Elephants Can Remember - Agatha Christie [54]
‘Molly Preston-Grey. That was her name.’
‘You both had boyfriends?’
‘We had one or two passions, I think. Not for pop singers, of course. They hadn’t happened yet. Actors usually. There was one rather famous variety actor. A girl – one of the girls – had him pinned up over her bed and Mademoiselle Girand, the French mistress, on no account allowed that actor to be pinned up there. “Ce n’est pas convenable,” she said. The girl didn’t tell her that he was her father! We laughed,’ added Mrs Oliver. ‘Yes, we laughed a good deal.’
‘Well, tell me more about Molly or Margaret Preston-Grey. Does this girl remind you of her?’
‘No, I don’t think she does. No. They are not alike. I think Molly was more – was more emotional than this girl.’
‘There was a twin sister, I understand. Was she at the same pensionnat?’
‘No, she wasn’t. She might have been since they were the same age, but no, I think she was in some entirely different place in England. I’m not sure. I have a feeling that the twin sister Dolly, whom I had met once or twice very occasionally and who of course at that time looked exactly like Molly – I mean they hadn’t started trying to look different, have different hair-dos and all that, as twins do usually when they grow up. I think Molly was devoted to her sister Dolly, but she didn’t talk about her very much. I have a feeling – nowadays, I mean, I didn’t have it then – that there might have been something a bit wrong perhaps with the sister even then. Once or twice, I remember, there were mentions of her having been ill or gone away for a course of treatment somewhere. Something like that. I remember once wondering whether she was a cripple.
She was taken once by an aunt on a sea voyage to do her health good.’ She shook her head. ‘I can’t really remember, though. I just had a feeling that Molly was devoted to her and would have liked to have protected her in some way. Does that seem nonsense to you?’
‘Not at all,’ said Hercule Poirot. ‘There were other times, I think, when she didn’t want to talk about her. She talked about her mother and her father. She was fond of them, I think, in the ordinary sort of way. Her mother came once to Paris and took her out, I remember. Nice woman. Not very exciting or good-looking or anything. Nice, quiet, kindly.’
‘I see. So you have nothing to help us there? No boyfriends?’
‘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. 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