Читать книгу Five Little Pigs - Agatha Christie, Georgette Heyer, Mary Westmacott - Страница 9

‘Guilty as Hell,’ said Mr Fogg succinctly.

Hercule Poirot looked meditatively at the thin clear-cut face of the barrister.

Quentin Fogg, K.C. was a very different type from Montague Depleach. Depleach had force, magnetism, an over-bearing and slightly bullying personality. He got his effects by a rapid and dramatic change of manner. Handsome, urbane, charming one minute—then an almost magical transformation, lips back, snarling smile—out for your blood.

Quentin Fogg was thin, pale, singularly lacking in what is called personality. His questions were quiet and unemotional—but steadily persistent. If Depleach was like a rapier, Fogg was like an auger. He bored steadily. He had never reached spectacular fame, but he was known as a first-class man on law. He usually won his cases.

Hercule Poirot eyed him meditatively.

‘So that,’ he said, ‘was how it struck you?’

Fogg nodded. He said:

‘You should have seen her in the box. Old Humpie Rudolph (he was leading, you know) simply made mincement of her. Mincemeat!’

He paused and then said unexpectedly:

‘On the whole, you know, it was rather too much of a good thing.’

‘I am not sure,’ said Hercule Poirot, ‘that I quite understand you?’

Fogg drew his delicately marked brows together. His sensitive hand stroked his bare upper lip. He said:

‘How shall I put it? It’s a very English point of view. “Shooting the sitting bird” describes it best. Is that intelligible to you?’

‘It is, as you say, a very English point of view, but I think I understand you. In the Central Criminal Court, as on the playing fields of Eton, and in the hunting country, the Englishman likes the victim to have a sporting chance.’

‘That’s it, exactly. Well, in this case, the accused didn’t have a chance. Humpie Rudolph did as he liked with her. It started with her examination by Depleach. She stood up there, you know—as docile as a little girl at a party, answering Depleach’s questions with the answers she’d learnt off by heart. Quite docile, word perfect—and absolutely unconvincing! She’d been told what to say and she said it. It wasn’t Depleach’s fault. That old mountebank played his part perfectly—but in any scene that needs two actors, one alone can’t carry it. She didn’t play up to him. It made the worst possible effect on the jury. And then old Humpie got up. I expect you’ve seen him? He’s a great loss. Hitching his gown up, swaying back on his feet—and then—straight off the mark!

‘As I tell you, he made mincemeat of her! Led up to this and that—and she fell into the pitfall every time. He got her to admit the absurdities of her own statements, he got her to contradict herself, she floundered in deeper and deeper. And then he wound up with his usual stuff. Very compelling—very convinced: “I suggest to you, Mrs Crale, that this story of yours about stealing coniine in order to commit suicide is a tissue of falsehood. I suggest that you took it in order to administer it to your husband who was about to leave you for another woman, and that you did deliberately administer it to him.” And she looked at him—such a pretty creature—graceful, delicate—and she said: “Oh, no—no, I didn’t.” It was the flattest thing you ever heard—the most unconvincing. I saw old Depleach squirm in his seat. He knew it was all up them.’

Fogg paused a minute—then he went on:

‘And yet—I don’t know. In some ways it was the cleverest thing she could have done! It appealed to chivalry—to that queer chivalry closely allied to blood sports which makes most foreigners think us such almighty humbugs! The jury felt—the whole court felt—that she hadn’t got a chance. She couldn’t even fight for herself. She certainly couldn’t put up any kind of a show against a great big clever brute like old Humpie. That weak, unconvincing: “Oh no—no, I didn’t,” it was pathetic—simply pathetic. She was done for!

‘Yes, in a way, it was the best thing she could have done. The jury were only out just over half an hour. They brought her in: Guilty with a recommendation to mercy.

‘Actually, you know, she made a good contrast to the other woman in the case. The girl. The jury were unsympathetic to her from the start. She never turned a hair. Very good looking, hard-boiled, modern. To the women in the court she stood for a type—type of the home-breaker. Homes weren’t safe when girls like that were wandering abroad. Girls damn full of sex and contemptuous of the rights of wives and mothers. She didn’t spare herself, I will say. She was honest. Admirably honest. She’d fallen in love with Amyas Crale and he with her, and she’d no scruples at all about taking him away from his wife and child.

‘I admired her in a way. She had guts. Depleach put in some nasty stuff in cross-examination and she stood up well to it. But the court was unsympathetic. And the judge didn’t like her. Old Avis, it was. Been a bit of a rip himself when young—but he’s very hot on morality when he’s presiding in his robes. His summing up against Caroline Crale was mildness itself. He couldn’t deny the facts but he threw out pretty strong hints as to provocation and all that.’

Hercule Poirot asked:

‘He did not support the suicide theory of the defence?’

Fogg shook his head.

‘That never really had a leg to stand upon. Mind you, I don’t say Depleach didn’t do his best with it. He was magnificent. He painted a most moving picture of a great-hearted, pleasure-loving, temperamental man, suddenly overtaken by a passion for a lovely young girl, conscience stricken, yet unable to resist. Then his recoil, his disgust with himself, his remorse for the way he was treating his wife and child and his sudden decision to end it all! The honourable way out. I can tell you, it was a most moving performance; Depleach’s voice brought tears to your eyes. You saw the poor wretch torn by his passions and his essential decency. The effect was terrific. Only—when it was all over—and the spell was broken, you couldn’t quite square that mythical figure with Amyas Crale. Everybody knew too much about Crale. He wasn’t at all that kind of man. And Depleach hadn’t been able to get hold of any evidence to show that he was. I should say Crale came as near as possible to being a man without even a rudimentary conscience. He was a ruthless, selfish, good-tempered happy egoist. Any ethics he had would have applied to painting. He wouldn’t, I’m convinced, have painted a sloppy, bad picture—no matter what the inducement. But for the rest, he was a full-blooded man and he loved life—he had a zest for it. Suicide? Not he!’

‘Not, perhaps, a very good defence to have chosen?’

Fogg shrugged his thin shoulders. He said:

‘What else was there? Couldn’t sit back and plead that there was no case for the jury—that the prosecution had got to prove their case against the accused. There was a great deal too much proof. She’d handled the poison—admitted pinching it, in fact. There was means, motive, opportunity—everything.’

‘One might have attempted to show that these things were artificially arranged?’

Fog said bluntly:

‘She admitted most of them. And, in any case, it’s too far-fetched. You’re implying, I presume, that somebody else murdered him and fixed it up to look as though she had done it.’

‘You think that quite untenable?’

Fogg said slowly:

‘I’m afraid I do. You’re suggesting the mysterious X. Where do we look for him?’

Poirot said:

‘Obviously in a close circle. There were five people, were there not, who could have been concerned?’

‘Five? Let me see. There was the old duffer who messed about with his herb brewing. A dangerous hobby—but an amiable creature. Vague sort of person. Don’t see him as X. There was the girl—she might have polished off Caroline, but certainly not Amyas. Then there was the stockbroker—Crale’s best friend. That’s popular in detective stories, but I don’t believe in it in real life. There’s no one else—oh yes, the kid sister, but one doesn’t seriously consider her. That’s four.’

Hercule Poirot said:

‘You forget the governess.’

‘Yes, that’s true. Wretched people, governesses, one never does remember them. I do recall her dimly though. Middle-aged, plain, competent. I suppose a psychologist would say that she had a guilty passion for Crale and therefore killed him. The repressed spinster! It’s no good—I just don’t believe it. As far as my dim remembrance goes she wasn’t the neurotic type.’

‘It is a long time ago.’

‘Fifteen or sixteen years, I suppose. Yes, quite that. You can’t expect my memories of the case to be very acute.’

Hercule Poirot said:

‘But on the contrary, you remember it amazingly well. That astounds me. You can see it, can you not? When you talk the picture is there before your eyes.’

Fogg said slowly:

‘Yes, you’re right—I do see it—quite plainly.’

Poirot said:

‘It would interest me, my friend, very much, if you would tell me why?’

‘Why?’ Fogg considered the question. His thin intellectual face was alert—interested. ‘Yes, now why?’

Poirot asked:

‘What do you see so plainly? The witnesses? The counsel? The judge? The accused standing in the dock?’

Fogg said quietly:

‘That’s the reason, of course! You’ve put your finger on it. I shall always see her…Funny thing, romance. She had the quality of it. I don’t know if she was really beautiful…She wasn’t very young—tired looking—circles under her eyes. But it all centered round her. The interest—the drama. And yet, half the time, she wasn’t there. She’d gone away somewhere, quite far away—just left her body there, quiescent, attentive, with the little polite smile on her lips. She was all half tones, you know, lights and shades. And yet, with it all, she was more alive than the other—that girl with the perfect body, and the beautiful face, and the crude young strength. I admired Elsa Greer because she had guts, because she could fight, because she stood up to her tormentors and never quailed! But I admired Caroline Crale because she didn’t fight, because she retreated into her world of half lights and shadows. She was never defeated because she never gave battle.’

He paused:

‘I’m only sure of one thing. She loved the man she killed. Loved him so much that half of her died with him…’

Mr Fogg, K.C., paused and polished his glasses.

‘Dear me,’ he said. ‘I seem to be saying some very strange things! I was quite a young man at the time, you know. Just an ambitious youngster. These things make an impression. But all the same I’m sure that Caroline Crale was a very remarkable woman. I shall never forget her. No—I shall never forget her…’