Elephants Can Remember

by Agatha Christie

  ‘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 b
e 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.’

  ‘I know,’ said Poirot. ‘I have heard of it. I have seen it once or twice. Love can turn to hate very easily. It is easier to hate where you have loved than it is to be indifferent where you have loved.’

  ‘Ah, you know that,’ said Mademoiselle Meauhourat. ‘Yes, I have seen it not once but several times. Lady Ravenscroft’s sister was very like her?’

  ‘I think she was still very like her in appearance, though, if I may say so, the expression on her face was very different. She was in a condition of strain as Lady Ravenscroft was not. She had a great aversion to children. I don’t know why. Perhaps she had had a miscarriage in early life. Perhaps she had longed for a child and never had one, but she had a kind of resentment against children. A dislike of them.’

  ‘That had led to one or two rather serious happenings, had it not?’ said Poirot.

  ‘Someone has told you that?’

  ‘I have heard things from people who knew both sisters when they were in Malaya. Lady Ravenscroft was there with her husband and her sister, Dolly, came out to stay with them there. There was an accident to a child there, and it was thought that Dolly might have been partially responsible for it. Nothing was proved definitely, but I gather that Molly’s husband took his sister-in-law home to England and she had once more to go into a mental home.’

  ‘Yes, I believe that is a very good account of what happened. I do not of course know it of my own knowledge.’

  ‘No, but there are things you do know, I think, from your own knowledge.’

  ‘If so, I see no reason for bringing them back to mind now. Is it not better to leave things when at least they have been accepted?’

  ‘There are other things that could have happened that day at Overcliffe. It may have been a double suicide, it could have been a murder, it could havebeen several other things. You were told what had happened, but I think from one little sentence you just said, that you know what happened that day and I think you know what happened perhaps – or began to happen, shall we say? – some time before that. The time when Celia had gone to Switzerland and you were still at Overcliffe. I will ask you one question. I would like to know what your answer would be to it. It is not a thing of direct information, it is a question of what you believe. What were the feelings of General Ravenscroft towards those two sisters, the twin sisters?’

  ‘I know what you mean.’

  For the first time her manner changed slightly. She was no longer on her guard, she leaned forward now and spoke to Poirot almost as though she definitely found a relief in doing so.

  ‘They were both beautiful,’ she said, ‘as girls. I heard that from many people. General Ravenscroft fell in love with Dolly, the mentally afflicted sister. Although she had a disturbed personality she was exceedingly attractive – sexually attractive. He loved her very dearly, and then I don’t know whether he discovered in her some characteristic, something perhaps that alarmed him or in which he found a repulsion of some kind. He saw perhaps the beginnings of insanity in her, the dangers connected with her. His affections went to her sister. He fell in love with the sister and married her.’

  ‘He loved them both, you mean. Not at the same time but in each case there was a genuine fact of love.’

  ‘Oh, yes, he was devoted to Molly, relied on her and she on him. He was a very lovable man.’

  ‘Forgive me,’ said Poirot, ‘you too were in love with him, I think.’

  ‘You – you dare say that to me?’

  ‘Yes. I dare say it to you. I am not suggesting that you and he had a love-affair, nothing of that kind. I’m only saying that you loved him.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Zélie Meauhourat. ‘I loved him. In a sense, I still love him. There’s nothing to be ashamed of. He trusted me and relied on me, but he was never in love with me. You can love and serve and still be happy. I wanted no more than I had. Trust, sympathy, belief in me –’

  ‘And you did,’ said Poirot, ‘what you could to help him in a terrible crisis in his life. There are things you do not wish to tell me. There are things that I will say to you, things that I have gathered from various information that has come to me, that I know something about. Before I have come to see you I have heard from others, from people who have known not only Lady Ravenscroft, not only Molly, but who have known Dolly. And I know something of Dolly, the tragedy of her life, the sorrow, the unhappiness and also the hatred, the streak perhaps of evil, the love of destruction that can be handed down in families. If she loved the man she was engaged to she must have, when he married her sister, felt hatred perhaps towards that sister. Perhaps she never quite forgave her. But what of Molly Ravenscroft? Did she dislike her sister? Did she hate her?’

  ‘Oh no,’ said Zélie Meauhourat, ‘she loved her sister. She loved her with a very deep and protective love. That I do know. It was she who always asked that her sister should come and make her home with her. She wanted to save her sister from unhappiness, from danger too, because her sister would often relapse into fits of rather dangerous rages. She was frightened sometimes. Well, you know enough. You have already said that there was a strange dislike of children from which Dolly suffered.’

  ‘You mean that she disliked Celia?’

  ‘No, no, not Celia. The other one, Edward. The younger one. Twice Edward had dangers of an accident. Once, some kind of tinkering with a car and once some outburst of violent annoyance. I know Molly was glad when Edward went back to school. He was very young, remember, much younger than Celia. He was only eight or nine, at preparatory school. He was vulnerable. Molly was frightened about him.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Poirot, ‘I can understand that. Now, if I may I will talk of wigs. Wigs. The wearing of wigs. Four wigs. That is a lot for one woman to possess at one time. I know what they were like, what they looked like. I know that when more were needed, a French lady went to the shop in London and spoke about them and ordered them. There was a dog, too. A dog who went for a walk on the day of the tragedy with General Ravenscroft and his wife. Earlier that dog, some little time earlier, had bitten his mistress, Molly Ravenscroft.’

  ‘Dogs are like that,’ said Zélie Meauhourat. ‘They are never quite to be trusted. Yes, I
know that.’

  ‘And I will tell you what I think happened on that day, and what happened before that. Some little time before that.’

  ‘And if I will not listen to you?’

  ‘You will listen to me. You may say that what I have imagined is false. Yes, you might even do that, but I do not think you will. I am telling you, and I believe it with all my heart, that what is needed here is the truth. It is not just imagining, it is not just wondering. There is a girl and a boy who care for each other and who are frightened of the future because of what may have happened and what there might be handed down from the father or the mother to the child. I am thinking of the girl, Celia. A rebellious girl, spirited, difficult perhaps to manage but with brains, a good mind, capable of happiness, capable of courage but needing – there are people who need – truth. Because they can face truth without dismay. They can face it with that brave acceptance you have to have in life if life is to be any good to you. And the boy that she loves, he wants that for her too. Will you listen to me?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Zélie Meauhourat, ‘I am listening. You understand a great deal, I think, and I think you know more than I could have imagined you would know. Speak and I will listen.’

  Chapter 20

  Court of Enquiry

  Once more Hercule Poirot stood on the cliff overlooking the rocks below and the sea breaking against them. Here where he stood the bodies of a husband and wife had been found. Here, three weeks before that a woman had walked in her sleep and fallen to her death.

  ‘Why had these things happened?’ That had been Superintendent Garroway’s question.

  Why? What had led to it?

  An accident first – and three weeks later a double suicide. Old sins that had left long shadows. A beginning that had led years later to a tragic end.

  Today there would be people meeting here. A boy and a girl who sought the Truth. Two people who knew the truth.

  Hercule Poirot turned away from the sea and back along the narrow path that led to a house once called Overcliffe.