大象的证词11

Book 2

Long Shadows

Chapter 11

Superintendent Garroway and Poirot Compare NotesSuperintendent Garroway looked across the table at Poirot. His eyestwinkled. At his side George delivered a whisky and soda. Passing on toPoirot, he put down a glass filled with a dark purple liquid.

‘What’s your tipple?’ said Superintendent Garroway, with some interest.

‘A syrup of black currant,’ said Poirot. ‘Well, well,’ said SuperintendentGarroway, ‘everyone to their own taste. What was it Spence told me? Hetold me you used to drink something called a tisane, wasn’t it? What’s that,a variant of French piano or something?’

‘No,’ said Poirot, ‘it’s useful for reducing fevers.’ ‘Ah. Invalid dope ofsome kind.’ He drank from his glass. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘here’s to suicide!’

‘It was suicide?’ Poirot asked.

‘What else can it be?’ said Superintendent Garroway. ‘The things youwanted to know!’ He shook his head. His smile grew more pronounced.

‘I am sorry,’ said Poirot, ‘to have troubled you so much. I am like the an-imal or the child in one of your stories by Mr Kipling. I Suffer from Insati-able Curiosity.’

‘Insatiable curiosity,’ said Superintendent Garroway. ‘Nice stories hewrote, Kipling. Knew his stuff, too. They told me once that that man couldgo for one short tour round a destroyer and know more about it than oneof the top engineers in the Royal Navy.’

‘Alas,’ said Hercule Poirot. ‘I do not know everything. Therefore, yousee, I have to ask questions. I am afraid that I sent you rather a long list ofquestions.’

‘What intrigued me,’ said Superintendent Garroway, ‘is the way youjumped from one thing to another. Psychiatrists, doctors’ reports, howmoney was left, who had money, who got money. Who expected moneyand didn’t get money, particulars of ladies’ hairdressing, wigs, name of thesupplier of wigs, charming rose-coloured cardboard boxes they came in bythe way.’

‘You knew all these things,’ said Poirot. ‘That has amazed me, I can as-sure you.’

‘Ah well, it was a puzzling case and of course we made full notes on thesubject. None of this was any good to us but we kept the files and it was allthere if one wanted to look for it.’

He pushed a piece of paper across the table.

‘Here you are. Hairdressers. Bond Street. Expensive firm. Eugene andRosentelle was the name of it. They moved later. Same firm but went intobusiness in Sloane Street. Here’s the address, but it’s a Pet Shop now. Twoof their assistants retired some years ago now, but they were the top as-sistants serving people then, and Lady Ravenscroft was on their list.

Rosentelle lives in Cheltenham now. Still in the same line of business –Calls herself a Hair Stylist – That’s the up-to-date term – and you add Beau-tician. Same man, different hat, as one used to say in my young days.’

‘Ah-ha?’ said Poirot.

‘Why ah-ha?’ asked Garroway.

‘I am immensely obliged to you,’ said Hercule Poirot. ‘You have presen-ted me with an idea. How strange it is the way ideas arrive into one’shead.’

‘You’ve too many ideas in your head already,’ said the Superintendent,‘that’s one of your troubles – you don’t need any more. Now then, I’vechecked up as well as I could on the family history – nothing much there.

Alistair Ravenscroft was of Scottish extraction. Father was a clergyman –two uncles in the Army – both quite distinguished. Married Margaret Pre-ston-Grey – well-born girl – presented at Court and all the rest of it. Nofamily scandals. You were quite right about her being one of twin sisters.

Don’t know where you picked that up – Dorothea and Margaret Preston-Grey – known colloquially as Dolly and Molly. The Preston-Greys lived atHatters Green in Sussex. Identical twins – usual kind of history of thatkind of twin. Cut their first tooth the same day – both got scarlet fever thesame month – wore the same kind of clothes – fell in love with the samekind of man – got married about the same time – both husbands in theArmy. Family doctor who attended the family when they were young diedsome years ago, so there’s nothing of interest to be got out of him. Therewas an early tragedy, though, connected with one of them.’

‘Lady Ravenscroft?’

‘No, the other one – she married a Captain Jarrow – had two children;the younger one, a boy of four, was knocked down by a wheelbarrow orsome kind of child’s garden toy – or a spade or a child’s hoe. Hit him on hishead and he fell into an artificial pond or something and drowned. Appar-ently it was the older child, a girl of nine who did it. They were playing to-gether and quarrelled, as children do. Doesn’t seem much doubt, but therewas another story. Someone said the mother did it – got angry and hit him– and someone else said it was a woman who lived next door who hit him.

Don’t suppose it’s of any interest to you – no bearing on a suicide pactentered into by the mother’s sister and her husband years after.’

‘No,’ said Poirot, ‘it does not seem to. But one likes to know background.’

‘Yes,’ said Garroway, ‘as I told you, one has to look into the past. I can’tsay we’d thought of looking into the past as long ago as this. I mean, as I’vesaid, all this was some years before the suicide.’

‘Were there any proceedings at the time?’

‘Yes. I managed to look up the case. Accounts of it. Newspaper accounts.

Various things. There were some doubts about it, you know. The motherwas badly affected. She broke down completely and had to go into hos-pital. They do say she was never the same woman again afterwards.’

‘But they thought she had done it?’

‘Well, that’s what the doctor thought. There was no direct evidence, youunderstand. She said that she had seen this happen from a window, thatshe’d seen the older child, the girl, hit the boy and push him in. But her ac-count – well, I don’t think they believed it at the time. She talked sowildly.’

‘There was, I suppose, some psychiatric evidence?’

‘Yes. She went to a nursing home or hospital of some kind, she was def-initely a mental case. She was a good long time in one or two different es-tablishments having treatment, I believe under the care of one of the spe-cialists from St Andrew’s Hospital in London. In the end she was pro-nounced cured, and released after about three years, and sent home tolead a normal life with her family.’

‘And she was then quite normal?’

‘She was always neurotic, I believe –’

‘Where was she at the time of the suicide? Was she staying with theRavenscrofts?’

‘No – she had died nearly three weeks before that. She was staying withthem at Overcliffe when it happened. It seemed again to be an illustrationof the identical twin destiny. She walked in her sleep – had suffered fromthat over a period of years, it seems. She had had one or two minor acci-dents that way. Sometimes she took too many tranquilizers and that resul-ted in her walking round the house and sometimes out of it during thenight. She was following a path along the cliff edge, lost her footing andfell over the cliff. Killed immediately – they didn’t find her until the nextday. Her sister, Lady Ravenscroft, was terribly upset. They were very de-voted to each other and she had to be taken to hospital suffering fromshock.’

‘Could this tragic accident have led to the Ravenscrofts’ suicide someweeks later?’

‘There was never a suggestion of such a thing.’

‘Odd things happen with twins as you say – Lady Ravenscroft mighthave killed herself because of the link between her and her twin sister.

Then the husband may have shot himself because possibly he felt guilty insome way –’

Superintendent Garroway said: ‘You have too many ideas, Poirot.

Alistair Ravenscroft couldn’t have had an affair with his sister- in- lawwithout everyone knowing about it. There was nothing of that kind – ifthat’s what you’ve been imagining.’

The telephone rang – Poirot rose and answered it. It was Mrs Oliver.

‘Monsieur Poirot, can you come to tea or sherry tomorrow? I have gotCelia coming – and later on the bossy woman. That’s what you wanted,isn’t it?’

Poirot said it was just what he wanted.

‘I’ve got to dash now,’ said Mrs Oliver, ‘Going to meet an old War Horse– provided by my elephant No. 1, Julia Carstairs. I think she’s got his namewrong – she always does – but I hope she’s got his address right.’

 

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