Elephants Can Remember - Agatha Christie [80]
‘Ah, dear children,’ said Zélie. ‘Forgive me for calling you children because you are not. You are a grown man and woman. I know that. I am so pleased to have seen you again and to know I have not done any harm in what I did.’
‘You haven’t done any harm at all and it’s lovely seeing you, dear Zélie.’ Celia went to her and hugged her. ‘I’ve always been terribly fond of you,’ she said.
‘And I was very fond of you too when I knew you,’ said Desmond. ‘When I lived next door. You had lovely games you played with us.’
The two young people turned. ‘Thank you, Mrs Oliver,’ said Desmond. ‘You’ve been very kind and you’ve put in a lot of work. I can see that. Thank you, Monsieur Poirot.’
‘Yes, thank you,’ said Celia. ‘I’m very grateful.
’They walked away and the others looked after them.
‘Well,’ said Zélie, ‘I must leave now.’ She said to Poirot, ‘What about you? Will you have to tell anyone about this?’
‘There is one person I might tell in confidence. A retired police force officer. He is no longer actively in the Service now. He is completely retired. I think he would not feel it is his duty to interfere with what time has now wiped out. If he was still in active service it might be different.’
‘It’s a terrible story,’ said Mrs Oliver, ‘terrible. And all those people I talked to – yes, I can see now, they all remembered something. Something that was useful in showing us what the truth was, although it was difficult to put together. Except for Monsieur Poirot, who can always put things together out of the most extraordinary things. Like wigs and twins.’
Poirot walked across to where Zélie was standing looking out over the view.
‘You do not blame me,’ he said, ‘for coming to you, persuading you to do what you have done?’
‘No. I am glad. You have been right. They are very charming, those two, and they are well suited, I think. They will be happy. We are standing here where two lovers once lived. Where two lovers died and I don’t blame him for what he did. It may have been wrong, I suppose it was wrong, but I can’t blame him. I think it was a brave act even if it was a wrong one.’
‘You loved him too, did you not?’ said Hercule Poirot.
‘Yes. Always. As soon as I came to the house. I loved him dearly. I don’t think he knew it. There was never anything, what you call, between us. He trusted me and was fond of me. I loved them both. Both him and Margaret.’
‘There is something I would like to ask you. He loved Dolly as well as Molly, didn’t he?’
‘Right up to the end. He loved them both. And that’s why he was willing to save Dolly. Why Molly wanted him to. Which did he love the best of those sisters? I wonder. That is a thing I shall perhaps never know,’ said Zélie. ‘I never did – perhaps I never shall.’
Poirot looked at her for a moment, then turned away. He rejoined Mrs Oliver.
‘We will drive back to London. We must return to everyday life, forget tragedies and love-affairs.’
‘Elephants can remember,’ said Mrs Oliver, ‘but we are human beings and mercifully human beings can forget.’
E-Book Extras
The Poirots
Essay by Charles Osborne
The Poirots
The Mysterious Affair at Styles; The Murder on the Links; Poirot Investigates; The Murder of Roger Ackroyd; The Big Four; The Mystery of the Blue Train; Black Coffee; Peril at End House; Lord Edgware Dies; Murder on the Orient Express; Three-Act Tragedy; Death in the Clouds; The ABC Murders; Murder in Mesopotamia; Cards on the Table; Murder in the Mews; Dumb Witness; Death on the Nile; Appointment with Death; Hercule Poirot’s Christmas; Sad Cypress; One, Two, Buckle My Shoe; Evil Under the Sun; Five Little Pigs; The Hollow; The Labours of Hercules; Taken at the Flood; Mrs McGinty’s Dead; After the Funeral; Hickory Dickory Dock; Dead Man’s Folly; Cat Among the Pigeons; The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding; The Clocks; Third Girl; Hallowe’en Party; Elephants Can Remember; Poirot’s Early Cases; Curtain: Poirot’s Last Case
1. The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920)
Captain Arthur Hastings, invalided in the Great War, is recuperating as a guest of John