Then he hardened up and said, "But understand this: I'm damned well going to marry Elsa, and nothing shall stop me.
You and I always agreed to leave each other free. These things happen."
Caroline said to him, "Do as you please.
I've warned you."
Her voice was very quiet, but there was a queer note in it. Amyas said, "What do you mean, Caroline?" She said, "You're mine and I don't mean to let you go.
Sooner than let you go to that girl I'll kill you..." Just at that minute Philip Blake came along the terrace.
I got up and went to meet him. I didn't want him to overhear.
Presently Amyas came out and said it was time to get on with the picture.
We went down together to the Battery.
He didn't say much.
Just said that Caroline was cutting up rough - but not to talk about it.
He wanted to concentrate on what he was doing. Another day, he said, would about finish the picture. He said, "And it'll be the best thing I've done, Elsa, even if it is paid for in blood and tears."
A little later I went up to the house to get a pull-over. There was a chilly wind blowing.
When I came back again, Caroline was there.
I suppose she had come down to make one last appeal to Amyas.
Philip and Meredith Blake were there, too.
It was then that Amyas said he was thirsty and wanted a drink.
He said there was beer but it wasn't iced. Caroline said she'd send him down some iced beer.
She said it quite naturally, in an almost friendly tone.
She was an actress, that woman.
She must have known then what she meant to do.
She brought it down about ten minutes later.
Amyas was painting.
She poured it out and set the glass down beside him.
Neither of us was watching her.
Amyas was intent on what he was doing and I had to keep the pose.
Amyas drank it down the way he always drank beer - just pouring it down his throat in one draught. Then he made a face and said it tasted foul; but, at any rate, it was cold.
And even then, when he said that, no suspicion entered my head.
I just laughed and said, "Liver."
When she'd seen him drink it Caroline went away.
It must have been about forty minutes later that Amyas complained of stiffness and pains.
He said he thought he must have got a touch of muscular rheumatism.
Amyas was always intolerant of any ailment, and he didn't like being fussed over.
After saying that he turned it off with a light "Old age, I suppose.
You've taken on a creaking old man, Elsa." I played up to him. But I noticed that his legs moved stiffly and queerly and that he grimaced once or twice.
I never dreamed that it wasn't rheumatism.
Presently he drew the bench along and sat sprawled on that, occasionally stretching up to put a much of paint here and there on the canvas.
He used to do that sometimes when he was painting.
Just sit staring at me and then at the canvas.
Sometimes he'd do it for half an hour at a time. So I didn't think it specially queer.
We heard the bell go for lunch and he said he wasn't coming up.
He'd stay where he was and he didn't want anything.
That wasn't unusual either and it would be easier for him than facing Caroline at the table. He was talking in rather a queer way - grunting out his words. But he sometimes did that when he was dissatisfied with the progress of the picture.
Meredith Blake came in to fetch me.
He spoke to Amyas, but Amyas only grunted at him.
We went up to the house together and left him there.
We left him there - to die alone.
I'd never seen much illness, I didn't know much about it; I thought Amyas was just in a painter's mood.
If I'd known - if I'd realized, perhaps a doctor could have saved him... Oh, why didn't I - It's no good thinking of that now.
I was a blind fool, a blind, stupid fool.