Hercule Poirot 100 Years (1916 - 2016)

by Mark Place

  "We didn't have so many boyfriends then," said Mrs. Oliver. "It's not like nowadays when it's a matter of course. Later, when we were both back again at home we more or less drifted apart. I think Molly went abroad somewhere with her parents. I don't think it was India - I don't think so. Somewhere else, I think it was. Egypt, perhaps. I think now they were in the Diplomatic Service. They were in Sweden at one time, and after that somewhere like Bermuda or the West Indies. I think he was a governor or something there. But those sort of things one doesn't really remember. All one remembers is all the silly things that we said to each other. I had a crush on the violin master, I remember. Molly was very keen on the music master, which was very satisfying to us both and I should think much less troublesome than boyfriends seem to be nowadays. I mean, you adored - longed for the day when they came again to teach you. They were, I have no doubt, quite indifferent to you. But one dreamt about them at night and I remember having a splendid kind of daydream in which I nursed my beloved Monsieur Adolphe when he had cholera and I gave him, I think, blood transfusions to save his life. How very silly one is. And think of all the other things you think of doing! There was one time when I was quite determined to be a nun and later on I thought I'd be a hospital nurse. Well, I suppose we shall have Mrs. Burton-Cox in a moment. I wonder how she will react to you?"

  Poirot gazed at his watch. "We shall be able to see that fairly soon."

  "Have we anything else we ought to talk about first?"

  "I think there are a few things we might compare notes on. As I say, there are one or two things that I think could do with investigation. An elephant investigation for you, shall we say? And an understudy for an elephant for me."

  "What an extraordinary thing to say," said Mrs. Oliver. "I told you I was done with elephants."

  "Ah," said Poirot, "but elephants perhaps have not done with you." The front doorbell sounded once again. Poirot and Mrs. Oliver looked at each other. "Well," said Mrs. Oliver, "here we go."

  She left the room once more. Poirot heard sounds of greeting going on outside and in a moment or two Mrs. Oliver returned, ushering the somewhat massive figure of Mrs. Burton-Cox. "What a delightful flat you have," said Mrs. Burton-Cox. "So charming of you to have spared time - your very valuable time, I'm sure - and asked me to come and see you." Her eyes shot sideways to Hercule Poirot. A faint expression of surprise passed over her face. For a moment her eyes went from him to the baby grand piano that stood in one window. It occurred to Mrs. Oliver that Mrs. Burton-Cox was thinking that Hercule Poirot was a piano tuner. She hastened to dispel this illusion.

  "I want to introduce you," she said, "to Mr. Hercule Poirot."

  Poirot came forward and bent over her hand. "I think he is the only person who might be able to help you in some way. You know. What you were asking me about the other day concerning my godchild, Celia Ravenscroft."

  "Oh, yes, how kind of you to remember. I do so hope you can give me a little more knowledge of what really happened."

  "I'm afraid I haven't been very successful," said Mrs. Oliver, "and that is really why I asked Mr. Poirot to meet you. He is a wonderful person, you know, for information on things generally. Really on top of his profession. I cannot tell you how many friends of mine he has assisted and how many, well, I can really call them mysteries, he has elucidated. And this was such a tragic thing to have happened."

  "Yes, indeed," said Mrs. Burton-Cox. Her eyes were still somewhat doubtful. Mrs. Oliver indicated chairs and remarked:

  "Now what will you have? A glass of sherry? It's too late for tea, of course. Or would you prefer a cocktail of some kind?"

  "Oh, a glass of sherry. You are very kind."

  "Monsieur Poirot?"

  "I, too," said Poirot.

  Mrs. Oliver could not help being thankful that he had not asked for Sirop de Cassis or one of his favorite fruit drinks. She got out glasses and a decanter. "I have already indicated to Monsieur Poirot the outlines of the inquiry you want to make."

  "Oh, yes," said Mrs. Burton-Cox.

  She seemed rather doubtful and not so sure of herself as it would seem she was in the natural habit of being. "These young people," she said to Poirot, "so difficult nowadays. These young people. My son, such a dear boy, we have great hopes of his doing well in the future. And then there is this girl, a very charming girl, who, as probably Mrs. Oliver told you, is her goddaughter, and - well, of course one never knows. I mean these friendships spring up and very often they don't last. They are what we used to call calf-love, you know, years ago, and it is very important to know a little at least about the - antecedents of people. You know, what their families are like. Oh, of course I know Celia's a very well-born girl and all that, but there was this tragedy. Mutual suicide, I believe, but nobody has been really able to enlighten me at all on what led to it or what led up to it, shall we say. I have no actual friends who were friends in common with the Ravenscrofts and so it is very difficult for me to have ideas. I know Celia is a charming girl and all that, but one would like to know, to know more."

  "I understand from my friend, Mrs. Oliver, that you wanted to know something specifically. You wanted to know, in fact -"

  "What you said you wanted to know," said Mrs. Oliver, chipping in with some firmness, "was whether Celia's father shot her mother and then himself or whether Celia's mother shot her father and then herself."

  "I feel it makes a difference," said Mrs. Burton-Cox. "Yes, definitely I feel it makes a difference."

  "A very interesting point of view," said Poirot. His tone was not very encouraging. "Oh, the emotional background, shall I say, the emotional events that led up to all this. In a marriage, you must admit, one had to think of the children. The children, I mean, that are to come. I mean heredity. I think now we realize that heredity does more than environment. It leads to certain formation of character and certain very grave risks that one might not want to take."

  "True," said Poirot. "The people who undertake the risks are the ones that have to make the decision. Your son and this young lady, it will be their choice."

  "Oh, I know, I know. Not mine. Parents are never allowed to choose, are they, or even to give any advice. But I would like to know something about it. Yes, I would like to know very much. If you feel that you could undertake any - investigation I suppose is the word you would use. But perhaps - perhaps I am being a very foolish mother. You know. Overanxious about my dear son. Mothers are like that."

  She gave a little whinny of laughter, putting her head slightly on one side. "Perhaps," she said, as she tipped up the sherry glass, "perhaps you will think about it and I also will let you know. Perhaps the exact points and things that I am worried about." She looked at her watch. "Oh, dear. Oh, dear, I'm late for another appointment. I shall have to go. I am so sorry, dear Mrs. Oliver, to have to run away so soon, but you know what it is. I had great difficulties finding a taxi this afternoon. One after another just turned his head aside and drove straight past me. Ah, very, very difficult, isn't it? I think Mrs. Oliver has your address, has she not?"

  "I will give you my address," said Poirot. He removed a card from his pocket and handed it to her. "Oh, yes, yes. I see. Monsieur Hercule Poirot. You are French, is that right?"

  "I am Belgian," said Poirot.

  "Oh, yes, yes. Belgique. Yes, yes. I quite understand. I am so pleased to have met you and I feel so hopeful. Oh, dear, I must go very, very fast." Shaking Mrs. Oliver warmly by the hand, then extending the same hand to Poirot, she left the room and the door sounded in the hall. "Well, what do you think of that?" said Mrs. Oliver.

  "What do you?" said Poirot.

  "She ran away," said Mrs. Oliver. "She ran away. You frightened her in some way."

  "Yes," said Poirot, "I think you've judged quite right."

  "She wanted me to get things out of Celia, she wanted me to get some knowledge out of Celia, some expression, some sort of secret she suspected was there, but she doesn't want a real proper investigation, does she?"


  "I think not," said Poirot. "That is interesting. Very interesting. She is well-to-do, you think?"

  "I should say so. Her clothes are expensive, she lives at an expensive address, she is - it's difficult to make out. She's a pushing woman and a bossy woman. She sits on a lot of committees. There's nothing, I mean, suspicious about her. I've asked a few people. Nobody likes her very much. But she's a sort of public-spirited woman who takes part in politics, all those sorts of things."

  "Then what is wrong with her?" said Poirot.

  "You think there is something wrong with her. Or do you just not like her, like I do?"

  "I think there is something there that she does not want to come to light," said Poirot.

  "Oh. And are you going to find out what it is?"

  "Naturally, if I can," said Poirot. "It may not be easy. She is in retreat. She was in retreat when she left us here. She was afraid of what questions I was going to ask her. Yes. It is interesting."

  He sighed. "One will have to go back, you know, even further than one thought."

  "What, back into the past again?"

  "Yes. Somewhere in the past, in more cases than one, there is something that one will have to know before we can come back again to what happened - what is it now? - fifteen years ago, twenty years ago, at a house called Overcliffe. Yes, one will have to go back again."

  "Well, that's that," said Mrs. Oliver. "And now, what is there to do? What is this list of yours?"

  "I have heard a certain amount of information through police records on what was found in the house. You will remember that among the things there were four wigs."

  "Yes," said Mrs. Oliver, "you said that four wigs were too many."

  "It seemed to be a little excessive," said Poirot. "I have also got certain useful addresses. The address of a doctor that might be helpful."

  "The doctor? You mean, the family doctor?"

  "No, not the family doctor. The doctor who gave evidence at an inquest on a child who met with an accident. Either pushed by an older child or possibly by someone else."

  "You mean by the mother?"

  "Possibly the mother, possibly by someone else who was in the house at the time. I know the part of England where that happened, and Superintendent Garroway has been able, through sources known to him and also through journalistic friends of mine, who were interested in this particular case, to get some information about the doctor."

  "And you're going to see him. He must be a very old man by now."

  "It is not him I shall go to see. It is his son. His son is also qualified as a specialist in various forms of mental disorders. I have an introduction to him and he might be able to tell me something interesting. There have also been inquiries into a case of money."

  "What do you mean by money?"

  "Well, there are certain things we have to find out. That is one of the things in anything which might be a crime. Money. Who has money to lose by some happening, who has money to gain by something happening. That, one has to find out."

  "Well, they must have found out in the case of the Ravenscrofts."

  "Yes, that was all quite natural, it seems. They had both made normal wills leaving, in each case, the money to the other partner. The wife left her money to the husband and the husband left his money to his wife. Neither of them benefited by what happened because they both died. So that the people who did profit were the daughter, Celia, and a younger child, Edward, who I gather is now at a university abroad."

  "Well, that won't help. Neither of the children were there or could have had anything to do with it."

  "Oh, no, that is quite true. One must go further - further back, further forward, further sideways, to find out if there is some financial motive somewhere that is - well, shall we say, significant."

  "Well, don't ask me to do that sort of thing," said Mrs. Oliver. "I've no real qualifications for that. I mean, that's come up, I suppose, fairly reasonably in the - well, in the elephants that I've talked to."

  "No. I think the best thing for you to do would be to, shall we say, take on the subject of the wigs."

  "Wigs?"

  "There had been a note made in the careful police report at the time of the suppliers of the wigs, who were a very expensive firm of hairdressers and wigmakers in London, in Bond Street. Later, that particular shop closed and the business was transferred somewhere else. Two of the original partners continued to run it and I understand it has now been given up, but I have here an address of one of the principal fitters and hairdressers, and I thought perhaps that it would come more easily if inquiries were made by a woman."

  "Ah," said Mrs. Oliver, "me?"

  "Yes, you."

  "All right. What do you want me to do?"

  "Pay a visit to Cheltenham to an address I shall give you and there you will find a Madame Rosentelle. A woman no longer young but who was a very fashionable maker of ladies' hair adornments of all kinds, and who was married, I understand, to another in the same profession, a hairdresser who specialized in surmounting the problems of gentlemen's baldness. Toupees and other things."

  "Oh, dear," said Mrs. Oliver, "the jobs you do give me to do. Do you think they'll remember anything about it?"

  "Elephants remember," said Hercule Poirot. "Oh, and who are you going to ask questions of? This doctor you talked about?"

  "For one, yes."

  "And what do you think he'll remember?"

  "Not very much," said Poirot, "but it seems to me possible that he might have heard about a certain accident. It must have been an interesting case, you know. There must be records of the case history."

  "You mean of the twin sister?" "Yes. There were two accidents as far as I can hear connected with her. One when she was a young mother living in the country, at Hatters Green I think the address was, and again later when she was in India. Each time an accident which resulted in the death of a child. I might learn something about -"

  "You mean that as they were twin sisters, that Molly - my Molly, I mean - might also have had mental disability of some kind? I don't believe it for a minute. She wasn't like that. She was affectionate, loving, very good-looking, emotional and - oh, she was a terribly nice person." "Yes. Yes, so it would seem. And a happy person on the whole, would you say?"

  "Yes. She was a happy person. A very happy person. Oh, I know I never saw anything of her later in life, of course; she was living abroad. But it always seemed to me on the very rare occasions when I got a letter or went to see her that she was a happy person."

  "And the twin sister you did not really know?"

  "No. Well, I think she was... well, quite frankly she was in an institution of some kind, I think, on the rare occasions that I saw Molly. She wasn't at Molly's wedding, not as a bridesmaid even."

  "That is odd in itself."

  "I still don't see what you're going to find out from that."

  "Just information," said Poirot.

  Chapter 14

  DR. WILLOUGHBY

  Hercule Poirot got out of the taxi, paid the fare and a tip, verified the fact that the address he had come to was the address corresponding to that written down in his little notebook, took carefully a letter from his pocket addressed to Dr. Willoughby, mounted the steps to the house and pressed the bell. The door was opened by a manservant. On reception of Poirot's name he was told that Dr. Willoughby was expecting him. He was shown into a small, comfortable room with bookshelves up the side of it. There were two armchairs drawn to the fire and a tray with glasses on it and two decanters. Dr. Willoughby rose to greet him. He was a man between fifty and sixty with a lean, thin body, a high forehead, dark-haired and with very piercing grey eyes. He shook hands and motioned him to a seat. Poirot produced the letter from his pocket.

  "Ah, yes." The doctor took it from him, opened it, read it and then, placing it beside him, looked at Poirot with some interest.

  "I had already heard," he said, "from Superintendent Garroway and also, I may say, from a friend of mine in the Home Of
fice, who also begged me to do what I can for you in the matter that interests you."

  "It is a rather serious favour to ask, I know," said Poirot, "but there are reasons which make it important for me."

  "Important for you after this number of years?"

  "Yes. Of course I shall quite understand if those particular events have passed out of your mind altogether."

  "I can't say they've done that. I am interested, as you may have heard, in special branches of my profession, and have been for many years."

  "Your father, I know, was a very celebrated authority on them."

  "Yes, he was. It was a great interest in his life. He had a lot of theories, some of them triumphantly proved right and some of them which proved disappointing. It is, I gather, a mental case you are interested in?"

  "A woman. Her name was Dorothea Preston-Grey."

  "Yes. I was quite a young man at the time. I was already interested in my father's line of thought although my theories and his did not always agree. The work he did was interesting and the work I did in collaboration interested me very much. I don't know what your particular interest was in Dorothea Preston-Grey, as she was at the time, Mrs. Jarrow later."

  "She was one of twins, I gather," said Poirot.

  "Yes. That was at that moment, I may say, my father's particular field of study. There was a project on hand at that time to follow up the general lives of selected pairs of identical twins. Those who were brought up in the same environment, those who through various chances of life were brought up in entirely different environments. To see how alike they remained, how similar the things were that happened to them. Two sisters, perhaps, or two brothers who had hardly spent any of their life together and yet in an extraordinary way the same things seemed to happen to them at the same time. It was all - indeed it has been all - extremely interesting. However, that is not your interest in the matter, I gather."

  "No," said Poirot, "it is a case, I think - the part of it that is to say that I'm interested in - of an accident to a child."

  "That is so. It was in Surrey, I think. Yes, a very pleasant area, that, in which people lived. Not very far from Camberley, I think. Mrs. Jarrow was a young widow at that time and she had two small children. Her husband had recently died in an accident. She was, as a result"