Miss Williams said: “Poor child.”
“That is what you say, is it?”
Miss Williams said:
“I see now why you said that it might be better if she had never known. All the same, I think it is best as it is. To wish to find her mother innocent is a natural hope—and hard though the actual revelation may be, I think from what you say of her that Carla is brave enough to learn the truth and not flinch from it.”
“You are sure it is the truth?”
“I don’t understand you?”
“You see no loophole for believing that Mrs. Crale was innocent?”
“I don’t think that possibility has ever been seriously considered.”
“And yet she herself clung to the theory of suicide?”
Miss Williams said drily:
“The poor woman had to say something.”
“Do you know that when Mrs. Crale was dying she left a letter for her daughter in which she solemnly swears that she is innocent?”
Miss Williams stared.
“That was very wrong of her,” she said sharply.
“You think so?”
“Yes, I do. Oh, I dare say you are a sentimentalist like most men—”
Poirot interrupted indignantly:
“I am not a sentimentalist.”
“But there is such a thing as false sentiment. Why write that, a lie, at such a solemn moment? To spare your child pain? Yes, many women would do that. But I should not have thought it of Mrs. Crale. She was a brave woman and a truthful woman. I should have thought it far more like her to have told her daughter not to judge.”
Poirot said with slight exasperation:
“You will not even consider then the possibility that what Caroline Crale wrote was the truth?”
“Certainly not!”
“And yet you profess to have loved her?”
“I did love her. I had a great affection and deep sympathy for her.”
“Well, then—”
Miss Williams looked at him in a very odd way.
“You don’t understand, Mr. Poirot. It doesn’t matter my saying this now—so long afterwards. You see, I happen to know that Caroline Crale was guilty!”
“What?”
“It’s true. Whether I did right in withholding what I knew at the time I cannot be sure—but I did withhold it. But you must take it from me, quite definitely, that I know Caroline Crale was guilty….”
Ten