And then there was a further scene on the following morning.
Mr Philip Blake overheard a portion of it. Miss Greer overheard a different portion of it.
It took place in the library between Mr and Mrs Crale.
Mr Blake was in the hall and caught a fragment or two. Miss Greer was sitting outside near the open library window and heard a good deal more."
"And what did they hear?"
"Mr Blake heard Mrs Crale say,
'You and your women. I'd like to kill you.
Some day I will kill you.'"
"No mention of suicide?"
"Exactly.
None at all.
No words like
'If you do this thing, I'll kill myself.'
Miss Greer's evidence was much the same.
According to her, Mr Crale said,
'Do try and be reasonable about this, Caroline.
I'm fond of you and will always wish you well - you and the child.
But I'm going to marry Elsa.
We've always agreed to leave each other free.'
Mrs Crale answered to that,
'Very well, don't, say I haven't warned you.'
He said, 'What do you mean?'
And she said,
'I mean that I love you and I'm not going to lose you.
I'd rather kill you than let you go to that girl.'"
Poirot made a slight gesture.
"It occurs to me," he murmured, "that Miss Greer was singularly unwise to raise this issue.
Mrs Crale could easily have refused her husband a divorce."
"We had some evidence bearing on that point," said Hale. "Mrs Crale, it seems, confided partly, in Mr Meredith Blake.
He was an old and trusted friend.
He was very distressed and managed to get a word with Mr Crale about it.
This, I may say, was on the preceding afternoon.
Mr Blake remonstrated delicately with his friend, said how distressed he would be if the marriage between Mr and Mrs Crale was to break up so disastrously.
He also stressed the point that Miss Greer was a very young girl and that it was a very serious thing to drag a young girl through the divorce court.
To this Mr Crale replied, with a chuckle (callous sort of brute he must have been),
'That isn't Elsa's idea at all.
She isn't going to appear.
We shall fix it up in the usual way.'"
"Therefore," Poirot said, "even more imprudent of Miss Greer to have broken out the way she did."
Superintendent Hale said,
"Oh, you know what women are!
Have to get at one another's throats.
It must have been a difficult situation anyhow.
I can't understand Mr Crale allowing it to happen.
According to Mr Meredith Blake he wanted to finish his picture.
Does that make sense to you?"
"Yes, my friend, I think it does."
"It doesn't to me.
The man was asking for trouble!"
"He was probably seriously annoyed with his young woman for breaking out the way she did."