Elephants Can Remember - Agatha Christie [66]
‘In examination of the body was there any sign that Lady Ravenscroft had been bitten by a dog? Not necessarily very recently or on that particular day?’
‘Well, it’s odd you should say that. I can’t say I’d have remembered about it if you hadn’t mentioned such a thing. But yes, there were a couple of scars. Not bad ones. But again the housekeeper mentioned that the dog had attacked its mistress more than once and bitten her, though not very severely. Look here, Poirot, there was no rabies about, if that’s what you are thinking. There couldn’t have been anything of that kind. After all she was shot – they were both shot. There was no question of any septic poisoning or danger of tetanus.’
‘I do not blame the dog,’ said Poirot, ‘it was only something I wanted to know.’
‘One dog bite was fairly recent, about a week before, I think, or two weeks somebody said. There was no case of necessary injections or anything of that kind. It had healed quite well. What’s that quotation?’ went on Superintendent Garroway. ‘“The dog it was that died.” I can’t remember where it comes from but –’
‘Anyway, it wasn’t the dog that died,’ said Poirot. ‘That wasn’t the point of my question. I would like to have known that dog. He was perhaps a very intelligent dog.’
After he had replaced the receiver with thanks to the Superintendent, Poirot murmured: ‘An intelligent dog. More intelligent perhaps than the police were.’
Chapter 17
Poirot Announces Departure
Miss Livingstone showed in a guest. ‘Mr Hercules Porrett.’
As soon as Miss Livingstone had left the room, Poirot shut the door after her and sat down by his friend, Mrs Ariadne Oliver.
He said, lowering his voice slightly, ‘I depart.’
‘You do what?’ said Mrs Oliver, who was always slightly startled by Poirot’s methods of passing on information.
‘I depart. I make the departure. I take a plane to Geneva.’
‘You sound as though you were UNO or UNESCO or something.’
‘No. It is just a private visit that I make.’
‘Have you got an elephant in Geneva?’
‘Well, I suppose you might look at it that way. Perhaps two of them.’
‘I haven’t found out anything more,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘In fact I don’t know who I can go to, to find out any more.’
‘I believe you mentioned, or somebody did, that your goddaughter, Celia Ravenscroft, had a young brother.’
‘Yes. He’s called Edward, I think. I’ve hardly ever seen him. I took him out once or twice from school, I remember. But that was years ago.’
‘Where is he now?’
‘He’s at university, in Canada I think. Or he’s taking some engineering course there. Do you want to go and ask him things?’
‘No, not at the moment. I should just like to know where he is now. But I gather he was not in the house when this suicide happened?’
‘You’re not thinking – you’re not thinking for a moment that he did it, are you? I mean, shot his father and his mother, both of them. I know boys do sometimes. Very queer they are sometimes when they’re at a funny age.’
‘He was not in the house,’ said Poirot. ‘That I know already from my police reports.’
‘Have you found out anything else interesting? You look quite excited.’
‘I am excited in a way. I have found out certain things that may throw light upon what we already know.’
‘Well, what throws light on what?’
‘It seems to me possible now that I can understand why Mrs Burton-Cox approached you as she did and tried to get you to obtain information for her about the facts of the suicide of the Ravenscrofts.’
‘You mean she wasn’t just being a nosey-parker?’
‘No. I think there was some motive behind it. This is where, perhaps, money comes in.’
‘Money? What’s money got to do with that? She’s quite well off, isn’t she?’
‘She has enough to live upon, yes. But it seems that her adopted son whom she regards apparently as her true son – he knows that he was adopted although he knows nothing about the family from which he really came. It seems that when he came of age he made a Will, possibly urged by his adopted mother to do so. Perhaps it was merely hinted to him by some friends of