Chapter IX. Results Of Elephantine Research
"A telephone call for you," said Hercule Poirot's manservant George. "From Mrs. Oliver." "Ah, yes, George. And what had she to say?" "She wondered if she could come and see you this evening, sir, after dinner?" "That would be admirable," said Poirot. "Admirable. I have had a tiring day. It will be a stimulating experience to see Mrs. Oliver. She is always entertaining as well as being highly unexpected in the things she says. Did she mention elephants, by the way?" "Elephants, sir? No, I do not think so." "Ah. Then it would seem perhaps that the elephants have been disappointing." George looked at his master rather doubtfully. There were times when he did not quite understand the relevance of Poirot's remarks.
"Ring her back," said Hercule Poirot. "Tell her I shall be delighted to receive her." George went away to carry out this order, and returned to say that Mrs. Oliver would be there about quarter to nine.
"Coffee," said Poirot. "Let coffee be prepared and some petits fours. I rather think I ordered some in lately from Fortnum and Mason." "A liqueur of any kind, sir?" "No, I think not. I myself will have some Sirop de Cassis." "Yes, sir." Mrs. Oliver arrived exactly on time. Poirot greeted her with every sign of pleasure.
"And how are you, chere madame?" "Exhausted," said Mrs. Oliver, She sank down into the armchair that Poirot indicated.
"Completely exhausted." "Ah. Qui va a la chasse-oh, I cannot remember the saying." "I remember it," said Mrs. Oliver. "I learned it as a child. 'Qui va a la chasse perd sa place.' " "That, I am sure, is not applicable to the chase you have been conducting. I am referring to the pursuit of elephants, unless that was merely a figure of speech." "Not at all," said Mrs. Oliver. "I have been pursuing elephants madly. Here, there and everywhere. The amount of petrol I have used, the amount of trains I have taken, the amount of letters I've written, the amount of telegrams I've sent-you wouldn't believe how exhausting it all is." "Then repose yourself. Have some coffee." "Nice, strong, black coffee-yes, I will. Just what I want." "Did you, may I ask, get any results?" "Plenty of results," said Mrs. Oliver. "The trouble is, I don't know whether any of them are any use." "You learned facts, however?" "No. Not really. I learned things that people told me were facts, but I strongly doubt myself whether any of them were facts." "They were heresay?" "No. They were what I said they would be. They were memories. Lots of people who had memories. The trouble is, when you remember things, you don't always remember them right, do you?" "No. But they are still what you might describe perhaps as results. Is not that so?" "And what have you done?" said Mrs. Oliver.
"You are always so stern, madame," said Poirot. "You demand that I run about, that I also do things." "Well, have you run about?" "I have not run about, but I have had a few consultations with others of my own profession." "It sounds far more peaceful than what I have been doing," said Mrs. Oliver. "Oh, this coffee is nice. It's really strong.
You wouldn't believe how tired I am. And how muddled." "Come, come. Let us have good expectancy. You have got things. You have got something, I think." "I've got a lot of different suggestions and stories. I don't know whether any of them are true." "They could be not true, but still be of use," said Poirot.
"Well, I know what you mean," said Mrs. Oliver, "and that's what I think too. I mean, that's what I thought when I went about it. When people remember something and tell you about it-I mean, it's often not quite actually what occurred, but it's what they themselves thought occurred." "But they must have had something on which to base it," said Poirot.
"I've brought you a list of a kind," said Mrs. Oliver. "I don't need to go into details of where I went or what I said or why, I went out deliberately for-well, information one couldn't perhaps get from anybody in this country now. But it's all from people who knew something about the Ravenscrofts, even if they hadn't known them very well." "News from foreign places, do you mean?" "Quite a lot of them were from foreign places. Other people who knew them here rather slightly or from people whose aunts or cousins or friends knew them long ago." "And each one that you've noted down had some story to tell-some reference to the tragedy or to people involved?" "That's the idea," said Mrs. Oliver. "I'll tell you roughly, shall I?" "Yes. Have a petit four." "Thank you," said Mrs. Oliver.
She took a particularly sweet and rather bilious-looking one and champed it with energy.
"Sweet things," she said, "really give you a lot of vitality, I always think. Well, now, I've got the following suggestions.
These things have usually been said to me starting by: 'Oh, yes, of course!' 'How sad it was, that whole story!' 'Of course, I think everyone knows really what happened.' That's the sort of thing." "Yes." "These people thought they knew what happened. But there weren't really any very good reasons. It was just something someone had told them, or they'd heard either from friends or servants or relations or things like that. The suggestions, of course, are all the kind that you might think they were. A.
That General Ravenscroft was writing his memoirs of his Indian days and that he had a young woman who acted as his secretary and took dictation and typed things for him and was helping him, that she was a nice-looking girl and no doubt there was something there. The result being-well, there seemed to be two schools of thought. One school of thought was that he shot his wife because he hoped to marry the girl, and then when he had shot her, immediately was horror-stricken at what he'd done and shot himself…" "Exactly," said Poirot. "A romantic explanation." "The other idea was that there had been a tutor who came to give lessons to the son who had been ill and away from his prep school for six months or so-a good-looking young man." "Ah, yes. And the wife had fallen in love with the young man. Perhaps had an affair with him?" "That was the idea," said Mrs. Oliver. "No kind of evidence.
Just romantic suggestion again." "And therefore?" "Therefore I think the idea was that the General probably shot his wife and then in a fit of remorse shot himself. There was another story that the General had had an affair, and his wife found out about it, that she shot him and then herself.
It's always been slightly different every time. But nobody really knew anything. I mean, it's always just a likely story every time. I mean, the General may have had an affair with a girl or lots of girls or just another married woman, or it might have been the wife who had an affair with someone.
It's been a different someone in each story I've been told.
There was nothing definite about it or any evidence for it. It's just the gossip that went around about twelve or thirteen years ago, which people have rather forgotten about now. But they remember enough about it to tell one a few names and get things only moderately wrong about what happened. There was an angry gardener who happened to live on the place, there was a nice elderly cook-housekeeper who was rather blind and rather deaf, but nobody seems to suspect that she had anything to do with it. And so on. I've got all the names and possibilities written down. The names of some of them wrong and some of them right. It's all very difficult. His wife had been ill, I gather, for some short time. I think it was some kind of fever that she had. A lot of her hair must have fallen out because she bought four wigs. There were at least four new wigs found among her things." "Yes. I, too, heard that," said Poirot.
"Who did you hear it from?" "A friend of mine in the police. He went back over the accounts of the inquest and the various things in the house.
Four wigs! I would like to have your opinion on that, madame.
Do you think that four wigs seems somewhat excessive?" "Well, I do really," said Mrs. Oliver. "I had an aunt who had a wig, and she had an extra wig, but she sent one back to be redressed and wore the second one. I never heard of anyone who had four wigs." Mrs. Oliver extracted a small notebook from her bag, ruffled the pages of it, searching for extracts.