'Some day I'll kill you.'
"She was angry, revolted by his callousness and by his cruelty to the girl.
When Philip Blake saw her in the hall and heard her murmur to herself, 'It's too cruel!' it was of Elsa she was thinking.
"As for Crale, he came out of the library, found Elsa with Philip Blake, and brusquely ordered her down to go on with the sitting.
What he did not know was that Elsa Greer had been sitting just outside the library window and had overheard everything.
And the account she gave later of that conversation was not the true one.
There is only her word for it, remember.
Imagine the shock it must have been to her to hear the truth, brutally spoken!
"On the previous afternoon Meredith Blake has told us that while he was waiting for Caroline to leave this room he was standing in the doorway with his back to the room. He was talking to Elsa Greer.
That means that she would have been facing him and that she could see exactly what Caroline was doing over his shoulder - and that she was the only person who could do so. "She saw Caroline take that poison.
She said nothing, but she remembered it as she sat outside the library window.
"When Amyas Crale came out she made the excuse of wanting a pull-over and went up to Caroline Crale's room to look for that poison. Women know where other women are likely to hide things. She found it and, being careful not to obliterate any fingerprints or to leave her own, she drew off the fluid into a fountain-pen filler.
"Then she came down again and went off with Crale to the Battery Garden. And presently, no doubt, she poured him out some beer and he tossed it down in his usual way.
"Meanwhile, Caroline Crale was seriously disturbed.
When she saw Elsa come up to the house (this time really to fetch a pull-over), Caroline slipped quickly down to the Battery Garden and tackled her husband.
What he is doing is shameful!
She won't stand for it!
It's unbelievably cruel and hard on the girl!
Amyas, irritable at being interrupted, says it's all settled - when the picture is done he'll send the girl packing! 'It's all settled - I'll send her packing, I tell you!'
"And then they hear the footsteps of the two Blakes, and Caroline comes out and, slightly embarrassed, murmurs something about Angela and school and having a lot to do, and by a natural association of ideas the two men judge the conversation they have overheard refers to Angela and
'I'll send her packing' becomes
'I'll see to her packing.'
"And Elsa, pull-over in hand, comes down the path, cool and smiling, and takes up the pose once more.
"She has counted, no doubt, upon Caroline's being suspected and the coniine bottle being found in her room.
But Caroline now plays into her hands completely. She brings down some iced beer and pours it out for her husband.
"Amyas tossed it off, makes a face, and says,
'Everything tastes foul today.'
"Do you not see how significant that remark is?
Everything tastes foul?
Then there has been something else before that beer that has tasted unpleasant and the taste, of which is still in his mouth.
And one other point: Philip Blake speaks of Crale's staggering a little and wonders 'if he has been drinking.'
But that slight stagger was the first sign of the coniine working, and that means that it had already been administered to him some time before Caroline brought him the iced bottle of beer.
"And so Elsa Greer sat on the gray wall and posed and, since she must keep him from suspecting until it was too late, she talked to Amyas Crale brightly and naturally.
Presently she saw Meredith on the bench above and waved her hand to him and acted her part even more thoroughly for his behalf.
"And Amyas Crale, a man who detested illness and refused to give in to it, painted doggedly on till his limbs failed and his speech thickened, and he sprawled there on that bench, helpless, hut with his mind still clear.
"The bell sounded from the house and Meredith left the bench to come down to the Battery.
I think in that brief moment Elsa left her place and ran across to the table and dropped the last few drops of the poison into the beer glass that held that last innocent drink. (She got rid of the dropper on the path up to the house, crushing it to powder.) Then she met Meredith in the doorway.
"There is a glare there coming in out of the shadows.
Meredith did not see very clearly - only his friend sprawled in a familiar position and saw his eyes turn from the picture in what he described as a malevolent glare. "How much did Amyas know or guess? How much his conscious mind knew we cannot tell, but his hand and his eye were faithful."
Hercule Poirot gestured toward the picture on the wall.
"I should have known when I first saw that picture.
For it is a very remarkable picture.
It is the picture of a murderess painted by her victim - it is the picture of a girl watching her lover die."
In the silence that followed - a horrified, appalled silence - the sunset slowly flickered away, the last gleam left the window where it had rested on the dark head and pale furs of the woman sitting there.
Elsa Dittisham moved and spoke. She said,
"Take them away, Meredith.
Leave me with M. Poirot."
She sat there motionless until the door shut behind them. Then she said,
"You are very clever, aren't you?"
Poirot did not answer.