Angela Warren got up. She said:
“After the verdict, when she had been condemned, my sister wrote me a letter. I have never shown it to anyone. I think I ought to show it to you now. It may help you to understand the kind of person Caroline was. If you like you may take it to show to Carla also.”
She went to the door, then turning back she said:
“Come with me. There is a portrait of Caroline in my room.”
For a second time, Poirot stood gazing up at a portrait.
As a painting, Caroline Crale’s portrait was mediocre. But Poirot looked at it with interest—it was not its artistic value that interested him.
He saw a long oval face, a gracious line of jaw and a sweet, slightly timid expression. It was a face uncertain of itself, emotional, with a withdrawn hidden beauty. It lacked the forcefulness and vitality of her daughter’s face—that energy and joy of life Carla Lemarchant had doubtless inherited from her father. This was a less positive creature. Yet, looking at the painted face, Hercule Poirot understood why an imaginative man like Quentin Fogg had not been able to forget her.
Angela Warren stood at his side again—a letter in her hand.
She said quietly:
“Now that you have seen what she was like—read her letter.”
He unfolded it carefully and read what Caroline Crale had written sixteen years ago.
My darling little Angela,
You will hear bad news and you will grieve, but what I want to impress upon you is that it is all all right. I have never told you lies and I don’t now when I say that I am actually happy—that I feel an essential rightness and a peace that I have never known before. It’s all right, darl
ing, it’s all right. Don’t look back and regret and grieve for me—go on with your life and succeed. You can, I know. It’s all, all right, darling, and I’m going to Amyas. I haven’t the least doubt that we shall be together. I couldn’t have lived without him…Do this one thing for me—be happy. I’ve told you—I’m happy. One has to pay one’s debts. It’s lovely to feel peaceful.
Your loving sister,
Caro
Hercule Poirot read it through twice. Then he handed it back. He said:
“That is a very beautiful letter, mademoiselle—and a very remarkable one. A very remarkable one.”
“Caroline,” said Angela Warren, “was a very remarkable person.”
“Yes, an unusual mind…You take it that this letter indicates innocence?”
“Of course it does!”
“It does not say so explicitly.”
“Because Caro would know that I’d never dream of her being guilty!”
“Perhaps—perhaps…But it might be taken another way. In the sense that she was guilty and that in expiating her crime she will find peace.”
It fitted in, he thought, with the description of her in court. And he experienced in this moment the strongest doubts he had yet felt of the course to which he had committed himself. Everything so far had pointed unswervingly to Caroline Crale’s guilt. Now, even her own words testified against her.
On the other side was only the unshaken conviction of Angela Warren. Angela had known her well, undoubtedly, but might not her certainty be the fanatical loyalty of an adolescent girl, up in arms for a dearly loved sister?
As though she had read his thoughts Angela Warren said:
“No, Mr. Poirot—I know Caroline wasn’t guilty.”
Poirot said briskly:
“The Bon Dieu knows I do not want to shake you on that point. But let us be practical. You say your sister was not guilty. Very well, then, what really happened?”