大象的证词6

Chapter 6

An Old Friend Remembers

When Mrs Oliver returned to the house the following morning, she foundMiss Livingstone waiting for her.

‘There have been two telephone calls, Mrs Oliver.’

‘Yes?’ said Mrs Oliver.

‘The first one was from Crichton and Smith. They wanted to knowwhether you had chosen the lime-green brocade or the pale blue one.’

‘I haven’t made up my mind yet,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘Just remind me to-morrow morning, will you? I’d like to see it by night light.’

‘And the other was from a foreigner, a Mr Hercule Poirot, I believe.’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘What did he want?’

‘He asked if you would be able to call and see him this afternoon.’

‘That will be quite impossible,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘Ring him up, will you?

I’ve got to go out again at once, as a matter of fact. Did he leave a tele-phone number?’

‘Yes, he did.’

‘That’s all right, then. We won’t have to look it up again. All right. Justring him. Tell him I’m sorry that I can’t but that I’m out on the track of anelephant.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ said Miss Livingstone.

‘Say that I’m on the track of an elephant.’

‘Oh yes,’ said Miss Livingstone, looking shrewdly at her employer to seeif she was right in the feelings that she sometimes had that Mrs AriadneOliver, though a successful novelist, was at the same time not quite rightin the head.

‘I’ve never hunted elephants before,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘It’s quite an inter-esting thing to do, though.’

She went into the sitting-room, opened the top volume of the assortedbooks on the sofa, most of them looking rather the worse for wear, sinceshe had toiled through them the evening before and written out a paperwith various addresses.

‘Well, one has got to make a start somewhere,’ she said. ‘On the whole Ithink that if Julia hasn’t gone completely off her rocker by now, I mightstart with her. She always had ideas and after all, she knew that part ofthe country because she lived near there. Yes, I think we’ll start with Julia.’

‘There are four letters here for you to sign,’ said Miss Livingstone.

‘I can’t be bothered now,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘I really can’t spare a moment.

I’ve got to go down to Hampton Court, and it’s quite a long ride.’

The Honourable Julia Carstairs, struggling with some slight difficulty outof her armchair, the difficulty that those over the age of seventy havewhen rising to their feet after prolonged rest, even a possible nap, steppedforward, peering a little to see who it was who had just been announcedby the faithful retainer who shared the apartment which she occupied inher status of a member of ‘Homes for the Privileged’. Being slightly deaf,the name had not come clearly to her. Mrs Gulliver. Was that it? But shedidn’t remember a Mrs Gulliver. She advanced on slightly shaky knees,still peering forward.

‘I don’t expect you’ll remember me, it’s so many years since we met.’

Like many elderly people, Mrs Carstairs could remember voices betterthan she did faces.

‘Why,’ she exclaimed, ‘it’s – dear me, it’s Ariadne! My dear, how verynice to see you.’

Greetings passed.

‘I just happened to be in this part of the world,’ explained Mrs Oliver. ‘Ihad to come down to see someone not far from here. And then I re-membered that looking in my address book last night I had seen that thiswas quite near where you had your apartment. Delightful, isn’t it?’ she ad-ded, looking round.

‘Not too bad,’ said Mrs Carstairs. ‘Not quite all it’s written up to be, youknow. But it has many advantages. One brings one’s own furniture andthings like that, and there is a central restaurant where you can have ameal, or you can have your own things, of course. Oh yes, it’s very good,really. The grounds are charming and well kept up. But sit down, Ariadne,do sit down. You look very well. I saw you were at a literary lunch theother day, in the paper. How odd it is that one just sees something in thepaper and almost the next day one meets the person. Quite extraordinary.’

‘I know,’ said Mrs Oliver, taking the chair that was offered her. ‘Thingsdo go like that, don’t they.’

‘You are still living in London?’

Mrs Oliver said yes, she was still living in London. She then entered intowhat she thought of in her own mind, with vague memories of going todancing class as a child, as the first figure of the Lancers. Advance, retreat,hands out, turn round twice, whirl round, and so on.

She enquired after Mrs Carstairs’s daughter and about the two grand-children, and she asked about the other daughter, what she was doing.

She appeared to be doing it in New Zealand. Mrs Carstairs did not seem tobe quite sure what it was. Some kind of social research. Mrs Carstairspressed an electric bell that rested on the arm of her chair, and orderedEmma to bring tea. Mrs Oliver begged her not to bother. Julia Carstairssaid:

‘Of course Ariadne has got to have tea.’

The two ladies leant back. The second and third figures of the Lancers.

Old friends. Other people’s children. The death of friends.

‘It must be years since I saw you last,’ said Mrs Carstairs.

‘I think it was at the Llewellyns’ wedding,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘Yes, thatmust have been about it. How terrible Moira looked as a bridesmaid. Thatdreadfully unbecoming shade of apricot they wore.’

‘I know. It didn’t suit them.’

‘I don’t think weddings are nearly as pretty as they used to be in ourday. Some of them seem to wear such very peculiar clothes. The other dayone of my friends went to a wedding and she said the bridegroom wasdressed in some sort of quilted white satin and ruffles at his neck. Made ofValenciennes lace, I believe. Most peculiar. And the girl was wearing avery peculiar trouser suit. Also white but it was stamped with green sham-rocks all over.’

‘Well, my dear Ariadne, can you imagine it. Really, extraordinary. Inchurch too. If I’d been a clergyman I’d have refused to marry them.’

Tea came. Talk continued.

‘I saw my goddaughter, Celia Ravenscroft, the other day,’ said MrsOliver. ‘Do you remember the Ravenscrofts? Of course, it’s a great manyyears ago.’

‘The Ravenscrofts? Now wait a minute. That was that very sad tragedy,wasn’t it? A double suicide, didn’t they think it was? Near their house atOvercliffe.’

‘You’ve got such a wonderful memory, Julia,’ said Mrs Oliver.

‘Always had. Though I have difficulties with names sometimes. Yes, itwas very tragic, wasn’t it.’

‘Very tragic indeed.’

‘One of my cousins knew them very well in Malaya, Roddy Foster, youknow. General Ravenscroft had had a most distinguished career. Ofcourse he was a bit deaf by the time he retired. He didn’t always hearwhat one said very well.’

‘Do you remember them quite well?’

‘Oh yes. One doesn’t really forget people, does one? I mean, they lived atOvercliffe for quite five or six years.’

‘I’ve forgotten her Christian name now,’ said Mrs Oliver.

‘Margaret, I think. But everyone called her Molly. Yes, Margaret. Somany people were called Margaret, weren’t they, at about that time? Sheused to wear a wig, do you remember?’

‘Oh yes,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘At least I can’t quite remember, but I think Ido.’

‘I’m not sure she didn’t try to persuade me to get one. She said it was souseful when you went abroad and travelled. She had four different wigs.

One for evening and one for travelling and one – very strange, you know.

You could put a hat on over it and not really disarrange it.’

‘I didn’t know them as well as you did,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘And of courseat the time of the shooting I was in America on a lecture tour. So I neverreally heard any details.’

‘Well, of course, it was a great mystery,’ said Julia Carstairs. ‘I mean tosay, one didn’t know. There were so many different stories going about.’

‘What did they say at the inquest – I suppose they had an inquest?’

‘Oh yes, of course. The police had to investigate it. It was one of those in-decisive things, you know, in that the death was due to revolver shots.

They couldn’t say definitely what had occurred. It seemed possible thatGeneral Ravenscroft had shot his wife and then himself, but apparently itwas just as probable that Lady Ravenscroft had shot her husband andthen herself. It seemed more likely, I think, that it was a suicide pact, but itcouldn’t be said definitely how it came about.’

‘There seemed to be no question of its being a crime?’

‘No, no. It was said quite clearly there was no suggestion of foul play. Imean there were no footprints or any signs of anyone coming near them.

They left the house to go for a walk after tea, as they so often did. Theydidn’t come back again for dinner and the manservant or somebody or thegardener – whoever it was – went out to look for them, and found themboth dead. The revolver was lying by the bodies.’

‘The revolver belonged to him, didn’t it?’

‘Oh yes. He had two revolvers in the house. These ex-military people sooften do, don’t they? I mean, they feel safer what with everything thatgoes on nowadays. A second revolver was still in the drawer in the house,so that he – well, he must have gone out deliberately with the revolver,presumably. I don’t think it likely that she’d have gone out for a walk car-rying a revolver.’

‘No. No, it wouldn’t have been so easy, would it?’

‘But there was nothing apparently in the evidence to show that therewas any unhappiness or that there’d been any quarrel between them orthat there was any reason why they should commit suicide. Of course onenever knows what sad things there are in people’s lives.’

‘No, no,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘One never knows. How very true that is, Julia.

Did you have any idea yourself ?’

‘Well, one always wonders, my dear.’

‘Yes,’ said Mrs Oliver, ‘one always wonders.’

‘It might be of course, you see, that he had some disease. I think hemight have been told he was going to die of cancer, but that wasn’t so, ac-cording to the medical evidence. He was quite healthy. I mean, he had – Ithink he had had a – what do they call those things? – coronary, is thatwhat I mean? It sounds like a crown, doesn’t it, but it’s really a heart at-tack, isn’t it? He’d had that but he’d recovered from it, and she was, well,she was very nervy. She was neurotic always.’

‘Yes, I seem to remember that,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘Of course I didn’t knowthem well, but –’ she askedsuddenly – ‘was she wearing a wig?’

‘Oh. Well, you know, I can’t really remember that. She always wore herwig. One of them, I mean.’

‘I just wondered,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘Somehow I feel if you were going toshoot yourself or even shoot your husband, I don’t think you’d wear yourwig, do you?’

The ladies discussed this point with some interest.

‘What do you really think, Julia?’

‘Well, as I said, dear, one wonders, you know. There were things said,but then there always are.’

‘About him or her?’

‘Well, they said that there was a young woman, you know. Yes, I thinkshe did some secretarial work for him. He was writing his memoirs of hiscareer abroad – I believe commissioned by a publisher at that – and sheused to take dictation from him. But some people said – well, you knowwhat they do say sometimes, that perhaps he had got – er – tied up withthis girl in some way. She wasn’t very young. She was over thirty, and notvery good-looking and I don’t think – there were no scandals about her oranything, but still, one doesn’t know. People thought he might have shothis wife because he wanted to – well, he might have wanted to marry her,yes. But I don’t really think people said that sort of thing and I never be-lieved it.’

‘What did you think?’

‘Well, of course I wondered a little about her.’

‘You mean that a man was mentioned?’

‘I believe there was something out in Malaya. Some kind of story I heardabout her. That she got embroiled with some young man much youngerthan herself. And her husband hadn’t liked it much and it had caused a bitof scandal. I forget where. But anyway, that was a long time ago and Idon’t think anything ever came of it.’

‘You don’t think there was any talk nearer home? No special relation-ship with anyone in the neighbourhood? There wasn’t any evidence ofquarrels between them, or anything of that kind?’

‘No, I don’t think so. Of course I read everything about it at the time.

One did discuss it, of course, because one couldn’t help feeling there mightbe some – well, some really very tragic love story connected with it.’

‘But there wasn’t, you think? They had children, didn’t they. There wasmy goddaughter, of course.’

‘Oh yes, and there was a son. I think he was quite young. At schoolsomewhere. The girl was only twelve, no – older than that. She was with afamily in Switzerland.’

‘There was no – no mental trouble, I suppose, in the family?’

‘Oh, you mean the boy – yes, might be of course. You do hear verystrange things. There was that boy who shot his father – that was some-where near Newcastle, I think. Some years before that. You know. He’dbeen very depressed and at first I think they said he tried to hang himselfwhen he was at the university, and then he came and shot his father. Butnobody quite knew why. Anyway, there wasn’t anything of that sort withthe Ravenscrofts. No, I don’t think so, in fact I’m pretty sure of it. I can’thelp thinking, in some ways –’

‘Yes, Julia?’

‘I can’t help thinking that there might have been a man, you know.’

‘You mean that she –’

‘Yes, well – well, one thinks it rather likely, you know. The wigs, for onething.’

‘I don’t quite see how the wigs come into it.’

‘Well, wanting to improve her appearance.’

‘She was thirty-five, I think.’

‘More. More. Thirty-six, I think. And, well, I know she showed me thewigs one day, and one or two of them really made her look quite attract-ive. And she used a good deal of make-up. And that had all started justafter they had come to live there, I think. She was rather a good-lookingwoman.’

‘You mean, she might have met someone, some man?’

‘Well, that’s what I’ve always thought,’ said Mrs Carstairs. ‘You see, if aman’s getting off with a girl, people notice it usually because men aren’t sogood at hiding their tracks. But a woman, it might be – well, I mean likesomeone she’d met and nobody knew much about it.’

‘Oh, do you really think so, Julia?’

‘No I don’t really think so,’ said Julia, ‘because I mean, people always doknow, don’t they? I mean, you know, servants know, or gardeners or busdrivers. Or somebody in the neighbourhood. And they know. And theytalk. But still, there could have been something like that, and either hefound out about it …’

‘You mean it was a crime of jealousy?’

‘I think so, yes.’

‘So you think it’s more likely that he shot her, then himself, than that sheshot him and then herself.’

‘Well, I should think so, because I think if she were trying to get rid ofhim – well, I don’t think they’d have gone for a walk together and she’dhave to have taken the revolver with her in a handbag and it would havebeen rather a bigger handbag if so. One has to think of the practical side ofthings.’

‘I know,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘One does. It’s very interesting.’

‘It must be interesting to you, dear, because you write these crime stor-ies. So I expect really you would have better ideas. You’d know morewhat’s likely to happen.’

‘I don’t know what’s likely to happen,’ said Mrs Oliver, ‘because, you see,in all the crimes that I write, I’ve invented the crimes. I mean, what I wantto happen, happens in my stories. It’s not something that actually hashappened or that could happen. So I’m really the worst person to talkabout it. I’m interested to know what you think because you know peoplevery well, Julia, and you knew them well. And I think she might have saidsomething to you one day – or he might.’

‘Yes. Yes, now wait a minute when you say that, that seems to bringsomething back to me.’

Mrs Carstairs leaned back in her chair, shook her head doubtfully, halfclosed her eyes and went into a kind of coma. Mrs Oliver remained silentwith a look on her face which women are apt to wear when they are wait-ing for the first signs of a kettle coming to the boil.

‘She did say something once, I remember, and I wonder what she meantby it,’ said Mrs Carstairs. ‘Something about starting a new life – in connec-tion I think with St Teresa. St Teresa of Avila… .’

Mrs Oliver looked slightly startled.

‘But how did St Teresa of Avila come into it?’

‘Well, I don’t know really. I think she must have been reading a Life ofher. Anyway, she said that it was wonderful how women get a sort ofsecond wind. That’s not quite the term she used, but something like that.

You know, when they are forty or fifty or that sort of age and they sud-denly want to begin a new life. Teresa of Avila did. She hadn’t done any-thing special up till then except being a nun, then she went out and re-formed all the convents, didn’t she, and flung her weight about and be-came a great Saint.’

‘Yes, but that doesn’t seem quite the same thing.’

‘No, it doesn’t,’ said Mrs Carstairs. ‘But women do talk in a very sillyway, you know, when they are referring to love-affairs when they get onin life. About how it’s never too late.’

 

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