Five Little Pigs Read Online Free PDF Page A

it,' I used to say to myself. But, if you take my meaning, Mr Poirot, there wasn't anything else to believe. That hemlock didn't get into Mr Crale's beer by accident. It was put there. And if Mrs Crale didn't put it there, who did?”
    “That is the question,” said Poirot. “Who did?”
    Again that shrewd eyes studied his face.
    “So that's your idea?” said Mr Edmunds.
    “What do you think yourself?”
    There was a pause before the other answered. Then he said, “There was nothing that pointed that way - nothing at all.”
    Poirot said, “You were in court during the hearing of the case?”
    “Every day.”
    “You heard the witnesses give evidence?”
    “I did.”
    “Did anything strike you about them - any abnormality, and insincerity?”
    “Was one of them lying, do you mean?” Edmunds said bluntly. “Had one of them a reason to wish Mr Crale dead? If you'll excuse me, Mr Poirot, that's a very melodramatic idea.”
    “At least consider it,” Poirot urged.
    He watched the shrewd face, the screwed-up, thoughtful eyes. Slowly, regretfully, Edmunds shook his head.
    “That Miss Greer,” he said, "she was bitter enough, and vindictive! I'd say she overstepped the mark in a good deal she said, but it was Mr Crale alive she wanted. He was no use to her dead. She wanted Mrs Crale hanged, all right - but that was because death had snatched her man away from her. Like a balked tigress she was! But, as I say, it was Mr Crale alive she'd wanted. Mr Philip Blake, he was against Mrs Crale, too. Prejudiced. Got his knife into her whenever he could. But I'd say he was honest according to his lights. He'd been Mr Crale's great friend. His brother, Mr Meredith Blake, a bad witness he was - vague, hesitating, never seemed sure of his answers.
    “I've seen many witnesses like that. Look as though they're lying when all the time they're telling the truth. Didn't want to say anything more than he could help, Mr Meredith Blake didn't. Counsel got all the more out of him on that account. One of those quiet gentlemen who get easily flustered. The governess, now, she stood up well to them. Didn't waste words and answered pat and to the point. You couldn't have told, listening to her, which side she was on. Got all her wits about her, she had. The brisk kind.” He paused. “Knew a lot more than she ever let on about the whole thing, I shouldn't wonder.”
    “I, too, should not wonder,” said Hercule Poirot.
    He looked sharply at the wrinkled, shrewd face of Mr Alfred Edmunds. It was quite bland and impassive. But Hercule Poirot wondered if he had been vouchsafed a hint.
    Mr Caleb Johnathan lived in Essex. After a courteous exchange of letters, Hercule Poirot received an invitation, almost royal in its character, to dine and sleep. The old gentleman was decidedly a character. After the insipidity of young George Mayhew, Mr Johnathan was like a glass of his own vintage port.
    He had his own methods of approach to a subject, and it was not until well on toward midnight, when sipping a glass of fragrant old brandy, that Mr Johnathan really unbent. In Oriental fashion he had appreciated Hercule Poirot's courteous refusal to rush him in any way. Now, in his own good time, he was willing to elaborate the theme of the Crale family.
    "Our firm, of course, has known many generations of the Crales. I knew Amyas Crale and his father, Richard Crale, and I can remember Enoch Crale - the grandfather. Country squires, all of them, thought more of horses than human beings. They rode straight, liked women, and had no truck with ideas. They distrusted ideas. But Richard Crale's wife was cram full of ideas - more ideas than sense. She was poetical and musical - she played the harp, you know. She enjoyed poor health and looked very picturesque on her sofa. She was an admirer of Kingsley. That's why she called her son Amyas. His father scoffed at the name - but he gave in.
    “Amyas Crale profited by this mixed inheritance. He got his artistic