Here is my present belief: She took the coniine, resolved to end her own life when Amyas left her.
He may have seen her take it or he may have discovered that she had it later.
That discovery acted upon him with terrific force.
He was horrified at what his actions had led her to contemplate.
But, notwithstanding his horror and remorse, he still felt himself incapable of giving up Elsa.
I can understand that.
Anyone who had fallen in love with her would find it almost impossible to tear himself away.
He could not envisage life without Elsa.
He realized that Caroline could not live without him.
He decided there was only one way out - to use the coniine himself.
All this, alas, is not what you asked me for - which was an account of the happenings as I remember them.
Let me now repair that omission.
I have already told you fully what happened on the day preceding Amyas's death.
We now come to the day itself.
I had slept very badly - worried by the disastrous turn of events for my friends.
After a long wakeful period, while I vainly tried to think of something helpful I could do to avert the catastrophe, I fell into a heavy sleep about 6 a.m. The bringing of my early tea did not awaken me, and I finally woke up, heavy-headed and unrefreshed, about half past nine.
It was shortly after that that I thought I heard movements in the room below, which was the room I used as a laboratory.
I may say here that actually those sounds were probably caused by a cat getting in.
I found the window sash raised a little way, as it had carelessly been left from the day before.
It was just wide enough to admit the passage of a cat.
I merely mention the sounds to explain how I came to enter the laboratory.
I went in there as soon as I had dressed and, looking along the shelves, I noticed that the bottle containing the preparation of coniine was slightly out of line with the rest.
Having had my eye drawn to it in this way, I was startled to see that a considerable quantity of it was gone.
The bottle had been nearly full the day before, now it was nearly empty.
I shut and locked the window and went out, locking the I door behind me.
I was considerably upset and also bewildered.
When startled, my mental processes are, I am afraid, somewhat slow. I was first disturbed, then apprehensive, and finally definitely alarmed.
I questioned the household, and they all denied having entered the laboratory at all.
I thought things over a little while longer and then decided to ring up my brother and get his advice.
Philip was quicker than I was. He saw the seriousness of my discovery and urged me to come over at once and consult with him.
I went out, encountering Miss Williams, who was looking for a truant pupil.
I assured her that I had not seen Angela and that she had not been to the house. I think that Miss Williams noticed there was something amiss. She looked at me rather curiously. I had no intention, however, of telling her what had happened. I suggested she should try the kitchen garden - Angela had a favorite apple tree there - and I myself hurried down to the shore and rowed myself across to the Alderbury side.
My brother was already there waiting for me.
We walked up to the house together by the way you and I went the other day.
Having seen the topography, you can understand that in passing underneath the wall of the Battery Garden we were bound to overhear anything being said inside it.
Beyond the fact that Caroline and Amyas were engaged in a disagreement of some kind, I did not pay much attention to what was said.
Certainly I overheard no threat of any kind uttered by Caroline.
The subject of discussion was Angela, and I presume Caroline was pleading for a respite from the fiat of school.
Amyas, however, was adamant, shouting out irritably that it was all settled - he'd see to her packing.
The door of the Battery opened just as we drew abreast of it and Caroline came out.
She looked disturbed, but not unduly so. She smiled rather absently at me, and said they had been discussing Angela.
Elsa came down the path at that minute and, as Amyas dearly wanted to get on with the sitting without interruption from us, we went on up the path.
Philip blamed himself severely afterward for the fact that we did not take immediate action.
But I myself cannot see it the same way.
We had no earthly right to assume that such a thing as murder was being contemplated. (Moreover, I now believe that it was not contemplated.) It was clear that we should have to adopt some course of action, but I still maintain that we were right to talk the matter over carefully first.
It was necessary to find the right thing to do, and once or twice I found myself wondering if I had not, after all, made a mistake. Had the bottle really been full the day before as I thought?
I am not one of these people (like my brother Philip) who can be cocksure of everything.
One's memory does play tricks on one.
How often, for instance, one is convinced one has put an article in a certain place, later to find that he has put it somewhere quite different.
The more I tried to recall the state of the bottle on the preceding afternoon the more uncertain and doubtful I became.