Five Little Pigs by Agatha Christie

you?”
    â€œYes, my friend, I think it does.”
    â€œIt doesn’t to me. The man was asking for trouble!”
    â€œHe was probaby seriously annoyed with his young woman for breaking out the way she did.”
    â€œOh, he was. Meredith Blake said so. If he had to finish the picture I don’t see why he couldn’t have taken some photographs and worked from them. I know a chap—does watercolours of places— he does that.”
    Poirot shook his head.
    â€œNo—I can understand Crale the artist. You must realize, myfriend, that at that moment, probably, his picture was all that mattered to Crale. However much he wanted to marry the girl, the picture came first. That’s why he hoped to get through her visit without its coming to an open issue. The girl, of course, didn’t see it that way. With women, love always comes first.”
    â€œDon’t I know it?” said Superintendent Hale with feeling.
    â€œMen,” continued Poirot, “and especially artists—are different.”
    â€œArt!” said the Superintendent with scorn. “All this talk about Art! I never have understood it and I never shall! You should have seen that picture Crale was painting. All lopsided. He’d made the girl look as though she’d got toothache, and the battlements were all cock-eyed. Unpleasant looking, the whole thing. I couldn’t get it out of my mind for a long time afterwards. I even dreamt about it. And what’s more it affected my eyesight—I began to see battlements and walls and things all out of drawing. Yes, and women too!”
    Poirot smiled. He said:
    â€œAlthough you do not know it, you are paying a tribute to the greatness of Amyas Crale’s art.”
    â€œNonsense. Why can’t a painter paint something nice and cheerful to look at? Why go out of your way to look for ugliness?”
    â€œSome of us, mon cher, see beauty in curious places.”
    â€œThe girl was a good looker, all right,” said Hale. “Lots of makeup and next to no clothes on. It isn’t decent the way these girls go about. And that was sixteen years ago, mind you. Nowadays one wouldn’t think anything of it. But then—well, it shocked me. Trousers and one of those canvas shirts, open at the neck—and not another thing, I should say!”
    â€œYou seem to remember these points very well,” murmured Poirot slyly.
    Superintendent Hale blushed. “I’m just passing on the impression I got,” he said austerely.
    â€œQuite—quite,” said Poirot soothingly. He went on:
    â€œSo it would seem that the principal witnesses against Mrs. Crale were Philip Blake and Elsa Greer?”
    â€œYes. Vehement, they were, both of them. But the governess was called by the prosecution too, and what she said carried more weight than the other two. She was on Mrs. Crale’s side entirely, you see. Up in arms for her. But she was an honest woman and gave her evidence truthfully without trying to minimize it in any way.”
    â€œAnd Meredith Blake?”
    â€œHe was very distressed by the whole thing, poor gentleman. As well he might be! Blamed himself for his drug brewing—and the coroner blamed him for it too. Coniine and AE Salts comes under Schedule I of the Poisons Acts. He came in for some pretty sharp censure. He was a friend of both parties, and it hit him very hard—besides being the kind of county gentleman who shrinks from notoriety and being in the public eye.”
    â€œDid not Mrs. Crale’s young sister give evidence?”
    â€œNo. It wasn’t necessary. She wasn’t there when Mrs. Crale threatened her husband, and there was nothing she could tell us that we couldn’t get from someone else equally well. She saw Mrs. Crale go to the refrigerator and get the iced beer out and, of course, the Defence could have subpœnaed her to say that Mrs. Crale took it straight down without tampering with it