Elephants Can Remember - Agatha Christie [8]
‘That is a very difficult question, that last one,’ said Poirot. ‘I know how I, Hercule Poirot, would act in anything, but I do not know how you would act, well though I know you.’
‘You must have some idea by this time,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘You’ve known me long enough.’
‘About what – twenty years now?’ ‘Oh, I don’t know. I can never remember what years are, what dates are. You know, I get mixed up. I know 1939 because that’s when the war started and I know other dates because of queer things, here and there.’
‘Anyway, you went to your literary luncheon. And you did not enjoy it very much.’
‘I enjoyed the lunch but it was afterwards . . .’ ‘People said things to you,’ said Poirot, with the kindliness of a doctor demanding symptoms.
‘Well, they were just getting ready to say things to me. Suddenly one of those large, bossy women who always manage to dominate everyone and who can make you feel more uncomfortable than anyone else, descended on me. You know, like somebody who catches a butterfly or something, only she’d have needed a butterfly-net. She sort of rounded me up and pushed me on to a settee and then she began to talk to me, starting about a goddaughter of mine.’
‘Ah yes. A goddaughter you are fond of ?’
‘I haven’t seen her for a good many years,’ said Mrs Oliver, ‘I can’t keep up with all of them, I mean. And then she asked me a most worrying question. She wanted me – oh dear, how very difficult it is for me to tell this –’
‘No, it isn’t, said Poirot kindly. ‘It is quite easy. Everyone tells everything to me sooner or later. I’m only a foreigner, you see, so it does not matter. It is easy because I am a foreigner.’
‘Well, it is rather easy to say things to you,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘You see, she asked me about the girl’s father and mother. She asked me whether her mother had killed her father or her father had killed her mother.’
‘I beg your pardon,’ said Poirot. ‘Oh, I know it sounds mad. Well, I thought it was mad.’
‘Whether your goddaughter’s mother had killed her father, or whether her father had killed her mother.’
‘That’s right,’ said Mrs Oliver.
‘But – was that a matter of fact? Had her father killed her mother or her mother killed her father?’
‘Well, they were both found shot,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘On the top of a cliff. I can’t remember if it was in Cornwall or in Corsica. Something like that.’
‘Then it was true, then, what she said?’ ‘Oh yes, that part of it was true. It happened years ago. Well, but I mean – why come to me?’
‘All because you were a crime writer,’ said Poirot. ‘She no doubt said you knew all about crime. This was a real thing that happened?’
‘Oh yes. It wasn’t something like what would A do – or what would be the proper procedure if your mother had killed your father or your father had killed yourmother. No, it was something that really happened. I suppose really I’d better tell you all about it. I mean, I can’t remember all about it but it was quite well known at the time. It was about – oh, I should think it was about twelve years ago at least. And, as I say, I can remember the names of the people because I did know them. The wife had been at school with me and I’d known her quite well. We’d been friends. It was a well-known case – you know, it was in all the papers and things like that. Sir Alistair Ravenscroft and Lady Ravenscroft. A very happy couple and he was a colonel or a general and she’d been with him and they’d been all over the world. Then they bought this house somewhere – I think it was abroad but I can’t remember. And then there were suddenly accounts of this case in the papers. Whether somebody else had killed them or whether they’d been assassinated or something, or whether they killed each other. I think it was a revolver that had been in the house for ages and – well, I’d better tell you as much as I can remember.’
Pulling herself slightly together, Mrs Oliver managed to give Poirot a more or less clear résumé of what she had been told. Poirot from time to time checked on a point here or there.
‘But why?