Elephants Can Remember

I'm not sure that it had anything to do with the Ravenscrofts, it might have been to do with some other people out there because she doesn't remember surnames and things very well.
It was a mental case in one family. Someone's sister-in-law.
Either General Whoever-it-was's sister or Mrs. Whoever-itwas's sister. Somebody who'd been in a mental home for years. I gathered she'd killed her own children or tried to kill her own children long ago, and then she'd been supposed to be cured or paroled or something and came out to Egypt, or India or wherever it was. She came out to stay with the people. And then it seems there was some other tragedy, connected again, I think, with children or something of that kind. Anyway, it was something that was hushed up. But I wondered. I mean, if there was something mental in the family, either Lady Ravenscroft's family or General Ravenscroft's family. I don't think it need have been as near as a sister. It could have been a cousin or something like that.
But-well, it seemed to me a possible line of inquiry." "Yes," said Poirot, "there's always possibility and something that waits for many years and then comes home to roost from somewhere in the past. That is what someone said to me. Old sins have long shadows." "It seemed to me," said Mrs. Oliver, "not that it was likely or even that old Nanny Matcham remembered it right or even really about it being the people she thought it was. But it might have fitted in with what that awful woman at the literary luncheon said to me." "You mean when she wanted to know…" "Yes. When she wanted me to find out from the daughter, my godchild, whether her mother had killed her father or whether her father had killed her mother." "And she thought the girl might know?" "Well, it's likely enough that the girl would know. I mean, not at the time-it might have been shielded from her-but she might know things about it which would make her be aware what the circumstances were in their lives and who was likely to have killed whom, though she would probably never mention it or say anything about it or talk to anyone about it." "And you say that woman-this Mrs.-" "Yes. I've forgotten her name now. Mrs. Burton something.
A name like that. She said something about her son had this girl friend and that they were thinking of getting married.
And I can quite see you might want to know, if so, whether her mother or her father had criminal relations in their family-or a loony strain. She probably thought that if it was the mother who killed the father it would be very unwise for the boy to marry her, whereas if the father had killed the mother, she probably wouldn't mind as much," said Mrs.Oliver.
"You mean that she would think that the inheritance would go in the female line?" "Well, she wasn't a very clever type of woman. Bossy," said Mrs. Oliver. "Thinks she knows a lot, but no. I think you might think that way if you were a woman." "An interesting point of view, but possible," said Poirot.
"Yes, I realize that." He sighed. "We have a lot to do still." "I've got another sidelight on things, too. Same thing, but second hand, if you know what I mean. You know. Someone says, 'The Ravenscrofts? Weren't they that couple who adopted a child? Then it seems, after it was all arranged, and they were absolutely stuck on it-very, very keen on it, one of their children had died in India, I think-but at any rate they had adopted this child and then its own mother wanted it back and they had a court case or something. But the court gave them the custody of the child and the mother came and tried to kidnap it back.' " "There are simpler points," said Poirot, "arising out of your report, points that I prefer." "Such as?" "Wigs. Four wigs." "Well," said Mrs. Oliver, "I thought that was interesting you, but I don't know why. It doesn't seem to mean anything.
The Indian story was just somebody mental. There are mental people who are in homes or loony-bins because they have killed their children or some other child, for some absolutely batty reason, no sense to it at all. I don't see why that would make General and Lady Ravenscroft want to kill themselves." "Unless one of them was implicated," said Poirot.
"You mean that General Ravenscroft may have killed someone, a boy-an illegitimate child, perhaps, of his wife's or of his own? No, I think we're getting a bit too melodramatic there. Or she might have killed her husband's child or her own." "And yet," said Poirot, "what people seem to be, they usually are." "You mean-?" "They seemed an affectionate couple-a couple who lived together happily without disputes. They seem to have had no case history of illness beyond a suggestion of an operation, of someone coming to London to consult some medical authority, a possibility of cancer, of leukemia, something of that kind, some future that they could not face. And yet, somehow we do not seem to get at something beyond what is possible, but not yet what is probable. If there was anyone else in the house, anyone else at the time, the police, my friends that is to say, who have known the investigation at the time, say that nothing told was really compatible with anything else but with the facts. For some reason, those two didn't want to go on living. Why?" "I knew a couple," said Mrs. Oliver, "in the war-the second war, I mean-they thought that the Germans would land in England and they had decided if that happened they would kill themselves. I said it was very stupid. They said it would be impossible to go on living. It still seems to me stupid. You've got to have enough courage to live through something. I mean, it's not as though your death was going to do any good to anybody else. I wonder-?" "Yes, what do you wonder?" "Well, when I said that I wondered suddenly if General and Lady Ravenscroft's deaths did any good to anyone else." "You mean somebody inherited money from them?" "Yes. Not quite as blatant as that. Perhaps somebody would have a better chance of doing well in life. Something there was in their life that they didn't want either of their two children ever to hear about or to know about." Poirot sighed.
"The trouble with you is," he said, "you think so often of something that well might have occurred, that might have been. You give me ideas. Possible ideas. If only they were probable ideas also. Why? Why were the deaths of those two necessary? Why is it-they were not in pain, they were not in illness, they were not deeply unhappy from what one can see.
Then why, in the evening of a beautiful day, did they go for a walk to a cliff and taking the dog with them…" "What's the dog got to do with it?" said Mrs. Oliver.
"Well, I wondered for a moment. Did they take the dog, or did the dog follow them? Where does the dog come in?" "I suppose it comes in like the wigs," said Mrs. Oliver.
"Just one more thing that you can't explain and doesn't seem to make sense. One of my elephants said the dog was devoted to Lady Ravenscroft, but another one said the dog bit her." "One always comes back to the same thing," said Poirot.
"One wants to know more." He sighed. "One wants to know more about the people, and how can you know people separated from you by a gulf of years?" "Well, you've done it once or twice, haven't you?" said Mrs. Oliver. "You know-something about where a painter was shot or poisoned. That was near the sea on a sort of fortification or something. You found out who did that, although you didn't know any of the people." "No. I didn't know any of the people, but I learned about them from the other people who were there."* "Well, that's what I'm trying to do," said Mrs. Oliver.
"Only I can't get near enough. I can't get to anyone who really knew anything, who was really involved. Do you think really we ought to give it up?" "I think it would be very wise to give it up," said Poirot, "but there is a moment when one no longer wants to be wise.