大象的证词12

Chapter 12

Celia Meets Hercule Poirot

‘Well, madame,’ said Poirot, ‘and how did you fare with Sir Hugo Foster?’

‘To begin with his name wasn’t Foster - it was Fothergill. Trust Julia toget a name wrong. She’s always doing it.’

‘So elephants are not always reliable in the names they remember?’

‘Don’t talk of elephants - I’ve finished with elephants.’

‘And your War Horse?’

‘Quite an old pet - but useless as a source of information. Obsessed bysome people called Barnet who did have a child killed in an accident inMalaya. But nothing to do with the Ravenscrofts. I tell you I’ve finishedwith elephants -’

‘Madame, you have been most persevering, most noble.’

‘Celia is coming along in about half an hour’s time. You wanted to meether, didn’t you? I’ve told her that you are - well, helping me in this matter.

Or would you rather she came to see you?’

‘No,’ said Poirot, ‘I think I should like her to come in the way you havearranged.’

‘I don’t suppose she’ll stay very long. If we get rid of her in about anhour, that would be all right, just to think over things a bit, and then MrsBurton-Cox is coming.’

‘Ah yes. That will be interesting. Yes, that will bevery interesting.’

Mrs Oliver sighed. ‘Oh dear, it’s a pity, though, isn’t it?’ She said again,‘We do have too much material, don’t we?’

‘Yes,’ said Poirot. ‘We do not know what we are looking for. All we knowof still is, in all probability, the double suicide of a married couple wholived quiet and happy lives together. And what have we got to show forcause, for reason? We’ve gone forward and back to the right, to the left, tothe west, to the east.’

‘Quite right,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘Everywhere. We haven’t been to theNorth Pole yet,’ she added.

‘Nor to the South Pole,’ said Poirot. ‘So what is there, when it all comesto it?’

‘Various things,’ said Poirot. ‘I have made here a list. Do you want toread it?’

Mrs Oliver came over and sat beside him and looked over his shoulder.

‘Wigs,’ she said, pointing to the first item. ‘Why wigs first?’

‘Four wigs,’ said Poirot, ‘seem to be interesting. Interesting and ratherdifficult to solve.’

‘I believe the shop she got her wigs from has gone out of the trade now.

People go to quite different places for wigs and they’re not wearing somany as they did just then. People used to wear wigs to go abroad. Youknow, because it saves bother in travelling.’

‘Yes, yes,’ said Poirot, ‘we will do what we can with wigs. Anyway, that isone thing that interests me. And then there are other stories. Stories ofmental disturbance in the family. Stories of a twin sister who was men-tally disturbed and spent a good many years of her life in a mental home.’

‘It doesn’t seem to lead anywhere,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘I mean to say, I sup-pose she could have come and shot the two of them, but I don’t really seewhy.’

‘No,’ said Poirot, ‘the fingerprints on the revolver were definitely onlythe fingerprints of General Ravenscroft and his wife, I understand. Thenthere are stories of a child, a child in Malaya was murdered or attacked,possibly by this twin sister of Lady Ravenscroft. Possibly by some quitedifferent woman - possibly by an amah or a servant. Point two. You knowa little more about money.’

‘Where does money come into it?’ said Mrs Oliver, in some surprise.

‘It does not come into it,’ said Poirot. ‘That is what is so interesting.

Money usually comes in. Money someone got as a result of that suicide.

Money lost as a resultof it. Money somewhere causing difficulties, causingtrouble, causing covetousness and desire. It is difficult, that. Difficult tosee. There does not seem to have been any large amount of money any-where. There are various stories of love-affairs, women who were attract-ive to the husband, men who were attractive to the wife. An affair on oneside or the other could have led to suicide or to murder. It very often does.

Then we come to what at the moment inclines me to the most interest.

That is why I am so anxious to meet Mrs Burton-Cox.’

‘Oh. That awful woman. I don’t see why you think she’s important. Allshe did was to be a noseyparker and want me to find out things.’

‘Yes, but why did she want you to find out things? It seems to me veryodd, that. It seems to me that that is something that one has to find outabout. She is the link, you see.’

‘The link?’

‘Yes. We do not know what the link was, where it was, how it was. Allwe know is that she wants desperately to learn more about this suicide.

Being a link, she connects both with your godchild, Celia Ravenscroft, andwith the son who is not her son.’

‘What do you mean - not her son?’

‘He is an adopted son,’ said Poirot. ‘A son she adopted because her ownson died.’

‘How did her own child die? Why? When?’

‘All these things I asked myself. She could be a link, a link of emotion, awish for revenge through hatred, through some love-affair. At any rate Imust see her. I must make up my mind about her. Yes, I cannot help butthink that is very important.’

There was a ring at the bell and Mrs Oliver went out of the room to an-swer it.

‘This, I think, could be Celia,’ she said. ‘You’re sure it’s all right?’

‘By me, yes,’ said Poirot. ‘By her also, I hope.

’Mrs Oliver came back a few minutes later. Celia Ravenscroft was withher. She had a doubtful, suspicious look.

‘I don’t know,’ she said, ‘if I -’ She stopped, staring at Hercule Poirot.

‘I want to introduce you,’ said Mrs Oliver, ‘to someone who is helpingme, and I hope is helping you also. That is, helping you in what you wantto know and to find out. This is Monsieur Hercule Poirot. He has specialgenius in finding out things.’

‘Oh,’ said Celia.

She looked very doubtfully at the egg-shaped head, the monstrous mous-taches and the small stature.

‘I think,’ she said, rather doubtfully, ‘that I have heard of him.’

Hercule Poirot stopped himself with a slight effort from saying firmly‘Most people have heard of me.’ It was not quite as true as it used to be be-cause many people who had heard of Hercule Poirot and known him,were now reposing with suitable memorial stones over them, in church-yards. He said,‘Sit down, mademoiselle. I will tell you this much about myself. Thatwhen I start an investigation I pursue it to the end. I will bring to light thetruth and if it is, shall we say, truly the truth that you want, then I will de-liver that knowledge to you. But it may be that you want reassuring. Thatis not the same thing as the truth. I can find various aspects that might re-assure you. Will that be enough? If so, do not ask for more.’

Celia sat down in the chair he had pushed towards her, and looked athim rather earnestly. Then she said,‘You don’t think I’d care for the truth, is that it?’

‘I think,’ said Poirot, ‘that the truth might be - a shock, a sorrow, and itmight be that you would have said “Why did I not leave all this behind?

Why did I ask for knowledge? It is painful knowledge about which I cando nothing helpful or hopeful.” It is a double suicide by a father and amother that I - well, we’ll admit it - that I loved. It is not a disadvantage tolove a mother and father.’

‘It seems to be considered so nowadays occasionally,’ said Mrs Oliver.

‘New article of belief, shall we say.’

‘That’s the way I’ve been living,’ said Celia. ‘Beginning to wonder, youknow. Catching on to odd things that people said sometimes. People wholooked at me rather pityingly. But more than that. With curiosity as well.

One begins to find out, you know, things about people, I mean. People youmeet, people you know, people who used to know your family. I don’twant this life. I want … you think I don’t really want it but I do - I wanttruth. I’m able to deal with truth. Just tell me something.’

It was not a continuation of the conversation. Celia had turned on Poirotwith a separate question. Something which had replaced what had beenin her mind just previously.

‘You saw Desmond, didn’t you?’ she said. ‘He went to see you. He toldme he had.’

‘Yes. He came to see me. Did you not want him to do so?’

‘He didn’t ask me.’

‘If he had asked you?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t know whether I should have forbidden him to doso, told him on no acount to do such a thing, or whether I should have en-couraged it.’

‘I would like to ask you one question, mademoiselle. I want to know ifthere is one clear thing in your mind that matters to you, that could matterto you more than anythings else.’

‘Well, what is that?’

‘As you say, Desmond Burton-Cox came to see me. A very attractive andlikeable young man, and very much in earnest over what he came to say.

Now that - that is the really important thing. The important thing is if youand he really wish to marry - because that is serious. That is - thoughyoung people do not always think so nowadays - that is a link together forlife. Do you want to enter into that state? It matters. What difference can itmake to you or to Desmond whether the death of two people was a doublesuicide or something quite different?’

‘You think it is something quite different - or, it was?’

‘I do not as yet know,’ said Poirot. ‘I have reason to believe that it mightbe. There are certain things that do not accord with a double suicide, butas far as I can go on the opinion of the police - and the police are very reli-able, Mademoiselle Celia, very reliable - they put together all the evidenceand they thought very definitely that it could be nothing else but a doublesuicide.’

‘But they never knew the cause of it? That’s what you mean.’

‘Yes,’ said Poirot, ‘that’s what I mean.’

‘And don’t you know the cause of it, either? I mean, from looking intothings or thinking about them, or whatever you do?’

‘No, I am not sure about it,’ said Poirot. ‘I think there might be some-thing very painful to learn and I am asking you whether you will be wiseenough to say: “The past is the past. Here is a young man whom I care forand who cares for me. This is the future we are spending together, not thepast.”’

‘Did he tell you he was an adopted child?’ asked Celia.

‘Yes, he did.’

‘You see, what business is it really, of hers? Why should she come wor-rying Mrs Oliver here, trying to make Mrs Oliver ask me questions, findout things? She’s not his own mother.’

‘Does he care for her?’

‘No,’ said Celia. ‘I’d say on the whole he dislikes her. I think he alwayshas.’

‘She’s spent money on him, schooling and on clothes and on all sorts ofdifferent things. And you think she cares for him?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t think so. She wanted, I suppose, a child to replaceher own child. She’d had a child who died in an accident, that was whyshe wanted to adopt someone, and her husband had died quite recently.

All these dates are so difficult.’

‘I know, I know. I would like perhaps to know one thing.’

‘About her or about him?’

‘Is he provided for financially?’

‘I don’t know quite what you mean by that. He’ll be able to support me -to support a wife. I gather some money was settled on him when he wasadopted. A sufficient sum, that is. I don’t mean a fortune or anything likethat.’

‘There is nothing that she could - withhold?’

‘What, you mean that she’d cut off the money supplies if he marriedme? I don’t think she’s ever threatened to do that, or indeed that she coulddo it. I think it was all fixed up by lawyers or whoever arranges adoptions.

I mean, they make a lot of fuss, these adoption societies, from all I hear.’

‘I would ask you something else which you might know but nobody elsedoes. Presumably Mrs Burton-Cox knows it. Do you know who his actualmother was?’

‘You think that might have been one of the reasons for her being so no-sey and all that? Something to do with, as you say, what he was really. Idon’t know. I suppose he might have been an illegitimate child. They’rethe usual ones that go for adoption, aren’t they? She might have knownsomething about his real mother or his real father, or something like that.

If so, she didn’t tell him. I gather she just told him the silly things they sug-gest you should say. That it is just as nice to be adopted because it showsyou really were wanted. There’s a lot of silly slop like that.’

‘I think some societies suggest that that’s the way you should break thenews. Does he or you know of any blood relations?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t think he knows, but I don’tthink it worries him atall. He’s not that kind of a worrier.’

‘Do you know if Mrs Burton-Cox was a friend of your family, of yourmother and father? Did you ever meet her as far as you can remember,when you were living in your own home in the early days?’

‘I don’t think so. I think Desmond’s mother - I mean, I think Mrs Burton-Cox went to Malaya. I think perhaps her husband died out in Malaya, andthat Desmond was sent to school in England while they were out there andthat he was boarded with some cousins or people who take in children forholidays. And that’s how we came to be friends in those days. I always re-membered him, you know. I was a great hero-worshipper. He was won-derful at climbing trees and he taught me things about birds’ nests andbirds’ eggs. So it seemed quite natural, when I met him again I mean, methim at the university, and we both talked about where we’d lived and thenhe asked me my name. He said “Only your Christian name I know,” andthen we remembered quite a lot of things together. It’s what made us, youmight say, get acquainted. I don’t know everything about him. I don’tknow anything. I want to know. How can you arrange your life and knowwhat you’re going to do with your life if you don’t know all about thethings that affect you, that really happened?’

‘So you tell me to carry on with my investigation?’

‘Yes, if it’s going to produce any results, though I don’t think it will be be-cause in a way, well, Desmond and I have tried our hand at finding out afew things. We haven’t been very successful. It seems to come back to thisplain fact which isn’t really the story of a life. It’s the story of a death, isn’tit? Of two deaths, that’s to say. When it’s a double suicide, one thinks of itas one death. Is it in Shakespeare or where does the quotation come from- “And in death they were not divided.”’ She turned to Poirot again. ‘Yes,go on. Go on finding out. Go on telling Mrs Oliver or telling me direct. I’drather you told me direct.’ She turned towards Mrs Oliver. ‘I don’t mean tobe horrid to you, Godmother. You’ve been a very nice godmother to me al-ways, but - but I’d like it straight from the horse’s mouth. I’m afraid that’srather rude, Monsieur Poirot, but I didn’t mean it that way.’

‘No,’ said Poirot, ‘I am content to be the horse’s mouth.’

‘And you think you will be?’

‘I always believe that I can.’

‘And it’s always true, is it?’

‘It is usually true,’ said Poirot. ‘I do not say more than that.’

 

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