people mean when they say that?So young. Something innocent, something appealing, something helpless. But youth is not that! Youth is crude, youth is strong, youth is powerful-yes, and cruel! And one thing more-youth is vulnerable.’
He followed his host to the door. His interest was quickened now in Elsa Greer whom he was to visit next. What would the years have done to that passionate, triumphant crude child?
He looked back at the picture.
Those eyes.
Meredith Blake was looking out of the window. He said:
‘How easily it all comes back. Standing here, smelling the jasmine-and talking-talking-like the damned fool I was-about my precious potions and distillations!’
Absently, Poirot stretched a hand through the window. He pulled off a spray of jasmine leaves just breaking from their woody stem.
Meredith Blake moved resolutely across the floor. On the wall was a picture covered with a dust sheet. He jerked the dust sheet away.
Poirot caught his breath. He had seen so far, four pictures of Amyas Crale’s: two at the Tate, one at a London dealer’s, one, the still life of roses. But now he was looking at what the artist himself had called his best picture, and Poirot realized at once what a superb artist the man had been.
The painting had an old superficial smoothness. At first sight it might have been a poster, so seemingly crude were its contrasts. A girl, a girl in a canary-yellow shirt and dark-blue slacks, sitting on a grey wall in full sunlight against a background of violent blue sea. Just the kind of subject for a poster.
But the first appearance was deceptive; there was a subtle distortion-an amazing brilliance and clarity in the light. And the girl-
Yes, here was life. All there was, all there could be of life, of youth, of sheer blazing vitality. The face was alive and the eyes…
So much life! Such passionate youth! That, then, was what Amyas Crale had seen in Elsa Greer, which had made him blind and deaf to the gentle creature, his wife. Elsawas life. Elsa was youth.
A superb, slim, straight creature, arrogant, her head turned, her eyes insolent with triumph. Looking at you, watching you-waiting…
Hercule Poirot spread out his hands. He said:
‘It is a great-yes, it is great-’
Meredith Blake said, a catch in his voice:
‘She was so young-’
Poirot nodded. He thought to himself.
‘What do most people mean when they say that?So young. Something innocent, something appealing, something helpless. But youth is not that! Youth is crude, youth is strong, youth is powerful-yes, and cruel! And one thing more-youth is vulnerable.’
He followed his host to the door. His interest was quickened now in Elsa Greer whom he was to visit next. What would the years have done to that passionate, triumphant crude child?
He looked back at the picture.
Those eyes.