Elephants Can Remember (14 page)

Mrs Oliver looked at Cheltenham with approval. As it happened, she had never been to Cheltenham before. How nice, said Mrs Oliver to herself, to see some houses that are really like houses, proper houses.

Casting her mind back to youthful days, she remembered that she had known people, or at least her relations, her aunts, had known people who lived at Cheltenham. Retired people usually. Army or Navy. It was the sort of place, she thought, where one would like to come and live if one had spent a good deal of time abroad. It had a feeling of English security, good taste and pleasant chat and conversation.

After looking in one or two agreeable antique shops, she found her way to where she wanted – or rather Hercule Poirot wanted her – to go. It was called The Rose Green Hairdressing Saloons. She walked inside it and looked round. Four or five people were in process of having things done to their hair. A plump young lady left her client and came forward with an enquiring air.

‘Mrs Rosentelle?’ said Mrs Oliver, glancing down at a card. ‘I understand she said she could see me if I came here this morning. I don’t mean,’ she added, ‘having anything done to my hair, but I wanted to consult her about something and I believe a telephone call was made and she said if I came at half past eleven she could spare me a short time.’

‘Oh yes,’ said the girl. ‘I think Madam is expecting someone.’

She led the way through a passage down a short flight of steps and pushed a swing door at the bottom of it. From the hairdressing saloon they had passed into what was obviously Mrs Rosentelle’s house. The plump girl knocked at the door and said, ‘The lady to see you,’ as she put her nose in, and then asked rather nervously, ‘What name did you say?’

‘Mrs Oliver,’ said Mrs Oliver.

She walked in. It had a faint effect of what might have been yet another showroom. There were curtains of rose gauze and roses on the wallpaper and Mrs Rosentelle, a woman Mrs Oliver thought of as roughly her own age or possibly a good many years older, was just finishing what was obviously a cup of morning coffee.

‘Mrs Rosentelle?’ said Mrs Oliver.

‘Yes?’

‘You did expect me?’

‘Oh yes. I didn’t quite understand what it was all about. The lines are so bad on the telephone. That is quite all right, I have about half an hour to spare. Would you like some coffee?’

‘No, thank you,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘I won’t keep you any longer than I need. It is just something that I want to ask you about, that you may happen to remember. You have had quite a long career, I understand, in the hairdressing business.’

‘Oh yes. I’m quite thankful to give over to the girls now. I don’t do anything myself these days.’

‘Perhaps you still advise people?’

‘Yes, I do that.’ Mrs Rosentelle smiled.

She had a nice, intelligent face with well arranged, brown hair, with somewhat interesting grey streaks in it here and there.

‘I’m not sure what it’s all about.’

‘Well, really I wanted to ask you a question about, well, I suppose in a way about wigs generally.’

‘We don’t do as much in wigs now as we used to do.’

‘You had a business in London, didn’t you?’

‘Yes. First in Bond Street and then we moved to Sloane Street but it’s very nice to live in the country after all that, you know. Oh yes, my husband and I are very satisfied here. We run a small business but we don’t do much in the wig line nowadays,’ she said, ‘though my husband does advise and get wigs designed for men who are bald. It really makes a big difference, you know, to many people in their business if they don’t look too old and it often helps in getting a job.’

‘I can quite imagine that,’ said Mrs Oliver.

From sheer nervousness she said a few more things in the way of ordinary chat and wondered how she would start on her subject. She was startled when Mrs Rosentelle leant forward and said suddenly, ‘You are Ariadne Oliver, aren’t you? The novel writer?’

‘Yes,’ said Mrs Oliver, ‘as a matter of fact –’ she had her usual somewhat shame-faced expression when she said this, that was habitual to her – ‘yes, I do write novels.’

‘I’m so fond of your books. I’ve read a lot of them. Oh, this is very nice indeed. Now tell me in what way can I help you?’

‘Well, I wanted to talk about wigs and about something that happened a great many years ago and probably you mayn’t remember anything about it.’

‘Well, I rather wonder – do you mean fashions of years ago?’

‘Not exactly. It’s a woman, a friend of mine – actually I was at school with her – and then she married and went out to Malaya and came back to England, and there was a tragedy later and one of the things I think that people found surprising after it was that she had so many wigs. I think they had been all supplied by you, by your firm, I mean.’

‘Oh, a tragedy. What was her name?’

‘Well, her name when I knew her was Preston-Grey, but afterwards her name was Ravenscroft.’

‘Oh. Oh yes, that one. Yes, I do remember Lady Ravenscroft. I remember her quite well. She was so nice and really very, very good-looking still. Yes, her husband was a Colonel or a General or something and they’d retired and they lived in – I forget the county now –’

‘– And there was what was supposed to be a double suicide,’ said Mrs Oliver.

‘Yes. Yes, I remember reading about it and saying, “Why that’s our Lady Ravenscroft,” and then there was a picture of them both in the paper, and I saw that it was so. Of course, I’d never seen him but it was her all right. It seemed so sad, so much grief. I heard that they discovered that she had cancer and they couldn’t do anything about it so this happened. But I never heard any details or anything.’

‘No,’ said Mrs Oliver.

‘But what is it you think I can tell you?’

‘You supplied her with wigs and I understand the people investigating, I suppose the police, thought four wigs was quite a lot to have, but perhaps people did have four wigs at a time?’

‘Well, I think that most people had two wigs at least,’ said Mrs Rosentelle. ‘You know, one to send back to be serviced, as you might say, and the other one that they wore while it was away.’

‘Do you remember Lady Ravenscroft ordering an extra two wigs?’

‘She didn’t come herself. I think she’d been or was ill in hospital, or something, and it was a French young lady who came. I think a French lady who was companion to her or something like that. Very nice. Spoke perfect English. And she explained all about the extra wigs she wanted, sizes and colours and styles and ordered them. Yes. Fancy my remembering it. I suppose I wouldn’t have except that about – oh it must have been a month later – a month, perhaps more, six weeks – I read about the suicide, you know. I’m afraid they gave her bad news at the hospital or wherever she was, and so she just couldn’t face living any more, and her husband felt he couldn’t face life without her –’

Mrs Oliver shook her head sadly – and continued her enquiries.

‘They were different kinds of wigs, I suppose.’

‘Yes, one had a very pretty grey streak in it, and then there was a party one and one for evening wear, and one close-cropped with curls. Very nice, that you could wear under a hat and it didn’t get messed up. I was sorry not to have seen Lady Ravenscroft again. Even apart from her illness, she had been very unhappy about a sister who had recently died. A twin sister.’

‘Yes, twins are very devoted, aren’t they,’ said Mrs Oliver.

‘She’d always seemed such a happy woman before,’ said Mrs Rosentelle.

Both women sighed. Mrs Oliver changed the subject.

‘Do you think that I’d find a wig useful?’ she asked.

The expert stretched out a hand and laid it speculatively on Mrs Oliver’s head.

‘I wouldn’t advise it – you’ve got a splendid crop of hair – very thick still – I imagine –’ a faint smile came to her lips – ‘you enjoy doing things with it?’

‘How clever of you to know that. It’s quite true – I enjoy experimenting – it’s such fun.’

‘You enjoy life altogether, don’t you?’

‘Yes, I do. I suppose it’s the feeling that one never knows what might be going to happen next.’

‘Yet that feeling,’ said Mrs Rosentelle, ‘is just what makes so many people never stop worrying!’

Mr Goby came into the room and sat, as indicated by Poirot, in his usual chair. He glanced around him before choosing what particular piece of furniture or part of the room he was about to address. He settled, as often before, for the electric fire, not turned on at this time of year. Mr Goby had never been known to address the human being he was working for directly. He selected always the cornice, a radiator, a television set, a clock, sometimes a carpet or a mat. Out of a briefcase he took a few papers.

‘Well,’ said Hercule Poirot, ‘you have something for me?’

‘I have collected various details,’ said Mr Goby.

Mr Goby was celebrated all over London, indeed possibly all over England and even further, as a great purveyor of information. How he performed these miracles nobody ever really quite knew. He employed a not excessive staff. Sometimes he complained that his legs, as he sometimes called them, were not as good as they used to be. But his results were still able to astonish people who had commissioned them.

‘Mrs Burton-Cox,’ he said, announcing the name much as though he had been the local churchwarden having his turn at reading the lessons. He might equally have been saying ‘Third verse, fourth chapter, the book of Isaiah.’

‘Mrs Burton-Cox,’ he said again. ‘Married Mr Cecil Aldbury, manufacturer of buttons on a large scale. Rich man. Entered politics, was MP for Little Stansmere. Mr Cecil Aldbury was killed in a car accident four years after their marriage. The only child of the marriage died in an accident shortly afterwards. Mr Aldbury’s estate was inherited by his wife, but was not as much as had been expected since the firm had not been doing well of late years. Mr Aldbury also left quite a considerable sum of money to a Miss Kathleen Fenn, with whom it seemed he had been having intimate relations quite unknown to his wife. Mrs Burton-Cox continued her political career. Some three years after that she adopted a child which had been born to Miss Kathleen Fenn. Miss Kathleen Fenn insisted that the child was the son of the late Mr Aldbury. This, from what I have been able to learn in my enquiries, is somewhat difficult to accept,’ continued Mr Goby. ‘Miss Fenn had had many relationships, usually with gentlemen of ample means and generous dispositions, but after all, so many people have their price, have they not? I’m afraid this is quite a serious bill I may have to send you in.’

‘Continue,’ said Hercule Poirot.

‘Mrs Aldbury, as she then was, agreed to adopt the child. A short while later she married Major Burton-Cox. Miss Kathleen Fenn became, I may say, a most successful actress and pop singer and made a very large amount of money. She then wrote to Mrs Burton-Cox saying she would be willing to take back the adopted child. Mrs Burton-Cox refused. Mrs Burton-Cox has been living quite comfortably since, I understand, Major Burton-Cox was killed in Malaya. He left her moderately well off. A further piece of information I have obtained is that Miss Kathleen Fenn, who died a very short while ago – eighteen months, I think – left a Will by which her entire fortune, which amounted by then to a considerable sum of money, was left to her natural son Desmond, at present known under the name of Desmond Burton-Cox.’

‘Very generous,’ said Poirot. ‘Of what did Miss Fenn die?’

‘My informant tells me that she contracted leukaemia.’

‘And the boy has inherited his mother’s money?’

‘It was left in trust for him to acquire at the age of twenty-five.’

‘So he will be independent, will have a substantial fortune? And Mrs Burton-Cox?’

‘Has not been happy in her investments, it is understood. She has sufficient to live on but not much more.’

‘Has the boy Desmond made a Will?’ asked Poirot.

‘That,’ said Mr Goby, ‘I fear I do not know as yet. But I have certain means of finding out. If I do, I will acquaint you with the fact without loss of time.’

Mr Goby took his leave, absent-mindedly bowing a farewell to the electric fire.

About an hour and a half later the telephone rang.

Hercule Poirot, with a sheet of paper in front of him, was making notes. Now and then he frowned, twirled his moustaches, crossed something out and re-wrote it and then proceeded onward. When the telephone rang he picked up the receiver and listened.

‘Thank you,’ he said, ‘that was quick work. Yes . . . yes, I’m grateful. I really do not know sometimes how you manage these things . . . Yes, that sets out the position clearly. It makes sense of something that did not make sense before . . . Yes . . . I gather . . . yes, I’m listening . . . you are pretty sure that that
is
the case. He knows he is adopted . . . but he never has been told who his real mother was . . . yes. Yes, I see . . . Very well. You will clear up the other point too? Thank you.’

He replaced the receiver and started once more writing down words. In half an hour the telephone rang once more. Once again he picked up the phone.

‘I’m back from Cheltenham,’ said a voice which Poirot had no difficulty in recognizing.

‘Ah,
chère madame
, you have returned? You have seen Mrs Rosentelle?’

‘Yes. She is nice. Very nice. And you were quite right, you know, she
is
another elephant.’

‘Meaning,
chère madame
?’

‘I mean that she remembered Molly Ravenscroft.’

‘And she remembered her wigs?’

‘Yes.’

Briefly she outlined what the retired hairdresser had told her about the wigs.

‘Yes,’ said Poirot, ‘that agrees. That is exactly what Superintendent Garroway mentioned to me. The four wigs that the police found. Curls, an evening type of head-dress, and two other plainer ones. Four.’

‘So I really only told you what you knew already?’

‘No, you told me something more than that. She said – that is what you told me just now, is it not? – that Lady Ravenscroft wanted two extra wigs to add to the two that she already had and that this was about three weeks to six weeks before the suicide tragedy occurred. Yes, that is interesting, is it not?’

‘It’s very natural,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘I mean, you know that people, women, I mean, may do awful damage to things. To false hair and things of that kind. If it can’t be re-dressed and cleaned, if it’s got burnt or got stuff spilt on it you can’t get out, or it’s been dyed and dyed all wrong – something like that – well then, of course you have to get two new wigs or switches or whatever they are. I don’t see what makes you excited about that.’

‘Not exactly excited,’ said Poirot, ‘no. It is a point, but the more interesting point is what you have just added. It was a French lady, was it not, who brought the wigs to be copied or matched?’

‘Yes. I gathered some kind of companion or something. Lady Ravenscroft had been or was in hospital or in a nursing home somewhere and she was not in good health and she could not come herself to make a choice or anything of that kind.’

‘I see.’

‘And so her French companion came.’

‘Do you know the name of that companion by any chance?’

‘No. I don’t think Mrs Rosentelle mentioned it. In fact I don’t think she knew. The appointment was made by Lady Ravenscroft and the French girl or woman just brought the wigs along for size and matching and all the rest of it, I suppose.’

‘Well,’ said Poirot, ‘that helps me towards the further step that I am about to take.’

‘What have
you
learnt?’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘Have you done
anything
?’

‘You are always so sceptical,’ said Poirot. ‘You always consider that I do nothing, that I sit in a chair and repose myself.’

‘Well I think you sit in a chair and think,’ admitted Mrs Oliver, ‘but I quite agree that you don’t often go out and do things.’

‘In the near future I think I may possibly go out and do things,’ said Hercule Poirot, ‘and that will please you. I may even cross the Channel though certainly not in a boat. A plane, I think is indicated.’

‘Oh,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘Do you want me to come too?’

‘No,’ said Poirot, ‘I think it would be better if I went alone on this occasion.’

‘You really
will
go?’

‘Oh yes, oh yes. I will run about with all activity and so you should be pleased with me, madame.’

When he had rung off, he dialled another number which he looked up from a note he had made in his pocket-book. Presently he was connected to the person whom he wished to speak to.

‘My dear Superintendent Garroway, it is Hercule Poirot who addresses you. I do not derange you too much? You are not very busy at this moment?’

‘No, I am not busy,’ said Superintendent Garroway. ‘I am pruning my roses, that’s all.’

‘There is something that I want to ask you. Quite a small thing.’

‘About our problem of the double suicide?’

‘Yes, about our problem. You said there was a dog in the house. You said that the dog went for walks with the family, or so you understood.’

‘Yes, there was some mention made of a dog. I think it may have been either the housekeeper or someone who said that they went for a walk with the dog as usual that day.’

‘In examination of the body was there any sign that Lady Ravenscroft had been bitten by a dog? Not necessarily very recently or on that particular day?’

‘Well, it’s odd you should say that. I can’t say I’d have remembered about it if you hadn’t mentioned such a thing. But yes, there were a couple of scars. Not bad ones. But again the housekeeper mentioned that the dog had attacked its mistress more than once and bitten her, though not very severely. Look here, Poirot, there was no rabies about, if that’s what you are thinking. There couldn’t have been anything of that kind. After all she was shot – they were both shot. There was no question of any septic poisoning or danger of tetanus.’

‘I do not blame the dog,’ said Poirot, ‘it was only something I wanted to know.’

‘One dog bite was fairly recent, about a week before, I think, or two weeks somebody said. There was no case of necessary injections or anything of that kind. It had healed quite well. What’s that quotation?’ went on Superintendent Garroway. ‘“
The dog it was that died
.” I can’t remember where it comes from but –’

‘Anyway, it wasn’t the dog that died,’ said Poirot. ‘That wasn’t the point of my question. I would like to have known that dog. He was perhaps a very intelligent dog.’

After he had replaced the receiver with thanks to the Superintendent, Poirot murmured: ‘An intelligent dog. More intelligent perhaps than the police were.’