‘And what about you?’
‘Perhaps I could look for swans.’
‘Mon dieu, where do swans come in?’
‘It is only what I remember, which Nanny reminded me of. That there were little boys I used to play with and one used to call me Lady Elephant and the other one used to call me Lady Swan. When I was Lady Swan I pretended to be swimming about on the floor. When I was Lady Elephant they rode on my back. There are no swans in this.’
‘That is a good thing,’ said Poirot. ‘Elephants are quite enough.’
Chapter 10
Desmond
Two days later, as Hercule Poirot drank his morning chocolate, he read at the same time a letter that had been among his correspondence that morning. He was reading it now for the second time. The handwriting was a moderately good one, though it hardly bore thestamp of maturity.
Dear Monsieur Poirot,
I am afraid you will find this letter of mine somewhat peculiar, but I believe it would help if I mentioned a friend of yours. I tried to get in touch with her to ask her if she would arrange for me to come and see you, but apparently she had left home. Her secretary – I am referring to Mrs Ariadne Oliver, the novelist – her secretary seemed to say something about her having gone on a safari in East Africa. If so, I can see she may not return for some time. But I’m sure she would help me. I would indeed like to see you so much. I am badly in need of advice of some kind.
Mrs Oliver, I understand, is acquainted with my mother, who met her at a literary luncheon party. If you could give me an appointment to visit you one day I should be very grateful. I can suit my time to anything you suggested. I don’t know if it is helpful at all but Mrs Oliver’s secretary did mention the word ‘elephants’. I presume this has something to do with Mrs Oliver’s travels in East Africa. The secretary spoke as though it was some kind of password. I don’t really understand this but perhaps you will. I am in a great state of worry and anxiety and I would be very grateful if you could see me.
Yours truly,
Desmond Burton-Cox.
‘Nom d’un petit bonhomme!’ said Hercule Poirot.
‘I beg your pardon, sir?’ said George.
‘A mere ejaculation,’ said Hercule Poirot. ‘There are some things, once they have invaded your life, which you find very difficult to get rid of again. With me it seems to be a question of elephants.’
He left the breakfast table, summoned his faithful secretary, Miss Lemon, handed her the letter from Desmond Cox and gave her directions to arrange an appointment with the writer of the letter.
‘I am not too occupied at the present time,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow will be quite suitable.’
Miss Lemon reminded him of two appointments which he already had, but agreed that that left plenty of hours vacant and she would arrange something as he wished.
‘Something to do with the Zoological Gardens?’ she enquired.
‘Hardly,’ said Poirot. ‘No, do not mention elephants in your letter. There can be too much of anything. Elephants are large animals. They occupy a great deal of the horizon. Yes. We can leave elephants. They will no doubt arise in the course of the conversation I propose to hold with Desmond Burton-Cox.’
‘Mr Desmond Burton-Cox,’ announced George, ushering in the expected guest.
Poirot had risen to his feet and was standing beside the mantelpiece. He remained for a moment or two without speaking, then he advanced, having summed up his own impression. A somewhat nervous and energetic personality. Quite naturally so, Poirot thought. A little ill at ease but managing to mask it very successfully. He said, extending a hand,
‘Mr Hercule Poirot?’
‘That is right,’ said Poirot. ‘And your name is Desmond Burton-Cox. Pray sit down and tell me what I can do for you, the reasons why you have come to see me.’
‘It’s all going to be rather difficult to explain,’ said Desmond Burton-Cox.
‘So many things are difficult to explain,’ said Hercule Poirot, ‘but we have plenty of time. Sit down.’
Desmond looked rather doubtfully at the figure confronting him. Really, a very comic personality, he thought. The egg-shaped head, the big moustaches. Not somehow very imposing. Not quite, in fact, what he had expected to encounter.
‘You – you are a detective, aren’t you?’ he said. ‘I mean you – you find out things. People come to you to find out, or to ask you to find out things for them.’
‘Yes,’ said Poirot, ‘that is one of my tasks in life.’
‘I don’t suppose that you know what I’ve come about or that you know anything much about me.’
‘I know something,’ said Poirot. ‘You mean Mrs Oliver, your friend Mrs Oliver. She’s told you something?’
‘She told me that she had had an interview with a goddaughter of hers, a Miss Celia Ravenscroft. That is right, is it not?’
‘Yes. Yes, Celia told me. This Mrs Oliver, is she – does she also know my mother – know her well, I mean?’
‘No. I do not think that they know each other well. According to Mrs Oliver, she met her at a literary luncheon recently and had a few words with her. Your mother, I understand, made a certain request to Mrs Oliver.’
‘She’d no business to do so,’ said the boy.
His eyebrows came down over his nose. He looked angry now, angry – almost revengeful.
‘Really,’ he said, ‘Mothers – I mean –’
‘I understand,’ said Poirot. ‘There is much feeling these days, indeed perhaps there always has been. Mothers are continually doing things which their children would much rather they did not. Am I right?’
‘Oh you’re right enough. But my mother – I mean, she interferes in things in which really she has no concern.’
‘You and Celia Ravenscroft, I understand, are close friends. Mrs Oliver understood from your mother that there was some question of marriage. Perhaps in the near future?’
‘Yes, but my mother really doesn’t need to ask questions and worry about things which are – well, no concern of hers.’
‘But mothers are like that,’ said Poirot. He smiled faintly. He added, ‘You are, perhaps, very much attached to your mother?’
‘I wouldn’t say that,’ said Desmond. ‘No, I certainly wouldn’t say that. You see – well, I’d better tell you straight away, she’s not really my mother.’
‘Oh, indeed. I had not understood that.’
‘I’m adopted,’ said Desmond. ‘She had a son. A little boy who died. And then she wanted to adopt a child so I was adopted, and she brought me up as her son. She always speaks of me as her son, and thinks of me asher son, but I’m not really. We’re not a bit alike. We don’t look at things the same way.’
‘Very understandable,’ said Poirot. ‘I don’t seem to be getting on,’ said Desmond, ‘with what I want to ask you.’
‘You want me to do something to find out something, to cover a certain line of interrogation?’
‘I suppose that does cover it. I don’t know how much you know about – about well, what the trouble is all about.’
‘I know a little,’ said Poirot. ‘Not details. I do not know very much about you or about Miss Ravenscroft, whom I have not yet met. I’d like to meet her.’
‘Yes, well, I was thinking of bringing her to talk to you but I thought I’d better talk to you myself first.’
‘Well, that seems quite sensible,’ said Poirot. ‘You are unhappy about something? Worried? You have difficulties?’
‘Not really. No. No, there shouldn’t be any difficulties. There aren’t any. What happened is a thing that happened years ago when Celia was only a child, or a schoolgirl at least. And there was a tragedy, the sort of thing that happens – well, it happens every day, any time. Two people you know whom something has upset very much and they commit suicide. A sort of suicide pact, this was. Nobody knew very much about it or why, or anything like that. But, after all, it happens and it’s no business really of people’s children to worry about it. I mean, if
they know the facts that’s quite enough, I should think. And it’s no business of my mother’s at all.’
‘As one journeys through life,’ said Poirot, ‘one finds more and more that people are often interested in things that are none of their own business. Even more so than they are in things that could be considered as their own business.’
‘But this is all over. Nobody knew much about it or anything. But, you see, my mother keeps asking questions. Wants to know things, and she’s got at Celia. She’s got Celia into a state where she doesn’t really know whether she wants to marry me or not.’
‘And you? You know if you want to marry her still?’
‘Yes, of course I know. I mean to marry her. I’m quite determined to marry her. But she’s got upset. She wants to know things. She wants to know why all this happened and she thinks – I’m sure she’s wrong – she thinks that my mother knows something about it. That she’s heard something about it.’
‘Well, I have much sympathy for you,’ said Poirot, ‘but it seems to me that if you are sensible young people and if you want to marry, there is no reason why you should not. I may say that I have been given some information at my request about this sad tragedy. As you say, it is a matter that happened years ago. There was no full explanation of it. There never has been. But in life one cannot have explanations of all the sad things that happen.’
‘It was a suicide pact,’ said the boy. ‘It couldn’t havebeen anything else. But – well . . .’
‘You want to know the cause of it. Is that it?’
‘Well, yes, that’s it. That’s what Celia’s been worried about, and she’s almost made me worried. Certainly my mother is worried, though, as I’ve said, it’s absolutely no business of hers. I don’t think any fault is attached to anyone. I mean, there wasn’t a row or anything. The trouble is, of course, that we don’t know. Well, I mean, I shouldn’t know anyway because I wasn’t there.’
‘You didn’t know General and Lady Ravenscroft or Celia?’
‘I’ve known Celia more or less all my life. You see, the people I went to for holidays and her people lived next door to each other when we were very young. You know – just children. And we always liked each other, and got on together and all that. And then of course, for a long time all that passed over. I didn’t meet Celia for a great many years after that. Her parents, you see, were in Malaya, and so were mine. I think they met each other again there – I mean my father and mother. My father’s dead, by the way. But I think when my mother was in Malaya she heard things and she’s remembered now what she heard and she’sworked herself up about them and she sort of – sort of thinks things that can’t possibly be true. I’m sure they aren’t true. But she’s determined to worry Celia about them. I want to know what really happened. Celia wants to know what really happened. What it was all about. And why? And how? Not just people’s silly stories.’
‘Yes,’ said Poirot, ‘it is not unnatural perhaps that you should both feel that. Celia, I should imagine, more than you. She is more disturbed by it than you are. But, if I may say so, does it really matter? What matters is the now, the present. The girl you want to marry, the girl who wants to marry you – what has the past to do with you? Does it matter whether her parents had a suicide pact or whether they died in an aeroplane accident or one of them was killed in an accident and the other one later committed suicide? Whether there were love-affairs which came into their lives and made for unhappiness.’
‘Yes,’ said Desmond Burton-Cox, ‘yes, I think what you say is sensible and quite right but – well, things have been built up in such a way that I’ve got to make sure that Celia is satisfied. She’s – she’s a person who minds about things although she doesn’t talk about them much.’
‘Has it not occurred to you,’ said Hercule Poirot, ‘that it may be very difficult, if not impossible, to find out what really happened.’
‘You mean which of them killed the other or why, or that one shot the other and then himself. Not unless – not unless there had been something.’
‘Yes, but that something would have been in the past, so why does it matter now?’
‘It oughtn’t to matter – it wouldn’t matter but for my mother interfering, poking about in things. It wouldn’t have mattered. I don’t suppose that, well, Celia’s ever thought much about it. I think probably that she was away at school in Switzerland at the time the tragedy happened and nobody told her much and, well, when you’re a teenager or younger still you just accept things as something that happened, but that’s not anything to do with you really.’
‘Then don’t you think that perhaps you’re wanting the impossible?’
‘I want you to find out,’ said Desmond. ‘Perhaps it’s not the kind of thing that you can find out, or that you like finding out –’
‘I have no objection to finding out,’ said Poirot. ‘In fact one has even a certain – curiosity, shall I say. Tragedies, things that arise as a matter of grief, surprise, shock, illness, they are human tragedies, human things, and it is only natural that if one’s attention is drawn to them one should want to know. What I say is, is it wise or necessary to rake up things?’
‘Perhaps it isn’t,’ said Desmond, ‘but you see . . .’
‘And also,’ said Poirot, interrupting him, ‘don’t you agree with me that it is rather an impossible thing to do after all this time?’
‘No,’ said Desmond, ‘that’s where I don’t agree with you. I think it would be quite possible.’
‘Very interesting,’ said Poirot. ‘Why do you think it would be quite possible?’
‘Because –’
‘Of what? You have a reason.’
‘I think there are people who would know. I think there are people who could tell you if they were willing to tell you. People, perhaps, who would not wish to tell me, who would not wish to tell Celia, but you might find out from them.’
‘That is interesting,’ said Poirot.
‘Things happened,’ said Desmond. ‘Things happened in the past. I – I’ve sort of heard about them in a vague way. There was some mental trouble. There was someone – I don’t know who exactly, I think it might have been Lady Ravenscroft – I think she was in a mental home for years. Quite a long time. Some tragedy had happened when she was quite young. Some child who died or an accident. Something that – well, she was concerned in it in some way.’
‘It is not what you know of your own knowledge, I presume?’
‘No. It’s something my mother said. Something she heard. She heard it in Malaya, I think. Gossip there from other people. You know how they get together in the Services, people like that, and the women all gossip together – all the memsahibs. Saying things that mightn’t be true at all.’
‘And you want to know whether they were true or were not true?’
‘Yes, and I don’t know how to find out myself. Not now, because it was a long time ago and I don’t know who to ask. I don’t know who to go to, but until we really find out what did happen and why –’
‘What you mean is,’ said Poirot, ‘at least I think I am right only this is pure surmise on my part, Celia Ravenscroft does not want to marry you unless she is quite sure that there is no mental flaw passed to her presumably by her mother. Is that it?’
‘I think that is what she has got into her head somehow. And I think my mother put it there. I think it’s what my mother wants to believe. I don’t think she’s any reason really for believing it except ill-mannered spite and gossip and all the rest of it.’
‘It will not be a very easy thing to investigate,’ said Poirot.
‘No, but I’ve heard things about you. They say that you’re very clever at finding out what did happen. Asking people questions and getting them to tell you things.’
‘Whom do you suggest I should question or ask? When you say Malaya, I presume you are not referring to people of Malayan nationality. You are speaking of what you might call the memsahib days, the days when there were Service commun
ities in Malaya. You are speaking of English people and the gossip in some English station there.’
‘I don’t really mean that that would be any good now. I think whoever it was who gossiped, who talked – I mean, it’s so long ago now that they’d have forgotten all about it, that they are probably dead themselves. I think that my mother’s got a lot of things wrong, that she’s heard things and made up more things about them in her mind.’
‘And you still think that I would be capable –’
‘Well, I don’t mean that I want you to go out to Malaya and ask people things. I mean, none of the people would be there now.’
‘So you think you could not give me names?’
‘Not those sort of names,’ said Desmond. ‘But some names?’
‘Well, I’ll come out with what I mean. I think there are two people who might know what happened and why. Because, you see, they’d have been there. They’d have known, really known, of their own knowledge.’
‘You do not want to go to them yourself ?’
‘Well, I could. I have in a way, but I don’t think, you see, that they – I don’t know. I wouldn’t like to ask some of the things I want to ask. I don’t think Celia would. They’re very nice, and that’s why they’d know. Not because they’re nasty, not because they gossip, but because they might have helped. They might havedone something to make things better, or have tried to do so, only they couldn’t. Oh, I’m putting it all so badly.’
‘No,’ said Poirot, ‘you are doing it very well, and I am interested and I think you have something definite in your mind. Tell me, does Celia Ravenscroft agree with you?’
‘I haven’t said too much to her. You see, she was very fond of Maddy and of Zélie.’
‘Maddy and Zélie?’
‘Oh well, that’s their names. Oh, I must explain. I haven’t done it very well. You see, when Celia was quite a child – at the time when I first knew her, as I say, when we were living next door in the country – she had a French sort of – well, I suppose nowadays we call it an au pair girl but it was called a governess then. You know, a French governess. A mademoiselle. And you see, she was very nice. She played with all of us children and Celia always called her “Maddy” for short – and all the family called her Maddy.’