Five Little Pigs Read Online Free PDF

trend from his weakly mother, and his driving power and ruthless egoism from his father. All the Crales were egoists. They never by any chance saw any point of view but their own.”
    Tapping with a delicate finger on the arm of his chair, the old man shot a shrewd glance at Poirot. “Correct me if I am wrong, M. Poirot, but I think you are interested in - character, shall we say?”
    “That, to me,” Poirot replied, “is the principal interest of all my cases.”
    “I can conceive of it. To get under the skin, as it were, of your criminal. How interesting! How absorbing! Our firm, of course, has never had a criminal practice. We should not have been competent to act for Mrs Crale, even if taste had allowed. Mayhews, however, were a very adequate firm. They briefed Depleach - they didn't, perhaps, show much imagination there - still, he was very expensive, and, of course, exceedingly dramatic! What they hadn't the wits to see was that Caroline would never play up in the way he wanted her to. She wasn't a very dramatic woman.”
    “What was she?” asked Poirot. “It is that that I am chiefly anxious to know.”
    “Yes, yes - of course. How did she come to do what she did? That is the really vital question. I knew her, you know, before she married. Caroline Spalding, she was. A turbulent, unhappy creature. Very alive. Her mother was left a widow early in life and Caroline was devoted to her mother. Then the mother married again - there was another child. Yes - yes, very sad, very painful. These young, ardent, adolescent jealousies.”
    “She was jealous?”
    “Passionately so. There was a regrettable incident. Poor child, she blamed herself bitterly afterward. But you know, M. Poirot, these things happen. There is an inability to put on the brakes. It comes - it comes with maturity.”
    “But what really happened?” asked Poirot.
    “She struck the child - the baby - flung a paperweight at her. The child lost the sight of one eye and was permanently disfigured.”
    Mr Johnathan sighed. He said, “You can imagine the effect a simple question on that point had at the trial.” He shook his head. “It gave the impression that Caroline Crale as a woman of ungovernable temper. That was not true. No, that was not true.”
    He paused and then resumed.
    "Caroline Spalding came often to stay at Alderbury. She rode well, and was keen. Richard Crale was fond of her. She waited on Mrs Crale and was deft and gentle - Mrs Crale also liked her. The girl was not happy at home. She was happy at Alderbury. Diana Crale, Amyas's sister, and she were by way of being friends. Philip and Meredith Blake, boys from the adjoining estate, were frequently at Alderbury. Philip was always nasty, money-grubbing little brute. I must confess I have always had a distaste for him. But I am told that he tells very good a story and that he has the reputation of being a staunch friend.
    "Meredith was what my contemporaries used to call a namby-pamby. Liked botany and butterflies and observing birds and beasts. Nature study, they call it nowadays. Ah, disappointment - all the young people were a disappointment to their parents. None of them ran true to type - huntin', shootin', fishin'. Meredith preferred watching birds and animals to shootin' or huntin' them. Philip definitely preferred town to country and went into the business of money-making. Diana married a fellow who wasn't a gentleman - one of the temporary officers in the war. And Amyas, strong, handsome, virile Amyas, blossomed into being a painter, of all things in the world. It's my opinion that Richard Crale died of the shock.
    "And in due course Amyas married Caroline Spalding. They'd always fought and sparred, but it was a love match, all right. They were both crazy about each other. And they continued to care. But Amyas was like all the Crales, a ruthless egoist. He loved Caroline but he never once considered her in any way. He did as he pleased. It's my opinion that he was as fond of