Elephants Can Remember (15 page)

Miss Livingstone showed in a guest. ‘Mr Hercules Porrett.’

As soon as Miss Livingstone had left the room, Poirot shut the door after her and sat down by his friend, Mrs Ariadne Oliver.

He said, lowering his voice slightly, ‘I depart.’

‘You do what?’ said Mrs Oliver, who was always slightly startled by Poirot’s methods of passing on information.

‘I depart. I make the departure. I take a plane to Geneva.’

‘You sound as though you were UNO or UNESCO or something.’

‘No. It is just a private visit that I make.’

‘Have you got an elephant in Geneva?’

‘Well, I suppose you might look at it that way. Perhaps two of them.’

‘I haven’t found out anything more,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘In fact I don’t know who I can go to, to find out any more.’

‘I believe you mentioned, or somebody did, that your goddaughter, Celia Ravenscroft, had a young brother.’

‘Yes. He’s called Edward, I think. I’ve hardly ever seen him. I took him out once or twice from school, I remember. But that was years ago.’

‘Where is he now?’

‘He’s at university, in Canada I think. Or he’s taking some engineering course there. Do you want to go and ask him things?’

‘No, not at the moment. I should just like to know where he is now. But I gather he was not in the house when this suicide happened?’

‘You’re not thinking – you’re not thinking for a moment that
he
did it, are you? I mean, shot his father and his mother, both of them. I know boys do sometimes. Very queer they are sometimes when they’re at a funny age.’

‘He was not in the house,’ said Poirot. ‘That I know already from my police reports.’

‘Have you found out anything else interesting? You look quite excited.’

‘I am excited in a way. I have found out certain things that may throw light upon what we already know.’

‘Well, what throws light on what?’

‘It seems to me possible now that I can understand why Mrs Burton-Cox approached you as she did and tried to get you to obtain information for her about the facts of the suicide of the Ravenscrofts.’

‘You mean she wasn’t just being a nosey-parker?’

‘No. I think there was some motive behind it. This is where, perhaps, money comes in.’

‘Money? What’s money got to do with that? She’s quite well off, isn’t she?’

‘She has enough to live upon, yes. But it seems that her adopted son whom she regards apparently as her true son – he knows that he was adopted although he knows nothing about the family from which he really came. It seems that when he came of age he made a Will, possibly urged by his adopted mother to do so. Perhaps it was merely hinted to him by some friends of hers or possibly by some lawyer that she had consulted. Anyway, on coming of age he may have felt that he might as well leave everything to her, to his adopted mother. Presumably at that time he had nobody else to leave it to.’

‘I don’t see how that leads to wanting news about a suicide.’

‘Don’t you? She wanted to discourage the marriage. If young Desmond had a girl-friend, if he proposed to marry her in the near future, which is what a lot of young people do nowadays – they won’t wait or think it over. In that case, Mrs Burton-Cox would not inherit the money he left, since the marriage would invalidate any earlier Will, and presumably if he did marry his girl he would make a new Will leaving everything to her and not to his adopted mother.’

‘And you mean Mrs Burton-Cox didn’t want that?’

‘She wanted to find something that would discourage him from marrying the girl. I think she hoped, and probably really believed as far as that goes, that Celia’s mother killed her husband, afterwards shooting herself. That is the sort of thing that might discourage a boy. Even if her father killed her mother, it is still a discouraging thought. It might quite easily prejudice and influence a boy at that age.’

‘You mean he’d think that if her father or mother was a murderer, the girl might have murderous tendencies?’

‘Not quite as crude as that but that might be the main idea, I should think.’

‘But he wasn’t rich, was he? An adopted child.’

‘He didn’t know his real mother’s name or who she was, but it seems that his mother, who was an actress and a singer and who managed to make a great deal of money before she became ill and died, wanted at one time to get her child returned to her and when Mrs Burton-Cox would not agree to that, I should imagine she thought about this boy a great deal and decided that she would leave her money to him. He will inherit this money at the age of twenty-five, but it is held in trust for him until then. So of course Mrs Burton-Cox doesn’t want him to marry, or only to marry someone that she really approves of or over whom she might have influence.’

‘Yes, that seems to me fairly reasonable. She’s not a nice woman though, is she?’

‘No,’ said Poirot, ‘I did not think her a very nice woman.’

‘And that’s why she didn’t want you coming to see her and messing about with things and finding out what she was up to.’

‘Possibly,’ said Poirot. ‘

Anything else you have learnt?’

‘Yes, I have learnt – that is only a few hours ago really – when Superintendent Garroway happened to ring me up about some other small matters, but I did ask him and he told me that the housekeeper, who was elderly, had very bad eyesight.’

‘Does that come into it anywhere?’

‘It might,’ said Poirot. He looked at his watch. ‘I think,’ he said, ‘it is time that I left.’

‘You are on your way to catch your plane at the airport?’

‘No. My plane does not leave until tomorrow morning. But there is a place I have to visit today – a place that I wish to see with my own eyes. I have a car waiting outside now to take me there –’

‘What is it you want to see?’ Mrs Oliver asked with some curiosity.

‘Not so much to
see
– to
feel
. Yes – that is the right word – to feel and to recognize what it will be that I feel . . .’

Hercule Poirot passed through the gate of the churchyard. He walked up one of the paths, and presently, against a moss-grown wall he stopped, looking down on a grave. He stood there for some minutes looking first at the grave, then at the view of the Downs and sea beyond. Then his eyes came back again. Flowers had been put recently on the grave. A small bunch of assorted wild flowers, the kind of bunch that might have been left by a child, but Poirot did not think that it was a child who had left them. He read the lettering on the grave.

Poirot stood there a moment or two. He nodded his head once or twice. Then he left the churchyard and walked by a footpath that led out on to the cliff and along the cliff. Presently he stood still again looking out to the sea. He spoke to himself.

‘I am sure now that I know what happened and why. I understand the pity of it and the tragedy. One has to go back such a long way.
In my end is my beginning
, or should one put it differently? “In my beginning was my tragic end”? The Swiss girl must have known – but will she tell me? The boy believes she will. For their sakes – the girl and the boy. They cannot accept life unless they know.’

‘Mademoiselle Rouselle?’ said Hercule Poirot. He bowed.

Mademoiselle Rouselle extended her hand. About fifty, Poirot thought. A fairly imperious woman. Would have her way. Intelligent, intellectual, satisfied, he thought, with life as she had lived it, enjoying the pleasures and suffering the sorrows life brings.

‘I have heard your name,’ she said. ‘You have friends, you know, both in this country and in France. I do not know exactly what I can do for you. Oh, I know that you explained, in the letter that you sent me. It is an affair of the past, is it not? Things that happened. Not exactly things that happened, but the clue to things that happened many, many years ago. But sit down. Yes. Yes, that chair is quite comfortable, I hope. There are some
petit-fours
and the decanter is on the table.’

She was quietly hospitable without any urgency. She was unworried but amiable.

‘You were at one time a governess in a certain family,’ said Poirot. ‘The Preston-Greys. Perhaps now you hardly remember them.’

‘Oh yes, one does not forget, you know, things that happen when you were young. There was a girl, and a boy about four or five years younger in the family I went to. They were nice children. Their father became a General in the Army.’

‘There was also another sister.’

‘Ah yes, I remember. She was not there when I first came. I think she was delicate. Her health was not good. She was having treatment somewhere.’

‘You remember their Christian names?’

‘Margaret, I think was one. The other one I am not sure of by now.’

‘Dorothea.’

‘Ah yes. A name I have not often come across. But they called each other by shorter names. Molly and Dolly. They were identical twins, you know, remarkably alike. They were both very handsome young women.’

‘And they were fond of each other?’

‘Yes, they were devoted. But we are, are we not, becoming slightly confused? Preston-Grey is not the name of the children I went to teach. Dorothea Preston-Grey married a Major – ah, I cannot remember the name now. Arrow? No, Jarrow. Margaret’s married name was –’

‘Ravenscroft,’ said Poirot.

‘Ah, that. Yes. Curious how one cannot remember names. The Preston-Greys are a generation older. Margaret Preston-Grey had been in a
pensionnat
in this part of the world, and when she wrote after her marriage asking Madame Benoıˆt, who ran that
pensionnat
, if she knew of someone who would come to her as nursery-governess to her children, I was recommended. That is how I came to go there. I spoke only of the other sister because she happened to be staying there during part of my time of service with the children. The children were a girl, I think then of six or seven. She had a name out of Shakespeare. I remember, Rosalind or Celia.’

‘Celia,’ said Poirot. ‘And the boy was only about three or four. His name was Edward. A mischievous but lovable child. I was happy with them.’

‘And they were happy, I hear, with you. They enjoyed playing with you and you were very kind in your playing with them.’

‘
Moi, j’aime les enfants
,’ said Mademoiselle Rouselle.

‘They called you “Maddy,” I believe.’

She laughed.

‘Ah, I like hearing that word. It brings back past memories.’

‘Did you know a boy called Desmond? Desmond Burton-Cox?’

‘Ah yes. He lived I think in a house next door or nearly next door. We had several neighbours and the children very often came to play together. His name was Desmond. Yes, I remember.’

‘You were there long, mademoiselle?’

‘No. I was only there for three or four years at most. Then I was recalled to this country. My mother was very ill. It was a question of coming back and nursing her, although I knew it would not be perhaps for very long. That was true. She died a year and a half or two years at the most after I returned here. After that I started a small
pensionnat
out here, taking in rather older girls who wanted to study languages and other things. I did not visit England again, although for a year or two I kept up communication with the country. The two children used to send me a card at Christmas time.’

‘Did General Ravenscroft and his wife strike you as a happy couple?’

‘Very happy. They were fond of their children.’

‘They were very well suited to each other?’

‘Yes, they seemed to me to have all the necessary qualities to make their marriage a success.’

‘You said Lady Ravenscroft was devoted to her twin sister. Was the twin sister also devoted to her?’

‘Well, I had not very much occasion of judging. Frankly, I thought that the sister – Dolly, as they called her – was very definitely a mental case. Once or twice she acted in a very peculiar manner. She was a jealous woman, I think, and I understood that she had at one time thought she was engaged, or was going to be engaged, to General Ravenscroft. As far as I could see he’d fallen in love with her first, then later, however, his affections turned towards her sister, which was fortunate, I thought, because Molly Ravenscroft was a well-balanced and very sweet woman. As for Dolly – sometimes I thought she adored her sister, sometimes that she hated her. She was a very jealous woman and she decided too much affection was being shown to the children. There is one who could tell you about all this better than I. Mademoiselle Meauhourat. She lives in Lausanne and she went to the Ravenscrofts about a year and a half or two years after I had to leave. She was with them for some years. Later I believe she went back as companion to Lady Ravenscroft when Celia was abroad at school.’

‘I am going to see her. I have her address,’ said Poirot.

‘She knows a great deal that I do not, and she is a charming and reliable person. It was a terrible tragedy that happened later. She knows if anyone does what led to it. She is very discreet. She has never told me anything. Whether she will tell you I do not know. She may do, she may not.’

* * *

Poirot stood for a moment or two looking at Mademoiselle Meauhourat. He had been impressed by Mademoiselle Rouselle, he was impressed also by the woman who stood waiting to receive him. She was not so formidable, she was much younger, at least ten years younger, he thought, and she had a different kind of impressiveness. She was alive, still attractive, eyes that watched you and made their own judgment on you, willing to welcome you, looking with kindliness on those who came her way but without undue softness. Here is someone, thought Hercule Poirot, very remarkable.

‘I am Hercule Poirot, mademoiselle.’

‘I know. I was expecting you either today or tomorrow.’

‘Ah. You received a letter from me?’

‘No. It is no doubt still in the post. Our posts are a little uncertain. No. I had a letter from someone else.’

‘From Celia Ravenscroft?’

‘No. It was a letter written by someone in close touch with Celia. A boy or a young man, whichever we like to regard him as, called Desmond Burton-Cox. He prepared me for your arrival.’

‘Ah. I see. He is intelligent and he wastes no time, I think. He was very urgent that I should come and see you.’

‘So I gathered. There’s trouble, I understand. Trouble that he wants to resolve, and so does Celia. They think you can help them?’

‘Yes, and they think that
you
can help
me
.’

‘They are in love with each other and wish to marry.’

‘Yes, but there are difficulties being put in their way.’

‘Ah, by Desmond’s mother, I presume. So he lets me understand.’

‘There are circumstances, or have been circumstances, in Celia’s life that have prejudiced his mother against his early marriage to this particular girl.’

‘Ah. Because of the tragedy, for it was a tragedy.’

‘Yes, because of the tragedy. Celia has a godmother who was asked by Desmond’s mother to try and find out from Celia the exact circumstances under which that suicide occurred.’

‘There’s no sense in that,’ said Mademoiselle Meauhourat. She motioned with her hand. ‘Sit down. Please sit down. I expect we shall have to talk for some little time. Yes, Celia could not tell her godmother – Mrs Ariadne Oliver, the novelist is it not? Yes, I remember. Celia could not give her the information because she has not got the information herself.’

‘She was not there when the tragedy occurred, and no one told her anything about it. Is that right?’

‘Yes, that is right. It was thought inadvisable.’

‘Ah. And do you approve of that decision or disapprove of it?’

‘It is difficult to be sure. Very difficult. I’ve not been sure of it in the years that have passed since then, and there are quite a lot. Celia, as far as I know, has never been worried. Worried, I mean, as to the why and wherefore. She’s accepted it as she would have accepted an aeroplane accident or a car accident. Something that resulted in the death of her parents. She spent many years in a
pensionnat
abroad.’

‘Actually I think the
pensionnat
was run by you, Mademoiselle Meauhourat.’

‘That is quite true. I have retired recently. A colleague of mine is now taking it on. But Celia was sent out to me and I was asked to find for her a good place for her to continue her education, as many girls do come to Switzerland for that purpose. I could have recommended several places. At the moment I took her into my own.’

‘And Celia asked you nothing, did not demand information?’

‘No. It was, you see, before the tragedy happened.’

‘Oh. I did not quite understand that.’

‘Celia came out here some weeks before the tragic occurrence. I was at that time not here myself. I was still with General and Lady Ravenscroft. I looked after Lady Ravenscroft, acting as a companion to her rather than as a governess to Celia, who was still at that moment in boarding-school. But it was suddenly arranged that Celia should come to Switzerland and finish her education there.’

‘Lady Ravenscroft had been in poor health, had she not?’

‘Yes. Nothing very serious. Nothing as serious as she had herself feared at one time. But she had suffered a lot of nervous strain and shock and general worry.’

‘You remained with her?’

‘A sister whom I had living in Lausanne received Celia on her arrival and settled her into the institution which was only for about fifteen or sixteen girls, but there she would start her studies and await my return. I returned some three or four weeks later.’

‘But you were at Overcliffe at the time it happened.’

‘I was at Overcliffe. General and Lady Ravenscroft went for a walk, as was their habit. They went out and did not return. They were found dead, shot. The weapon was found lying by them. It was one that belonged to General Ravenscroft and had been always kept in a drawer in his study. The finger marks of both of them were found on that weapon. There was no definite indication of who had held it last. Impressions of both people, slightly smeared, were on it. The obvious solution was a double suicide.’

‘You found no reason to doubt that?’

‘The police found no reason, so I believe.’

‘Ah,’ said Poirot.

‘I beg your pardon?’ said Mademoiselle Meauhourat. ‘Nothing. Nothing. Just something upon which I reflect.’

Poirot looked at her. Brown hair as yet hardly touched with grey, lips closed firmly together, grey eyes, a face which showed no emotion. She was in control of herself completely.

‘So you cannot tell me anything more?’

‘I fear not. It was a long time ago.’

‘You remember that time well enough.’

‘Yes. One cannot entirely forget such a sad thing.’

‘And you agreed that Celia should not be told anything more of what had led up to this?’

‘Have I not just told you that I had no extra information?’

‘You were there, living at Overcliffe, for a period of time before the tragedy, were you not? Four or five weeks – six weeks perhaps.’

‘Longer than that, really. Although I had been governess to Celia earlier, I came back this time, after she went to school, in order to help Lady Ravenscroft.’

‘Lady Ravenscroft’s sister was living with her also about that time, was she not?’

‘Yes. She had been in hospital having special treatment for some time. She had shown much improvement and the authorities had felt – the medical authorities I speak of – that she would do better to lead a normal life with her own relations and the atmosphere of a home. As Celia had gone to school, it seemed a good time for Lady Ravenscroft to invite her sister to be with her.’

‘Were they fond of each other, those two sisters?’

‘It was difficult to know,’ said Mademoiselle Meauhourat. Her brows drew together. It was as though what Poirot had just said aroused her interest. ‘I have wondered, you know. I have wondered so much since, and at the time really. They were identical twins, you know. They had a bond between them, a bond of mutual dependence and love and in many ways they were very alike. But there were ways also in which they were not alike.’

‘You mean? I should be glad to know just what you mean by that.’

‘Oh, this has nothing to do with the tragedy. Nothing of that kind. But there was a definite, as I shall put it, a definite physical or mental flaw – whichever way you like to put it – some people nowadays hold the theory that there is some physical cause for any kind of mental disorder. I believe that it is fairly well recognized by the medical profession that identical twins are born either with a great bond between them, a great likeness in their characters which means that although they may be divided in their environment, where they are brought up, the same things will happen to them at the same time of life. They will take the same trend. Some of the cases quoted as medical example seem quite extraordinary. Two sisters, one living in Europe, one say in France, the other in England, they have a dog of the same kind which they choose at about the same date. They marry men singularly alike. They give birth perhaps to a child almost within a month of each other. It as though they have to follow the pattern wherever they are and without knowing what the other one is doing. Then there is the opposite to that. A kind of revulsion, a hatred almost, that makes one sister draw apart, or one brother reject the other as though they seek to get away from the sameness, the likeness, the knowledge, the things they have in common. And that can lead to very strange results.’