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sometimes, in the most extraordinary way! I don't understand these so-called artistic people myself - never have. I understood Crale a little because, of course, I'd known him all my life. His people were the same sort as my people. And in many ways Crale ran true to type - it was only where art came in that he didn't conform to the usual standards. He wasn't, you see, an amateur in any way. He was first class - really first class.
    “Some people say he was a genius. They may be right. But, as a result, he was always what I should describe as unbalanced. When he was painting a picture, nothing else mattered, nothing could be allowed to get in the way. He was like a man in a dream - completely obsessed by what he was doing. Not till the canvas was finished did he come out of this absorption and start to pick up the threads of ordinary life again.”
    He looked questioningly at Poirot and the latter nodded.
    “You understand, I see. Well, that explains, I think, why this particular situation arose. He was in love with this girl. He wanted to marry her. He was prepared to leave his wife and child for her. But he'd started painting her down here, and he wanted to finish that picture. Nothing else mattered to him. He didn't see anything else. And the fact that the situation was a perfectly impossible one for the two women concerned didn't seem to have occurred to him.”
    “Did either of them understand his point of view?”
    “Oh, yes - in a way. Elsa did, I suppose. She was terrifically enthusiastic about his painting. But it was a difficult position for her - naturally. And as for Caroline -”
    He stopped. Poirot said, “For Caroline - yes?”

Five Little Pigs

Chapter 4
    Meredith Blake said, speaking with a little difficulty, “Caroline - I had always - well, I had always been very fond of Caroline. There was a time when - when I hoped to marry her. But that was soon nipped in the bud. Still, I remained, if I may say so, devoted to - to her service.”
    Poirot nodded thoughtfully. That slightly old-fashioned phrase expressed, he felt, the man before him very typically. Meredith Blake was the kind of man who would devote himself readily to a romantic and honorable devotion. He would serve his lady faithfully and without hope of reward. Yes, it was all very much in character.
    He said, carefully weighing the words, “You must have resented this - attitude - on her behalf?”
    “I did. Oh, I did. I - I actually remonstrated with Crale on the subject.”
    “When was this?”
    “Actually the day before - before it all happened. They came over to tea here, you know. I got Crale aside and put it to him. I even said, I remember, that it wasn't fair to either of them.”
    “Ah, you said that?”
    “Yes. I didn't think, you see, that he realized.”
    “Possibly not.”
    “I said to him that it was putting Caroline in a perfectly unendurable position. If he meant to marry this girl, he ought not to have her staying in the house and - well - more or less flaunt her in Caroline's face. It was, I said, an unendurable insult.”
    “What did he answer?” Poirot asked curiously.
    Meredith Blake replied with distaste, “He said, 'Caroline must lump it.'”
    Hercule Poirot's eyebrows rose. “Not,” he said, “a very sympathetic reply.”
    "I thought it abominable. I lost my temper. I said that no doubt, not caring for his wife, he didn't mind how much he made her suffer, but what, I said, about the girl? Hadn't be realized it was a pretty rotten position for her? His reply to that was that Elsa must lump it, too!
    "Then he went on: 'You don't seem to understand, Meredith, that this thing I'm painting is the best thing I've done. It's good, I tell you. And a couple of jealous, quarreling women aren't going to upset it - no, by hell, they're not.'
    "It was hopeless talking to him. I said he seemed to have taken leave of all ordinary decency. Painting, I said, wasn't everything. He interrupted there. He said, 'Ah, but it is to