Five Little Pigs Read Free

to and realized what she’d done. Don’t believe she ever rallied from the shock.”
    â€œSo in your opinion she was guilty?”
    Depleach looked rather startled. He said:
    â€œEr—well, I thought we were taking that for granted.”
    â€œDid she ever admit to you that she was guilty?”
    Depleach looked shocked.
    â€œOf course not—of course not. We have our code, you know. Innocence is always—er—assumed. If you’re so interested it’s a pity you can’t get hold of old Mayhew. Mayhews were the solicitors who briefed me. Old Mayhew could have told you more than I can. But there—he’s joined the great majority. There’s young George Mayhew, of course, but he was only a boy at the time. It’s a long time ago, you know.”
    â€œYes, I know. It is fortunate for me that you remember so much. You have a remarkable memory.”
    Depleach looked pleased. He murmured:
    â€œOh well, one remembers the main headings, you know. Especially when it’s a capital charge. And, of course, the Crale case got a lot of publicity from the press. Lot of sex interest and all that. The girl in the case was pretty striking. Hard-boiled piece of goods, I thought.”
    â€œYou will forgive me if I seem too insistent,” said Poirot, “but I repeat once more, you had no doubt of Caroline Crale’s guilt?”
    Depleach shrugged his shoulders. He said:
    â€œFrankly—as man to man—I don’t think there’s much doubt about it. Oh yes, she did it all right.”
    â€œWhat was the evidence against her?”
    â€œVery damning indeed. First of all there was motive. She and Crale had led a kind of cat and dog life for years—interminable rows. He was always getting mixed up with some woman or other. Couldn’t help it. He was that kind of man. She stood it pretty well on the whole. Made allowances for him on the score of temperament—and the man really was a first-class painter, you know. His stuff’s gone up enormously in price—enormously. Don’t care for that style of painting myself—ugly forceful stuff, but it’s good —no doubt of that.
    â€œWell, as I say, there had been trouble about women from time to time. Mrs. Crale wasn’t the meek kind who suffers in silence. There were rows all right. But he always came back to her in the end. These affairs of his blew over. But this final affair was rather different. It was a girl, you see—and quite a young girl. She was only twenty.
    â€œElsa Greer, that was her name. She was the only daughter of some Yorkshire manufacturer. She’d got money and determination, and she knew what she wanted. What she wanted was Amyas Crale. She got him to paint her—he didn’t paint regular Society portraits, ‘Mrs. Blinkety Blank in satin and pearls,’ but he painted figures. I don’t know that most women would have cared to be painted by him—he didn’t spare them! But he painted the Greer girl, and he ended by falling for her good and proper. He was getting on for forty, you know, and he’d been married a good many years. He was just ripe for making a fool of himself over some chit of a girl. Elsa Greer was the girl. He was crazy about her, and his idea was to get a divorce from his wife and marry Elsa.
    â€œCaroline Crale wasn’t standing for that. She threatened him. She was overheard by two people to say that if he didn’t give the girl up she’d kill him. And she meant it all right! The day before it happened, they’d been having tea with a neighbour. He was by way of dabbling in herbs and home-brewed medicines. Amongst his patent brews was one of coniine—spotted hemlock. There was some talk about it and its deadly properties.
    â€œThe next day he noticed that half the contents of the bottle had gone. Got the wind up about it. They found an almost empty bottle of it in Mrs. Crale’s room,