Elephants Can Remember - Agatha Christie [74]
‘I do not think so,’ said Poirot. ‘There was sorrow here and Death, but there was also Love.’
A taxi came along the road.
‘I expect that’s Mrs Oliver,’ said Celia. ‘She said she’d come by train and take a taxi from the station.’
Two women got out of the taxi. One was Mrs Oliver and with her was a tall, elegantly dressed woman. Since Poirot knew she was coming he was not taken by surprise. He watched Celia to see if she had any reactions.
‘Oh!’ Celia sprang forward.
She went towards the woman and her face had lit up.
‘Zélie!’ she said, ‘it is Zélie? It is really Zélie! Oh, I am so pleased. I didn’t know you were coming.’
‘Monsieur Hercule Poirot asked me to come.’
‘I see,’ said Celia. ‘Yes, yes, I suppose I see. But I – I didn’t –’ she stopped. She turned her head and looked at the handsome boy standing beside her. ‘Desmond, was it – was it you?’
‘Yes. I wrote to Mademoiselle Meauhourat – to Zélie, if I may still call her that.’
‘You can always call me that, both of you,’ said Zélie. ‘I was not sure I wanted to come, I did not know if I was wise to come. That I still do not know, but I hope so.’
‘I want to know,’ said Celia. ‘We both want to know. Desmond thought you could tell us something.’
‘Monsieur Poirot came to see me,’ said Zélie. ‘He persuaded me to come today.’
Celia linked her arm in Mrs Oliver’s. ‘I wanted you to come too because you put this in hand, didn’t you? You got Monsieur Poirot and you found out some things yourself, didn’t you?’
‘People told me things,’ said Mrs Oliver, ‘people whom I thought might remember things. Some of them did remember things. Some of them remembered them right and some of them remembered them wrong. That was confusing. Monsieur Poirot says that that does not really matter.’
‘No,’ said Poirot, ‘it is just as important to know what is hearsay and what is certain knowledge. Because from one you can learn facts even if they are not quite the right facts or had not got the explanation that you think they had. With the knowledge that you got from me, madame, from the people whom you designated elephants –’ he smiled a little.
‘Elephants?!’ said Mademoiselle Zélie.
‘It is what she called them,’ said Poirot.
‘Elephants can remember,’ explained Mrs Oliver. ‘That was the idea I started on. And people can remember things that happened a long time ago just like elephants can. Not all people, of course, but they can usually remember something. There were a lot of people who did. I turned a lot of the things I heard over to Monsieur Poirot and he – he has made a sort of – oh, if he was a doctor I should call it a sort of diagnosis, I suppose.’
‘I made a list,’ said Poirot. ‘A list of things that seemed to be pointers to the truth of what happened all those years ago. I shall read the various items to you to see perhaps if you who were concerned in all this, feel that they have any significance. You may not see their significance or you may see it plainly.’
‘One wants to know,’ said Celia. ‘Was it suicide, or was it murder? Did somebody – some outside person – kill both my father and my mother, shoot them for some reason we don’t know about, some motive? I shall always think there was something of that kind or something else. It’s difficult, but –’
‘We will stay here, I think,’ said Poirot. ‘We will not go into the house as yet. Other people have lived in it and it has a different atmosphere. We will perhaps go in if we wish when we have finished our court of enquiry here.’
‘It’s a court of enquiry, is it?’ said Desmond.
‘Yes. A court of enquiry into what happened.’
He moved towards some iron seats which stood near the shelter of a large magnolia near the house. Poirot took from the case he carried a sheet of paper with writing on it. He said to Celia:
‘To you, it has got to be that way? A definite choice. Suicide or murder.’
‘One of them must be true,’ said Celia.
‘I shall say to you that both are true, and more than those two. According to my ideas, we have here not only a murder and also a suicide, but we have as well