Elephants Can Remember

by Agatha Christie

  ‘Ravenscroft?’ said Poirot.

  ‘Yes, yes, General Ravenscroft agreed to arrange for her to go back to England and again undergo medical treatment. Is that what you wanted to know?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Poirot, ‘that is what I have partly heard already, but mainly I may say, by hearsay, which is not dependable. What I want to ask you was, this was a case concerned with identical twins. What about the other twin? Margaret Preston-Grey. Afterwards the wife of General Ravenscroft. Was she likely to be affected by the same malady?’

  ‘There was never any medical case about her. She was perfectly sane. My father was interested, visited her once or twice and talked to her because he had so often seen cases of almost identical illnesses or mental disturbances happen between identical twins who hadz started life very devoted to each other.’

  ‘Only started life, you said?’

  ‘Yes. On certain occasions a state of animosity can arise between identical twins. It follows on a first keen protective love one for the other, but it can degenerate into something which is nearer hatred, if there is some emotional strain that could trigger it off or could arouse it, or any emotional crisis to account for animosity arising between two sisters.

  ‘I think there might have been that here. General Ravenscroft as a young subaltern or captain or whatever he was, fell deeply in love, I think, with Dorothea Preston-Grey, who was a very beautiful girl. Actually the more beautiful of the two – she also fell in love with him. They were not officially engaged, but General Ravenscroft transferred his affections fairly soon to the other sister, Margaret. Or Molly as she was called. He fell in love with her, and asked her to marry him. She returned his affection and they were married as soon as it became feasible in his career. My father had no doubt that the other twin, Dolly, was bitterly jealous of her sister’s marriage and that she continued to be in love with Alistair Ravenscroft and to resent his marriage. However, she got over it all, married another man in due course – a thoroughly happy marriage, it seemed, and later she used frequently to go to visit the Ravenscrofts, not only on that one occasion in Malaya, but later when they were in another station abroad and after they returned home. She was by that time apparently cured again, was no longer in any kind of mental dejection and lived with a very reliable nurse companion and staff of servants. I believe, or so my father had always told me, that Lady Ravenscroft, Molly, remained very devoted to her sister. She felt very protective towards her and loved her dearly. She wanted often, I think, to see more of her than she did, but General Ravenscroft was not so keen on her doing so. I think it possible that the slightly unbalanced Dolly – Mrs Jarrow – continued to feel a very strong attachment to General Ravenscroft, which I think may have been embarrassing and difficult for him, though I believe that his wife was quite convinced that her sister had got over any feelings of jealousy or anger.’

  ‘I understand Mrs Jarrow was staying with the Ravenscrofts about three weeks or so before the tragedy of their suicide happened.’

  ‘Yes, that was quite true. Her own tragic death happened then. She was quite frequently a sleep-walker. She went out one night walking in her sleep and had an accident, falling down a portion of the cliff to which a pathway which had been discarded appeared to lead. She was found the next day and I believe died in hospital without recovering consciousness. Her sister Molly was extremely upset and bitterly unhappy about this, but I would like to say, which you probably want to know, I do not think that this can in any way be held responsible for the subsequent suicide of the married couple who were living so happily together. Grief for a sister’s or a sister-in-law’s death would hardly lead you to commit suicide. Certainly not to a double suicide.’

  ‘Unless, perhaps,’ said Hercule Poirot, ‘Margaret Ravenscroft had been responsible for her sister’s death.’

  ‘Good heavens!’ said Dr Willoughby – ‘surely you are not suggesting –’

  ‘That it was Margaret who followed her sleepwalking sister, and that it was Margaret’s hand that was stretched out to push Dorothea over the cliff edge?’

  ‘I refuse absolutely,’ said Dr Willoughby, ‘to accept any such idea.’

  ‘With people,’ said Hercule Poirot, ‘one never knows.’

  Chapter 15

  Eugene and Rosentelle, Hair Stylists and Beauticians

  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!’

  Chapter 16

  Mr Goby Reports

  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 t
hat 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?’