JК
Five Little Pigs :: Christie Agatha
Страница: 82 из 147’
‘Can one say that with certainty of any human creature?’
‘Probably not in most cases. I agree that the human animal is full of curious surprises. But in Caroline’s case there were special reasons-reasons which I have a better chance of appreciating than any one else could.’
She touched her damaged cheek.
‘You see this? You’ve probably heard about it?’ Poirot nodded. ‘Caroline did that. That’s why I’m sure-Iknow -that she didn’t do murder.’
‘It would not be a convincing argument to most people.’
‘No, it would be the opposite. It was actually used in that way, I believe. As evidence that Caroline had a violent and ungovernable temper! Because she had injured me as a baby, learned men argued that she would be equally capable of poisoning an unfaithful husband.’
Poirot said:
‘I, at least, appreciated the difference. A sudden fit of ungovernable rage does not lead you to first abstract a poison and then use it deliberately on the following day.’
Angela Warren waved an impatient hand.
‘That’s not what I mean at all. I must try and make it plain to you. Supposing that you are a person normally affectionate and of kindly disposition-but that you are also liable to intense jealousy. And supposing that during the years of your life when control is most difficult, you do, in a fit of rage, come near to committing what is, in effect, murder. Think of the awful shock, the horror, the remorse that seizes upon you. To a sensitive person, like Caroline, that horror and remorse will never quite leave you. It never left her. I don’t suppose I was consciously aware of it at the time, but looking back I recognize it perfectly. Caro was haunted, continually haunted, by the fact that she had injured me. That knowledge never left her in peace. It coloured all her actions. It explained her attitude to me. Nothing was too good for me. In her eyes, I must always come first. Half the quarrels she had with Amyas were on my account. I was inclined to be jealous of him and played all kinds of tricks on him. I pinched cat stuff to put in his drink, and once I put a hedgehog in his bed. But Caroline was always on my side.’
Miss Warren paused, then she went on:
‘It was very bad for me, of course. I got horribly spoilt. But that’s neither here nor there. We’re discussing the effect on Caroline. The result of that impulse to violence was a life-long abhorrence of any further act of the same kind. Caro was always watching herself, always in fear that something of that kind might happen again. And she took her own ways of guarding against it.
‘Can one say that with certainty of any human creature?’
‘Probably not in most cases. I agree that the human animal is full of curious surprises. But in Caroline’s case there were special reasons-reasons which I have a better chance of appreciating than any one else could.’
She touched her damaged cheek.
‘You see this? You’ve probably heard about it?’ Poirot nodded. ‘Caroline did that. That’s why I’m sure-Iknow -that she didn’t do murder.’
‘It would not be a convincing argument to most people.’
‘No, it would be the opposite. It was actually used in that way, I believe. As evidence that Caroline had a violent and ungovernable temper! Because she had injured me as a baby, learned men argued that she would be equally capable of poisoning an unfaithful husband.’
Poirot said:
‘I, at least, appreciated the difference. A sudden fit of ungovernable rage does not lead you to first abstract a poison and then use it deliberately on the following day.’
Angela Warren waved an impatient hand.
‘That’s not what I mean at all. I must try and make it plain to you. Supposing that you are a person normally affectionate and of kindly disposition-but that you are also liable to intense jealousy. And supposing that during the years of your life when control is most difficult, you do, in a fit of rage, come near to committing what is, in effect, murder. Think of the awful shock, the horror, the remorse that seizes upon you. To a sensitive person, like Caroline, that horror and remorse will never quite leave you. It never left her. I don’t suppose I was consciously aware of it at the time, but looking back I recognize it perfectly. Caro was haunted, continually haunted, by the fact that she had injured me. That knowledge never left her in peace. It coloured all her actions. It explained her attitude to me. Nothing was too good for me. In her eyes, I must always come first. Half the quarrels she had with Amyas were on my account. I was inclined to be jealous of him and played all kinds of tricks on him. I pinched cat stuff to put in his drink, and once I put a hedgehog in his bed. But Caroline was always on my side.’
Miss Warren paused, then she went on:
‘It was very bad for me, of course. I got horribly spoilt. But that’s neither here nor there. We’re discussing the effect on Caroline. The result of that impulse to violence was a life-long abhorrence of any further act of the same kind. Caro was always watching herself, always in fear that something of that kind might happen again. And she took her own ways of guarding against it.