Полная версия
Whatever Mrs Oliver had expected, it was certainly not that. She stared at Mrs Burton-Cox unbelievingly.
‘But I don’t—’ She stopped. ‘I—I can’t understand. I mean—what reason—’
‘Dear Mrs Oliver, you must know … I mean, such a famous case … Of course, I know it’s a long time ago now, well, I suppose ten—twelve years at least, but it did cause a lot of attention at the time. I’m sure you’ll remember, you must remember.’
Mrs Oliver’s brain was working desperately. Celia was her goddaughter. That was quite true. Celia’s mother—yes, of course. Celia’s mother had been Molly Preston-Grey, who had been a friend of hers, though not a particularly intimate one, and of course she had married a man in the Army, yes—what was his name—Sir Something Ravenscroft. Or was he an ambassador? Extraordinary, one couldn’t remember these things. She couldn’t even remember whether she herself had been Molly’s bridesmaid. She thought she had. Rather a smart wedding at the Guards Chapel or something like that. But one did forget so. And after that she hadn’t met them for years—they’d been out somewhere—in the Middle East? In Persia? In Iraq? One time in Egypt? Malaya? Very occasionally, when they had been visiting England, she met them again. But they’d been like one of those photographs that one takes and looks at. One knows the people vaguely who are in it but it’s so faded that you really can’t recognize them or remember who they were. And she couldn’t remember now whether Sir Something Ravenscroft and Lady Ravenscroft, born Molly Preston-Grey, had entered much into her life. She didn’t think so. But then … Mrs Burton-Cox was still looking at her. Looking at her as though disappointed in her lack of savoir-faire, her inability to remember what had evidently been a cause célèbre.
‘Killed? You mean—an accident?’
‘Oh no. Not an accident. In one of those houses by the sea. Cornwall, I think. Somewhere where there were rocks. Anyway, they had a house down there. And they were both found on the cliff there and they’d been shot, you know. But there was nothing really by which the police could tell whether the wife shot the husband and then shot herself, or whether the husband shot the wife and then shot himself. They went into the evidence of the—you know—of the bullets and the various things, but it was very difficult. They thought it might be a suicide pact and—I forget what the verdict was. Something—it could have been misadventure or something like that. But of course everyone knew it must have been meant, and there were a lot of stories that went about, of course, at the time—’
‘Probably all invented ones,’ said Mrs Oliver hopefully, trying to remember even one of the stories if she could.
‘Well, maybe. Maybe. It’s very hard to say, I know. There were tales of a quarrel either that day or before, there was some talk of another man, and then of course there was the usual talk about some other woman. And one never knows which way it was about. I think things were hushed up a good deal because General Ravenscroft’s position was rather a high one, and I think it was said that he’d been in a nursing home that year, and he’d been very run down or something, and that he really didn’t know what he was doing.’
‘I’m really afraid,’ said Mrs Oliver, speaking firmly, ‘that I must say that I don’t know anything about it. I do remember, now you mention it, that there was such a case, and I remember the names and that I knew the people, but I never knew what happened or anything at all about it. And I really don’t think I have the least idea …’
And really, thought Mrs Oliver, wishing she was brave enough to say it, how on earth you have the impertinence to ask me such a thing I don’t know.
‘It’s very important that I should know,’ Mrs Burton-Cox said.
Her eyes, which were rather like hard marbles, started to snap.
‘It’s important, you see, because of my boy, my dear boy wanting to marry Celia.’
‘I’m afraid I can’t help you,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘I’ve never heard anything.’
‘But you must know,’ said Mrs Burton-Cox. ‘I mean, you write these wonderful stories, you know all about crime. You know who commits crimes and why they do it, and I’m sure that all sorts of people will tell you the story behind the story, as one so much thinks of these things.’
‘I don’t know anything,’ said Mrs Oliver, in a voice which no longer held very much politeness, and definitely now spoke in tones of distaste.
‘But you do see that really one doesn’t know who to go to ask about it? I mean, one couldn’t go to the police after all these years, and I don’t suppose they’d tell you anyway because obviously they were trying to hush it up. But I feel it’s important to get the truth.’
‘I only write books,’ said Mrs Oliver coldly. ‘They are entirely fictional. I know nothing personally about crime and have no opinions on criminology. So I’m afraid I can’t help you in any way.’
‘But you could ask your goddaughter. You could ask Celia.’
‘Ask Celia!’ Mrs Oliver stared again. ‘I don’t see how I could do that. She was—why, I think she must have been quite a child when this tragedy happened.’
‘Oh, I expect she knew all about it, though,’ said Mrs Burton-Cox. ‘Children always know everything. And she’d tell you. I’m sure she’d tell you.’
‘You’d better ask her yourself, I should think,’ said Mrs Oliver.
‘I don’t think I could really do that,’ said Mrs Burton-Cox. ‘I don’t think, you know, that Desmond would like it. You know he’s rather—well, he’s rather touchy where Celia is concerned and I really don’t think that—no—I’m sure she’d tell you.’
‘I really shouldn’t dream of asking her,’ said Mrs Oliver. She made a pretence of looking at her watch. ‘Oh dear,’ she said, ‘what a long time we’ve been over this delightful lunch. I must run now, I have a very important appointment. Goodbye, Mrs—er—Bedley-Cox, so sorry I can’t help you but these things are rather delicate and—does it really make any difference anyway, from your point of view?’
‘Oh, I think it makes all the difference.’
At that moment, a literary figure whom Mrs Oliver knew well drifted past. Mrs Oliver jumped up to catch her by the arm.
‘Louise, my dear, how lovely to see you. I hadn’t noticed you were here.’
‘Oh, Ariadne, it’s a long time since I’ve seen you. You’ve grown a lot thinner, haven’t you?’
‘What nice things you always say to me,’ said Mrs Oliver, engaging her friend by the arm and retreating from the settee. ‘I’m rushing away because I’ve got an appointment.’
‘I suppose you got tied up with that awful woman, didn’t you?’ said her friend, looking over her shoulder at Mrs Burton-Cox.
‘She was asking me the most extraordinary questions,’ said Mrs Oliver.
‘Oh. Didn’t you know how to answer them?’
‘No. They weren’t any of my business anyway. I didn’t know anything about them. Anyway, I wouldn’t have wanted to answer them.’
‘Was it about anything interesting?’
‘I suppose,’ said Mrs Oliver, letting a new idea come into her head. ‘I suppose it might be interesting, only—’
‘She’s getting up to chase you,’ said her friend. ‘Come along. I’ll see you get out and give you a lift to anywhere you want to go if you haven’t got your car here.’
‘I never take my car about in London, it’s so awful to park.’
‘I know it is. Absolutely deadly.’
Mrs Oliver made the proper goodbyes. Thanks, words of greatly expressed pleasure, and presently was being driven round a London square.
‘Eaton Terrace, isn’t it?’ said the kindly friend. ‘Yes,’ said Mrs Oliver, ‘but where I’ve got to go now is—I think it’s Whitefriars Mansions. I can’t quite remember the name of it, but I know where it is.’
‘Oh, flats. Rather modern ones. Very square and geometrical.’
‘That’s right,’ said Mrs Oliver.
CHAPTER 2
First Mention of Elephants
Having failed to find her friend Hercule Poirot at home, Mrs Oliver had to resort to a telephone enquiry.
‘Are you by any chance going to be at home this evening?’ asked Mrs Oliver.
She sat by her telephone, her fingers tapping rather nervously on the table.
‘Would that be—?’
‘Ariadne Oliver,’ said Mrs Oliver, who was always surprised to find she had to give her name because she always expected all her friends to know her voice as soon as they heard it.
‘Yes, I shall be at home all this evening. Does that mean that I may have the pleasure of a visit from you?’
‘It’s very nice of you to put it that way,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘I don’t know that it will be such a pleasure.’
‘It is always a pleasure to see you, chère Madame.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘I might be going to—well, bother you rather. Ask things. I want to know what you think about something.’
‘That I am always ready to tell anyone,’ said Poirot.
‘Something’s come up,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘Something tiresome and I don’t know what to do about it.’
‘And so you will come and see me. I am flattered. Highly flattered.’
‘What time would suit you?’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘Nine o’clock? We will drink coffee together, perhaps, unless you prefer a Grenadine or a Sirop de Cassis. But no, you do not like that. I remember.’
‘George,’ said Poirot, to his invaluable manservant, ‘we are to receive tonight the pleasure of a visit from Mrs Oliver. Coffee, I think, and perhaps a liqueur of some kind. I am never sure what she likes.’
‘I have seen her drink kirsch, sir.’
‘And also, I think, crème de menthe. But kirsch, I think, is what she prefers. Very well then,’ said Poirot. ‘So be it.’
Mrs Oliver came punctual to time. Poirot had been wondering, while eating his dinner, what it was that was driving Mrs Oliver to visit him, and why she was so doubtful about what she was doing. Was she bringing him some difficult problem, or was she acquainting him with a crime? As Poirot knew well, it could be anything with Mrs Oliver. The most commonplace things or the most extraordinary things. They were, as you might say, all alike to her. She was worried, he thought. Ah well, Hercule Poirot thought to himself, he could deal with Mrs Oliver. He always had been able to deal with Mrs Oliver. On occasion she maddened him. At the same time he was really very much attached to her. They had shared many experiences and experiments together. He had read something about her in the paper only that morning—or was it the evening paper? He must try and remember it before she came. He had just done so when she was announced.
She came into the room and Poirot deduced at once that his diagnosis of worry was true enough. Her hair-do, which was fairly elaborate, had been ruffled by the fact that she had been running her fingers through it in the frenzied and feverish way that she did sometimes. He received her with every sign of pleasure, established her in a chair, poured her some coffee and handed her a glass of kirsch.
‘Ah!’ said Mrs Oliver, with the sigh of someone who has relief. ‘I expect you’re going to think I’m awfully silly, but still …’
‘I see, or rather, I saw in the paper that you were attending a literary luncheon today. Famous women writers. Something of that kind. I thought you never did that kind of thing.’
‘I don’t usually,’ said Mrs Oliver, ‘and I shan’t ever do it again.’
‘Ah. You suffered much?’ Poirot was quite sympathetic.
He knew Mrs Oliver’s embarrassing moments. Extravagant praise of her books always upset her highly because, as she had once told him, she never knew the proper answers.
‘You did not enjoy it?’
‘Up to a point I did,’ said Mrs Oliver, ‘and then something very tiresome happened.’
‘Ah. And that is what you have come to see me about.’
‘Yes, but I really don’t know why. I mean, it’s nothing to do with you and I don’t think it’s the sort of thing you’d even be interested in. And I’m not really interested in it. At least, I suppose I must be or I wouldn’t have wanted to come to you to know what you thought. To know what—well, what you’d do if you were me.’
‘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 your mother. 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?’ he said finally, ‘why should this woman want to know this?’
‘Well, that’s what I want to find out,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘I could get hold of Celia, I think. I mean, she still lives in London. Or perhaps it’s Cambridge she lives in, or Oxford—I think she’s got a degree and either lectures here or teaches somewhere, or does something like that. And—very modern, you know. Goes about with long-haired people in queer clothes. I don’t think she takes drugs. She’s quite all right and—just very occasionally I hear from her. I mean, she sends a card at Christmas and things like that. Well, one doesn’t think of one’s god-children all the time, and she’s quite twenty-five or -six.’
‘Not married?’
‘No. Apparently she is going to marry—or that is the idea—Mrs—What’s the name of that woman again?—oh yes, Mrs Brittle—no—Burton-Cox’s son.’
‘And Mrs Burton-Cox does not want her son to marry this girl because her father killed her mother or her mother killed her father?’
‘Well, I suppose so,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘It’s the only thing I can think. But what does it matter which? If one of your parents killed the other, would it really matter to the mother of the boy you were going to marry, which way round it was?’
‘That is a thing one might have to think about,’ said Poirot. ‘It is—yes, you know it is quite interesting. I do not mean it is very interesting about Sir Alistair Ravenscroft or Lady Ravenscroft. I seem to remember vaguely—oh, some case like this one, or it might not have been the same one. But it is very strange about Mrs Burton-Cox. Perhaps she is a bit touched in the head. Is she very fond of her son?’
‘Probably,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘Probably she doesn’t want him to marry this girl at all.’
‘Because she may have inherited a predisposition to murder the man she marries—or something of that kind?’
‘How do I know?’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘She seems to think that I can tell her, and she’s really not told me enough, has she? But why, do you think? What’s behind it all? What does it mean?’
‘It would be almost interesting to find out,’ said Poirot.
‘Well, that’s why I’ve come to you,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘You like finding out things. Things that you can’t see the reason for at first. I mean, that nobody can see the reason for.’
‘Do you think Mrs Burton-Cox has any preference?’ said Poirot.
‘You mean that she’d rather the husband killed the wife, or the wife killed the husband? I don’t think so.’
‘Well,’ said Poirot, ‘I see your dilemma. It is very intriguing. You come home from a party. You’ve been asked to do something that is very difficult, almost impossible, and—you wonder what is the proper way to deal with such a thing.’
‘Well, what would you think is the proper way?’ said Mrs Oliver.
‘It is not easy for me to say,’ said Poirot. ‘I’m not a woman. A woman whom you do not really know, whom you had met at a party, has put this problem to you, asked you to do it, giving no discernible reason.’
‘Right,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘Now what does Ariadne do? What does A do, in other words, if you were reading this as a problem in a newspaper?’
‘Well, I suppose,’ said Poirot, ‘there are three things that A could do. A could write a note to Mrs Burton-Cox and say, “I’m very sorry but I really feel I cannot oblige you in this matter,” or whatever words you like to put. B. You get into touch with your goddaughter and you tell her what has been asked of you by the mother of the boy, or the young man, or whatever he is, whom she is thinking of marrying. You will find out from her if she is really thinking of marrying this young man. If so, whether she has any idea or whether the young man has said anything to her about what his mother has got in her head. And there will be other interesting points, like finding out what this girl thinks of the mother of the young man she wants to marry. The third thing you could do,’ said Poirot, ‘and this really is what I firmly advise you to do, is …’
‘I know,’ said Mrs Oliver, ‘one word.’
‘Nothing,’ said Poirot.
‘Exactly,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘I know that is the simple and proper thing to do. Nothing. It’s darned cheek to go and tell a girl who’s my goddaughter what her future mother-in-law is going about saying, and asking people. But—’
‘I know,’ said Poirot, ‘it is human curiosity.’
‘I want to know why that odious woman came and said what she did to me,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘Once I know that I could relax and forget all about it. But until I know that …’
‘Yes,’ said Poirot, ‘you won’t sleep. You’ll wake up in the night and, if I know you, you will have the most extraordinary and extravagant ideas which presently, probably, you will be able to make into a most attractive crime story. A whodunit—a thriller. All sorts of things.’
‘Well, I suppose I could if I thought of it that way,’ said Mrs Oliver. Her eyes flashed slightly.
‘Leave it alone,’ said Poirot. ‘It will be a very difficult plot to undertake. It seems as though there could be no good reason for this.’
‘But I’d like to make sure that there is no good reason.’
‘Human curiosity,’ said Poirot. ‘Such a very interesting thing.’ He sighed. ‘To think what we owe to it throughout history. Curiosity. I don’t know who invented curiosity. It is said to be usually associated with the cat. Curiosity killed the cat. But I should say really that the Greeks were the inventors of curiosity. They wanted to know. Before them, as far as I can see, nobody wanted to know much. They just wanted to know what the rules of the country they were living in were, and how they could avoid having their heads cut off or being impaled on spikes or something disagreeable happening to them. But they either obeyed or disobeyed. They didn’t want to know why. But since then a lot of people have wanted to know why and all sorts of things have happened because of that. Boats, trains, flying machines and atom bombs and penicillin and cures for various illnesses. A little boy watches his mother’s kettle raising its lid because of the steam. And the next thing we know is we have railway trains, leading on in due course to railway strikes and all that. And so on and so on.’
‘Just tell me,’ said Mrs Oliver, ‘do you think I’m a terrible nosey-parker?’
‘No, I don’t,’ said Poirot. ‘On the whole I don’t think you are a woman of great curiosity. But I can quite see you getting in a het-up state at a literary party, busy defending yourself against too much kindness, too much praise. You ran yourself instead into a very awkward dilemma, and took a very strong dislike to the person who ran you into it.’
‘Yes. She’s a very tiresome woman, a very disagreeable woman.’
‘This murder in the past of this husband and wife who were supposed to get on well together and no apparent signs of a quarrel was known. One never really read about any cause for it, according to you?’
‘They were shot. Yes, they were shot. It could have been a suicide pact. I think the police thought it was at first. Of course, one can’t find out about things all those years afterwards.’
‘Oh yes,’ said Poirot, ‘I think I could find out something about it.’
‘You mean—through the exciting friends you’ve got?’
‘Well, I wouldn’t say the exciting friends, perhaps. Certainly there are knowledgeable friends, friends who could get certain records, look up the accounts that were given of the crime at the time, some access I could get to certain records.’
‘You could find out things,’ said Mrs Oliver hopefully, ‘and then tell me.’
‘Yes,’ said Poirot, ‘I think I could help you to know at any rate the full facts of the case. It’ll take a little time, though.’
‘I can see that if you do that, which is what I want you to do, I’ve got to do something myself. I’ll have to see the girl. I’ve got to see whether she knows anything about all this, ask her if she’d like me to give her mother-in-law-to-be a raspberry or whether there is any other way in which I can help her. And I’d like to see the boy she’s going to marry, too.’
