Five Little Pigs by Agatha Christie

decoction of hips - I saw the other day somewhere that that's coming into fashion with the medical profession again. Oh, yes, I must confess, I got a lot of pleasure out of my brews. Gathering the plants at the right time, drying them, macerating them - all the rest of it. I've even dropped to superstition sometimes and gathered my roots at the full of the moon or whatever it was the ancients advised. On that day I gave my guests, I remember, a special disquisition on the spotted hemlock. It flowers biennially. You gather the fruits when they're ripening, just before they turn yellow. Coniine, you know, is a drug that's dropped right out - I don't believe there's any official preparation of it in the last pharmacopoeia - but I've proved the usefulness of it in whooping cough, and in asthma, too, for that matter -”
    “You talked of all this in your laboratory?”
    “Yes, I showed them around, explained the various drugs to them - valerian and the way it attracts cats - one sniff at that was enough for them! Then they asked about deadly nightshade, and I told them about belladonna and atropine. They were very much interested.”
    “They? What is comprised in that word?”
    Meredith Blake looked faintly surprised as though he had forgotten that his listener had no firsthand knowledge of the scene.
    “Oh, the whole party. Let me see - Phillip was there, and Amyas, and Caroline, of course. Angela. And Elsa Greer.”
    “That was all?”
    “Yes! I think so. Yes, I am sure of it.” Blake looked at him curiously. “Who else should there be?”
    “I thought perhaps the governess -”
    “Oh, I see. No, she wasn't there that afternoon. I believe I've forgotten her name now. Nice woman. Took her duties very seriously. Angela worried her a good deal, I think.”
    “Why was that?”
    “Well, she was a nice kid, but she was inclined to run wild. Always up to something or other. Put a slug or something down Amyas's back one day when he was hard at work painting. He went up in smoke. Cursed her up and down dale. It was after that that he insisted on this school idea.”
    “Sending her to school?”
    “Yes. I don't mean he wasn't fond of her, but he found her a bit of a nuisance sometimes. And I think - I've always thought -”
    “Yes?”
    “That he was a bit jealous. Caroline, you see, was a slave to Angela. In a way, perhaps, Angela came first with her - and Amyas didn't like that. There was a reason for it, of course. I won't go into that, but -”
    Poirot interrupted. “The reason being that Caroline Crale reproached herself for an action that had disfigured the girl.”
    Blake exclaimed, “Oh, you know that? I wasn't going to mention it. All over and done with. But, yes, that was the cause of her attitude, I think. She always seemed to feel that there was nothing too much she could do - to make up, as it were.”
    Poirot nodded thoughtfully. “And Angela?” he asked. “Did she bear a grudge against her half sister?”
    “Oh, no; don't run away with that idea. Angela was devoted to Caroline. She never gave that old business a thought, I'm sure. It was just Caroline who couldn't forgive herself.”
    “Did Angela take kindly to the idea of boarding school?”
    “No, she didn't. She was furious with Amyas. Caroline took her side, but Amyas had absolutely made his mind up about it. In spite of a hot temper, Amyas was an easy man in most respects, but when he really got his back up everyone had to give in. Both Caroline and Angela knuckled under.”
    “She was to go to school - when?”
    “The autumn term - they were getting her kit together I remember. I suppose, if it hadn't been for the tragedy she would have gone off a few days later. There was some talk of her packing on the morning of that day.”
    “And the governess?”
    Poirot asked. “What do you mean - the governess?”
    “How did she like the idea? It deprived her of a job did it not?”
    “Yes - well, I suppose it did in a way. Little Carla used to do