But I must admit that at that moment I was intent, not on her, but on Angela.
Angela was by the refrigerator and I was glad to see that she looked red and rather guilty.
I was rather sharp with her, and to my surprise she was quite meek.
I asked her where she had been and she said she had been bathing. I said, "I didn't see you on the beach."
And she laughed.
Then I asked her where her jersey was, and she said she must have left it down on the beach.
I mention these details to explain why I let Mrs Crale take the beer down to the Battery Garden.
The rest of the morning is quite blank in my mind.
Angela fetched her needle book and mended her skirt without any more fuss.
I rather think that I mended some of the household linen.
Mr Crale did not come up for lunch.
I was glad that he had at least that much decency.
After lunch, Mrs Crale said she was going down to the Battery.
I wanted to retrieve Angela's jersey from the beach.
We started down together.
She went into the Battery; I was going on when her cry called me back.
As I told you when you came to see me, she asked me to go up and telephone.
On the way up I met Mr Meredith Blake and I went back to Mrs Crale.
That was my story as I told it at the inquest and later at the trial.
What I am about to write down I have never told to any living soul.
I was not asked any question to which I returned an untrue answer.
Nevertheless, I was guilty of withholding certain facts. I do not repent of that.
I would do it again.
I am fully aware that in revealing this I may be laying myself open to censure, but I do not think that after this lapse of time anyone will take the matter very seriously, especially since Caroline Crale was convicted without my evidence.
This, then, is what happened:
I met Mr Meredith Blake as I said and I ran down the path again as quickly as I could. I was wearing sand shoes and I have always been light on my feet.
I came to the open Battery door and this is what I saw: Mrs Crale was busily polishing the beer bottle on the table with her handkerchief.
Having done so, she took her dead husband's hand and pressed the fingers of it on the beer bottle.
All the time she was listening and on the alert.
It was the fear I saw on her face that told me the truth.
I knew then, beyond any possible doubt, that Caroline Crale had poisoned her husband.
And I, for one, do not blame her.
He drove her to a point beyond human endurance, and he brought his fate upon himself.
I never mentioned the incident to Mrs Crale and she never knew that I had seen it take place.
I would never have mentioned it to anybody, but there is one person who I think has a right to know.
Caroline Crale's daughter must not bolster up her life with a lie.
However much it may pain her to know the truth, truth is the only thing that matters.
Tell her, from me, that her mother is not to be judged.
She was driven beyond what a loving woman can endure.
It is for her daughter to understand and forgive.
(End of Cecilia, Williams' Narrative)
Narrative of Angela Warren
Dear M. Poirot:
I am keeping my promise to you and have written down all I can remember of that terrible time sixteen years ago.
But it was not until I started that I realized how very little I did remember.
Until the thing actually happened, you see, there is nothing to fix anything by.
The very first intimation I had of the whole thing was what I overheard from the terrace where I had escaped after lunch one day. Elsa said she was going to marry Amyas!
It struck me as just ridiculous.
I remember tackling Amyas about it. In the garden at Handcross it was.
I said to him: "Why does Elsa say she's going to marry you?