by Mark Place
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? India? 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 that 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 rundown 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 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 good-byes. 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.
Chapter 2
FIRST MENTION OF ELEPHANTS
Having failed to find her friend Hercule Poirot at home, Mrs. Oliver had to resort to a telephone inquiry. "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."
"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, a 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 hairdo, 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 nineteen thirty-nine 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."
"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 I do - or what would be the proper procedure if your mother had killed your father or your father had killed your mother. 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 twenty 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 resume 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 godchildren 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 most 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."
