Elephants Can Remember (2 page)

‘You’ll be very surprised, really, at what I’m going to say,’ said Mrs Burton-Cox. ‘But I have felt, from reading your books, how sympathetic you are, how much you understand of human nature. And I feel that if there is anyone who can give me an answer to the question I want to ask, you will be the one to do so.’

‘I don’t think, really . . .’ said Mrs Oliver, trying to think of suitable words to say that she felt very uncertain of being able to rise to the heights demanded of her.

Mrs Burton-Cox dipped a lump of sugar in her coffee and crunched it in a rather carnivorous way, as though it was a bone. Ivory teeth, perhaps, thought Mrs Oliver vaguely. Ivory? Dogs had ivory, walruses had ivory and elephants had ivory, of course. Great big tusks of ivory. Mrs Burton-Cox was saying:

‘Now the first thing I must ask you – I’m pretty sure I am right, though – you have a goddaughter, haven’t you? A goddaughter who’s called Celia Ravenscroft?’

‘Oh,’ said Mrs Oliver, rather pleasurably surprised. She felt she could deal perhaps with a goddaughter. She had a good many goddaughters – and godsons, for that matter. There were times, she had to admit as the years were growing upon her, when she couldn’t remember them all. She had done her duty in due course, one’s duty being to send toys to your god-children at Christmas in their early years, to visit them and their parents, or to have them visit you during the course of their upbringing, to take the boys out from school perhaps, and the girls also. And then, when the crowning days came, either the twenty-first birthday at which a godmother must do the right thing and let it be acknowledged to be done, and do it handsomely, or else marriage which entailed the same type of gift and a financial or other blessing. After that godchildren rather receded into the middle or far distance. They married or went abroad to foreign countries, foreign embassies, or taught in foreign schools or took up social projects. Anyway, they faded little by little out of your life. You were pleased to see them if they suddenly, as it were, floated up on the horizon again. But you had to remember to think when you had seen them last, whose daughters they were, what link had led to your being chosen as a godmother.

‘Celia Ravenscroft,’ said Mrs Oliver, doing her best. ‘Yes, yes, of course. Yes, definitely.’

Not that any picture rose before her eyes of Celia Ravenscroft, not, that is, since a very early time. The christening. She’d gone to Celia’s christening and had found a very nice Queen Anne silver strainer as a christening present. Very nice. Do nicely for straining milk and would also be the sort of thing a god-daughter could always sell for a nice little sum if she wanted ready money at any time. Yes, she remembered the strainer very well indeed. Queen Anne – Seventeen-eleven it had been. Britannia mark. How much easier it was to remember silver coffee-pots or strainers or christening mugs than it was the actual child.

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘yes, of course. I’m afraid I haven’t seen Celia for a very long time now.’

‘Ah yes. She is, of course, a rather impulsive girl,’ said Mrs Burton-Cox. ‘I mean, she’s changed her ideas very often. Of course, very intellectual, did very well at university, but – her political notions – I suppose all young people have political notions nowadays.’

‘I’m afraid I don’t deal much with politics,’ said Mrs Oliver, to whom politics had always been anathema.

‘You see, I’m going to confide in you. I’m going totell you exactly what it is I want to know. I’m sure you won’t mind. I’ve heard from so many people how kind you are, how willing always.’

I wonder if she’s going to try and borrow money from me, thought Mrs Oliver, who had known many interviews that began with this kind of approach.

‘You see, it is a matter of the greatest moment to me. Something that I really feel I
must
find out. Celia, you see, is going to marry – or thinks she is going tomarry – my son, Desmond.’

‘Oh, indeed!’ said Mrs Oliver.

‘At least, that is their idea at present. Of course, one has to know about people, and there’s something I want very much to know. It’s an extraordinary thing to ask anyone and I couldn’t go – well, I mean, I couldn’t very well go and ask a stranger, but I don’t feel you are a stranger, dear Mrs Oliver.’

Mrs Oliver thought, I wish you did. She was getting nervous now. She wondered if Celia had had an illegitimate baby or was going to have an illegitimate baby, and whether she, Mrs Oliver, was supposed to know about it and give details. That would be very awkward. On the other hand, thought Mrs Oliver, I haven’t seen her now for five or six years and she must be about twenty-five or -six, so it would be quite easy to say I don’t know anything.

Mrs Burton-Cox leaned forward and breathed hard. ‘I want you to tell me because I’m sure you must know or perhaps have a very good idea how it all came about. Did her mother kill her father or was it the father who killed the mother?’

Whatever Mrs Oliver had expected, it was certainly not that. She stared at Mrs Burton-Cox unbelievingly.

‘But I don’t –’ She stopped. ‘I – I can’t understand. I mean – what reason –’

‘Dear Mrs Oliver, you must
know
. . . I mean, such a famous case . . . Of course, I know it’s a long time ago now, well, I suppose ten – twelve years at least, but it did cause a lot of attention at the time. I’m sure you’ll remember, you
must
remember.’

Mrs Oliver’s brain was working desperately. Celia was her goddaughter. That was quite true. Celia’s mother – yes, of course. Celia’s mother had been Molly Preston-Grey, who had been a friend of hers, though not a particularly intimate one, and of course she had married a man in the Army, yes – what was his name – Sir Something Ravenscroft. Or was he an ambassador? Extraordinary, one couldn’t remember these things. She couldn’t even remember whether she herself had been Molly’s bridesmaid. She thought she had. Rather a smart wedding at the Guards Chapel or something like that. But one
did
forget so. And after that she hadn’t met them for years – they’d been out somewhere – in the Middle East? In Persia? In Iraq? One time in Egypt? Malaya? Very occasionally, when they had been visiting England, she met them again. But they’d been like one of those photographs that one takes and looks at. One knows the people vaguely who are in it but it’s so faded that you really can’t recognize them or remember who they were. And she couldn’t remember now whether Sir Something Ravenscroft and Lady Ravenscroft, born Molly Preston-Grey, had entered much into her life. She didn’t think so. But then . . . Mrs Burton-Cox was still looking at her. Looking at her as though disappointed in her lack of
savoir-faire
, her inability to remember what had evidently been a
cause célèbre
.

‘Killed? You mean – an accident?’

‘Oh no. Not an accident. In one of those houses by the sea. Cornwall, I think. Somewhere where there were rocks. Anyway, they had a house down there. And they were both found on the cliff there and they’d been shot, you know. But there was nothing really by which the police could tell whether the wife shot the husband and then shot herself, or whether the husband shot the wife and then shot himself. They went into the evidence of the – you know – of the bullets and the various things, but it was very difficult. They thought it might be a suicide pact and – I forget what the verdict was. Something – it could have been misadventure or something like that. But of course everyone knew it must have been
meant
, and there were a lot of stories that went about, of course, at the time –’

‘Probably all invented ones,’ said Mrs Oliver hopefully, trying to remember even one of the stories if she could.

‘Well, maybe. Maybe. It’s very hard to say, I know. There were tales of a quarrel either that day or before, there was some talk of another man, and then of course there was the usual talk about some other woman. And one never knows which way it was about. I think things were hushed up a good deal because General Ravenscroft’s position was rather a high one, and I think it was said that he’d been in a nursing home that year, and he’d been very run down or something, and that he really didn’t know what he was doing.’

‘I’m really afraid,’ said Mrs Oliver, speaking firmly, ‘that I must say that I don’t know anything about it. I do remember, now you mention it, that there was such a case, and I remember the names and that I knew the people, but I never knew what happened or anything at all about it. And I really don’t think I have the least idea . . .’

And really, thought Mrs Oliver, wishing she was brave enough to say it, how on earth
you
have the impertinence to ask me such a thing I don’t know.

‘It’s very important that I should know,’ Mrs Burton-Cox said.

Her eyes, which were rather like hard marbles, started to snap.

‘It’s important, you see, because of my boy, my dear boy wanting to marry Celia.’

‘I’m afraid I can’t help you,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘I’ve never heard anything.’

‘But you
must
know,’ said Mrs Burton-Cox. ‘I mean, you write these wonderful stories, you know all about crime. You know who commits crimes and why they do it, and I’m sure that all sorts of people will tell you the story behind the story, as one so much thinks of these things.’

‘I don’t know anything,’ said Mrs Oliver, in a voice which no longer held very much politeness, and definitely now spoke in tones of distaste.

‘But you do see that really one doesn’t know who to go to ask about it? I mean, one couldn’t go to the police after all these years, and I don’t suppose they’d tell you anyway because obviously they were trying to hush it up. But I feel it’s important to get the
truth
.’

‘I only write books,’ said Mrs Oliver coldly. ‘They are entirely fictional. I know nothing personally about crime and have no opinions on criminology. So I’m afraid I can’t help you in
any
way.’

‘But you could ask your goddaughter. You could ask Celia.’

‘Ask Celia!’ Mrs Oliver stared again. ‘I don’t see how I could do
that
. She was – why, I think she must have been quite a child when this tragedy happened.’

‘Oh, I expect she knew all about it, though,’ said Mrs Burton-Cox. ‘Children always know everything. And she’d tell you. I’m sure she’d tell
you
.’

‘You’d better ask her yourself, I should think,’ said Mrs Oliver.

‘I don’t think I could really do that,’ said Mrs Burton-Cox. ‘I don’t think, you know, that Desmond would like it. You know he’s rather – well, he’s rather touchy where Celia is concerned and I really don’t think that – no – I’m sure she’d tell you.’

‘I really shouldn’t dream of asking her,’ said Mrs Oliver. She made a pretence of looking at her watch. ‘Oh dear,’ she said, ‘what a long time we’ve been over this delightful lunch. I must run now, I have a very important appointment. Goodbye, Mrs – er – Bedley-Cox, so sorry I can’t help you but these things are rather delicate and – does it really make any difference anyway, from your point of view?’

‘Oh, I think it makes
all
the difference.’

At that moment, a literary figure whom Mrs Oliver knew well drifted past. Mrs Oliver jumped up to catch her by the arm.

‘Louise, my dear, how lovely to see you. I hadn’t noticed you were here.’

‘Oh, Ariadne, it’s a long time since I’ve seen
you
. You’ve grown a lot thinner, haven’t you?’

‘What nice things you always say to me,’ said Mrs Oliver, engaging her friend by the arm and retreating from the settee. ‘I’m rushing away because I’ve got an appointment.’

‘I suppose you got tied up with that awful woman, didn’t you?’ said her friend, looking over her shoulder at Mrs Burton-Cox.

‘She was asking me the most extraordinary questions,’ said Mrs Oliver.

‘Oh. Didn’t you know how to answer them?’

‘No. They weren’t any of my business anyway. I didn’t know anything about them. Anyway, I wouldn’t have wanted to answer them.’

‘Was it about anything interesting?’

‘I suppose,’ said Mrs Oliver, letting a new idea come into her head. ‘I suppose it might be interesting, only –’

‘She’s getting up to chase you,’ said her friend. ‘Come along. I’ll see you get out and give you a lift to anywhere you want to go if you haven’t got your car here.’

‘I never take my car about in London, it’s so awful to park.’

‘I know it is. Absolutely deadly.’

Mrs Oliver made the proper goodbyes. Thanks, words of greatly expressed pleasure, and presently was being driven round a London square.

‘Eaton Terrace, isn’t it?’ said the kindly friend. ‘Yes,’ said Mrs Oliver, ‘but where I’ve got to go now is – I think it’s Whitefriars Mansions. I can’t quite remember the name of it, but I know where it is.’

‘Oh, flats. Rather modern ones. Very square and geometrical.’

‘That’s right,’ said Mrs Oliver.

Having failed to find her friend Hercule Poirot at home, Mrs Oliver had to resort to a telephone enquiry.

‘Are you by any chance going to be at home this evening?’ asked Mrs Oliver.

She sat by her telephone, her fingers tapping rather nervously on the table.

‘Would that be –?’

‘Ariadne Oliver,’ said Mrs Oliver, who was always surprised to find she had to give her name because she always expected all her friends to know her voice as soon as they heard it.

‘Yes, I shall be at home all this evening. Does that mean that I may have the pleasure of a visit from you?’

‘It’s very nice of you to put it that way,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘I don’t know that it will be such a pleasure.’

‘It is always a pleasure to see you,
chère Madame
.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘I might be going to – well, bother you rather. Ask things. I want to know what you think about something.’

‘That I am always ready to tell anyone,’ said Poirot.

‘Something’s come up,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘Something tiresome and I don’t know what to do about it.’

‘And so you will come and see me. I am flattered. Highly flattered.’

‘What time would suit you?’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘Nine o’clock? We will drink coffee together, perhaps, unless you prefer a Grenadine or a
Sirop de Cassis
. But no, you do not like that. I remember.’

‘George,’ said Poirot, to his invaluable manservant, ‘we are to receive tonight the pleasure of a visit from Mrs Oliver. Coffee, I think, and perhaps a liqueur of some kind. I am never sure what she likes.’

‘I have seen her drink kirsch, sir.’ ‘And also, I think,
crème de menthe
. But kirsch, I think, is what she prefers. Very well then,’ said Poirot. ‘So be it.’

Mrs Oliver came punctual to time. Poirot had been wondering, while eating his dinner, what it was that was driving Mrs Oliver to visit him, and why she was so doubtful about what she was doing. Was she bringing him some difficult problem, or was she acquainting him with a crime? As Poirot knew well, it could be anything with Mrs Oliver. The most commonplace things or the most extraordinary things. They were, as you might say, all alike to her. She was worried, he thought. Ah well, Hercule Poirot thought to himself, he could deal with Mrs Oliver. He always had been able to deal with Mrs Oliver. On occasion she maddened him. At the same time he was really very much attached to her. They had shared many experiences and experiments together. He had read something about her in the paper only that morning – or was it the evening paper? He must try and remember it before she came. He had just done so when she was announced.

She came into the room and Poirot deduced at once that his diagnosis of worry was true enough. Her hair-do, which was fairly elaborate, had been ruffled by the fact that she had been running her fingers through it in the frenzied and feverish way that she did sometimes. He received her with every sign of pleasure, established her in a chair, poured her some coffee and handed her a glass of kirsch.

‘Ah!’ said Mrs Oliver, with the sigh of someone who has relief. ‘I expect you’re going to think I’m awfully silly, but still . . .’

‘I see, or rather, I saw in the paper that you were attending a literary luncheon today. Famous women writers. Something of that kind. I thought you never did that kind of thing.’

‘I don’t usually,’ said Mrs Oliver, ‘and I shan’t ever do it again.’

‘Ah. You suffered much?’ Poirot was quite sympathetic.

He knew Mrs Oliver’s embarrassing moments. Extravagant praise of her books always upset her highly because, as she had once told him, she never knew the proper answers.

‘You did not enjoy it?’

‘Up to a point I did,’ said Mrs Oliver, ‘and then something very tiresome happened.’

‘Ah. And that is what you have come to see me about.’

‘Yes, but I really don’t know why. I mean, it’s nothing to do with you and I don’t think it’s the sort of thing you’d even be interested in. And I’m not really interested in it. At least, I suppose I must be or I wouldn’t have wanted to come to you to know what you thought. To know what – well, what you’d do if you were me.’

‘That is a very difficult question, that last one,’ said Poirot. ‘I know how I, Hercule Poirot, would act in anything, but I do not know how you would act, well though I know you.’

‘You must have some idea by this time,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘You’ve known me long enough.’

‘About what – twenty years now?’ ‘Oh, I don’t know. I can never remember what years are, what dates are. You know, I get mixed up. I know 1939 because that’s when the war started and I know other dates because of queer things, here and there.’

‘Anyway, you went to your literary luncheon. And you did not enjoy it very much.’

‘I enjoyed the lunch but it was afterwards . . .’ ‘People said things to you,’ said Poirot, with the kindliness of a doctor demanding symptoms.

‘Well, they were just getting ready to say things to me. Suddenly one of those large, bossy women who always manage to dominate everyone and who can make you feel more uncomfortable than anyone else, descended on me. You know, like somebody who catches a butterfly or something, only she’d have needed a butterfly-net. She sort of rounded me up and pushed me on to a settee and then she began to talk to me, starting about a goddaughter of mine.’

‘Ah yes. A goddaughter you are fond of ?’

‘I haven’t seen her for a good many years,’ said Mrs Oliver, ‘I can’t keep up with all of them, I mean. And then she asked me a most worrying question. She wanted me – oh dear, how very difficult it is for me to tell this –’

‘No, it isn’t, said Poirot kindly. ‘It is quite easy. Everyone tells everything to me sooner or later. I’m only a foreigner, you see, so it does not matter. It is easy because I am a foreigner.’

‘Well, it is rather easy to say things to you,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘You see, she asked me about the girl’s father and mother. She asked me whether her mother had killed her father or her father had killed her mother.’

‘I beg your pardon,’ said Poirot. ‘Oh, I know it sounds mad. Well, I thought it was mad.’

‘Whether your goddaughter’s mother had killed her father, or whether her father had killed her mother.’

‘That’s right,’ said Mrs Oliver.

‘But – was that a matter of fact? Had her father killed her mother or her mother killed her father?’

‘Well, they were both found shot,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘On the top of a cliff. I can’t remember if it was in Cornwall or in Corsica. Something like that.’

‘Then it was true, then, what she said?’ ‘Oh yes, that part of it was true. It happened years ago. Well, but I mean – why come to me?’

‘All because you were a crime writer,’ said Poirot. ‘She no doubt said you knew all about crime. This was a real thing that happened?’

‘Oh yes. It wasn’t something like what would A do – or what would be the proper procedure if your mother had killed your father or your father had killed yourmother. No, it was something that really happened. I suppose really I’d better tell you all about it. I mean, I can’t remember all about it but it was quite well known at the time. It was about – oh, I should think it was about twelve years ago at least. And, as I say, I can remember the names of the people because I did know them. The wife had been at school with me and I’d known her quite well. We’d been friends. It was a well-known case – you know, it was in all the papers and things like that. Sir Alistair Ravenscroft and Lady Ravenscroft. A very happy couple and he was a colonel or a general and she’d been with him and they’d been all over the world. Then they bought this house somewhere – I think it was abroad but I can’t remember. And then there were suddenly accounts of this case in the papers. Whether somebody else had killed them or whether they’d been assassinated or something, or whether they killed each other. I think it was a revolver that had been in the house for ages and – well, I’d better tell you as much as I can remember.’

Pulling herself slightly together, Mrs Oliver managed to give Poirot a more or less clear
résumé
of what she had been told. Poirot from time to time checked on a point here or there.

‘But why?’ he said finally, ‘why should this woman want to know this?’

‘Well, that’s what I want to find out,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘I could get hold of Celia, I think. I mean, she still lives in London. Or perhaps it’s Cambridge she lives in, or Oxford – I think she’s got a degree and either lectures here or teaches somewhere, or does something like that. And – very modern, you know. Goes about with long-haired people in queer clothes. I don’t think she takes drugs. She’s quite all right and – just very occasionally I hear from her. I mean, she sends a card at Christmas and things like that. Well, one doesn’t think of one’s god-children all the time, and she’s quite twenty-five or -six.’

‘Not married?’

‘No. Apparently she is going to marry – or that is the idea – Mrs – What’s the name of that woman again? – oh yes, Mrs Brittle – no – Burton-Cox’s son.’

‘And Mrs Burton-Cox does not want her son to marry this girl because her father killed her mother or her mother killed her father?’

‘Well, I suppose so,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘It’s the only thing I can think. But what does it matter which? If one of your parents killed the other, would it really matter to the mother of the boy you were going to marry, which way round it was?’

‘That is a thing one might have to think about,’ said Poirot. ‘It is – yes, you know it is quite interesting. I do not mean it is very interesting about Sir Alistair Ravenscroft or Lady Ravenscroft. I seem to remember vaguely – oh, some case like this one, or it might not have been the same one. But it is very strange about Mrs Burton-Cox. Perhaps she is a bit touched in the head. Is she very fond of her son?’

‘Probably,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘Probably she doesn’t want him to marry this girl at all.’

‘Because she may have inherited a predisposition to murder the man she marries – or something of that kind?’

‘How do I know?’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘She seems to think that I can tell her, and she’s really not told
me
enough, has she? But why, do you think? What’s behind it all? What does it
mean
?’

‘It would be almost interesting to find out,’ said Poirot.

‘Well, that’s why I’ve come to you,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘You like finding out things. Things that you can’t see the reason for at first. I mean, that nobody can see the reason for.’

‘Do you think Mrs Burton-Cox has any preference?’ said Poirot.

‘You mean that she’d rather the husband killed the wife, or the wife killed the husband? I don’t think so.’

‘Well,’ said Poirot, ‘I see your dilemma. It is very intriguing. You come home from a party. You’ve been asked to do something that is very difficult, almost impossible, and – you wonder what is the proper way to deal with such a thing.’

‘Well, what would you think is the proper way?’ said Mrs Oliver.

‘It is not easy for me to say,’ said Poirot. ‘I’m not a woman. A woman whom you do not really know, whom you had met at a party, has put this problem to you, asked you to do it, giving no discernible reason.’

‘Right,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘Now what does Ariadne do? What does A do, in other words, if you were reading this as a problem in a newspaper?’

‘Well, I suppose,’ said Poirot, ‘there are three things that A could do. A could write a note to Mrs Burton-Cox and say, “I’m very sorry but I really feel I cannot oblige you in this matter,” or whatever words you like to put. B. You get into touch with your goddaughter and you tell her what has been asked of you by the mother of the boy, or the young man, or whatever he is, whom she is thinking of marrying. You will find out from her if she is really thinking of marrying this young man. If so, whether she has any idea or whether the young man has said anything to her about what his mother has got in her head. And there will be other interesting points, like finding out what this girl thinks of the mother of the young man she wants to marry. The third thing you could do,’ said Poirot, ‘and this really is what I firmly advise you to do, is . . .’

‘I know,’ said Mrs Oliver, ‘one word.’

‘Nothing,’ said Poirot. ‘Exactly,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘I know that is the simple and proper thing to do. Nothing. It’s darned cheek to go and tell a girl who’s my goddaughter what her future mother-in-law is going about saying, and asking people. But –’

‘I know,’ said Poirot, ‘it is human curiosity.’

‘I want to know why that odious woman came and said what she did to me,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘Once I know that I could relax and forget all about it. But until I know that . . .’

‘Yes,’ said Poirot, ‘you won’t sleep. You’ll wake up in the night and, if I know you, you will have the most extraordinary and extravagant ideas which presently, probably, you will be able to make into a most attractive crime story. A whodunit – a thriller. All sorts of things.’

‘Well, I suppose I could if I thought of it that way,’ said Mrs Oliver. Her eyes flashed slightly.

‘Leave it alone,’ said Poirot. ‘It will be a very difficult plot to undertake. It seems as though there could be no good reason for this.’

‘But I’d like to make
sure
that there
is
no good reason.’

‘Human curiosity,’ said Poirot. ‘Such a very interesting thing.’ He sighed. ‘To think what we owe to it throughout history. Curiosity. I don’t know who invented curiosity. It is said to be usually associated with the cat. Curiosity killed the cat. But I should say really that the Greeks were the inventors of curiosity. They wanted to
know
. Before them, as far as I can see, nobody wanted to know
much
. They just wanted to know what the rules of the country they were living in were, and how they could avoid having their heads cut off or being impaled on spikes or something disagreeable happening to them. But they either obeyed or disobeyed. They didn’t want to know
why
. But since then a lot of people have wanted to know
why
and all sorts of things have happened because of that. Boats, trains, flying machines and atom bombs and penicillin and cures for various illnesses. A little boy watches his mother’s kettle raising its lid because of the steam. And the next thing we know is we have railway trains, leading on in due course to railway strikes and all that. And so on and so on.’