‘Yes. They weren’t very becoming to anybody. You looked better than most, if I may say so.’
‘Well, it’s nice of you to say that,’ said Celia. ‘I didn’t feel my best.’
Mrs Oliver indicated a chair and manipulated a couple of decanters.
‘Like sherry or something else?’
‘No. I’d like sherry.’
‘There you are, then. I suppose it seems rather odd to you,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘My ringing you up suddenly like this.’
‘Oh no, I don’t know that it does particularly.’
‘I’m not a very conscientious godmother, I’m afraid.’
‘Why should you be, at my age?’
‘You’re right there,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘One’s duties, one feels, end at a certain time. Not that I ever really fulfilled mine. I don’t remember coming to your Confirmation.’
‘I believe the duty of a godmother is to make you learn your catechism and a few things like that, isn’t it? Renounce the devil and all his works in my name,’ said Celia. A faint, humorous smile came to her lips.
She was being very amiable but all the same, thought Mrs Oliver, she’s rather a dangerous girl in some ways.
‘Well, I’ll tell you why I’ve been trying to get hold of you,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘The whole thing is rather peculiar. I don’t often go out to literary parties, but as it happened I did go out to one the day before yesterday.’
‘Yes, I know,’ said Celia. ‘I saw mention of it in the paper, and you had your name in it, too, Mrs Ariadne Oliver, and I rather wondered because I know you don’t usually go to that sort of thing.’
‘No,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘I rather wish I hadn’t gone to that one.’
‘Didn’t you enjoy it?’
‘Yes, I did in a way because I hadn’t been to one before. And so – well, the first time there’s always something that amuses you. But,’ she added, ‘there’s usually something that annoys you as well.’
‘And something happened to annoy you?’
‘Yes. And it’s connected in an odd sort of way with you. And I thought – well, I thought I ought to tell you about it because I didn’t like what happened. I didn’tlike it at all.’
‘Sounds intriguing,’ said Celia, and sipped her sherry.
‘There was a woman there who came and spoke to me. I didn’t know her and she didn’t know me.’
‘Still, I suppose that often happens to you,’ said Celia.
‘Yes, invariably,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘It’s one of the – hazards of literary life. People come up to you and say “I do love your books so much and I’m so pleased to be able to meet you.” That sort of thing.’
‘I was secretary to a writer once. I do know about that sort of thing and how difficult it is.’
‘Yes, well, there was some of that too, but that I was prepared for. And then this woman came up to me and she said “I believe you have a goddaughter called Celia Ravenscroft.”’
‘Well, that was a bit odd,’ said Celia. ‘Just coming up to you and saying that. It seems to me she ought to have led into it more gradually. You know, talking about your books first and how much she’d enjoyed the last one, or something like that. And then sliding into me. What had she got against me?’
‘As far as I know she hadn’t got anything against you,’ said Mrs Oliver.
‘Was she a friend of mine?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Mrs Oliver.
There was a silence. Celia sipped some more sherry and looked very searchingly at Mrs Oliver.
‘You know,’ she said, ‘you’re rather intriguing me. I can’t see quite what you’re leading into.’
‘Well,’ said Mrs Oliver, ‘I hope you won’t be angry with me.’
‘Why should I be angry with you?’
‘Well, because I’m going to tell you something, or repeat something, and you might say it’s no business of mine or I ought to keep quiet about it and not mention it.’
‘You’ve aroused my curiosity,’ said Celia.
‘Her name she mentioned to me. She was a Mrs Burton-Cox.’
‘Oh!’ Celia’s ‘Oh’ was rather distinctive. ‘Oh.’
‘You know her?’
‘Yes, I know her,’ said Celia. ‘Well, I thought you must because –’
‘Because of what?’
‘Because of something she said.’
‘What – about me? That she knew me?’
‘She said that she thought her son might be going to marry you.’
Celia’s expression changed. Her eyebrows went up, came down again. She looked very hard at Mrs Oliver.
‘You want to know if that’s so or not?’
‘No,’ said Mrs Oliver, ‘I don’t particularly want to know. I merely mention that because it’s one of the first things she said to me. She said because you were my goddaughter, I might be able to ask you to give me some information. I presume that she meant that if the information was given to me I was to pass it on to her.’
‘What information?’
‘Well, I don’t suppose you’ll like what I’m going to say now,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘I didn’t like it myself. In fact, it gives me a very nasty feeling all down my spine because I think it was – well, such awful cheek. Awful bad manners. Absolutely unpardonable. She said, “Can you find out if her father murdered her mother or if her mother murdered her father.” ’
‘She said that to you? Asked you to do that?’
‘Yes.’
‘And she didn’t know you? I mean, apart from being an authoress and being at the party?’
‘She didn’t know me at all. She’d never met me, I’d never met her.’
‘Didn’t you find that extraordinary?’
‘I don’t know that I’d find anything extraordinary that that woman said. She struck me,’ said Mrs Oliver, ‘if I may say so, as a particularly odious woman.’
‘Oh yes. She is a particularly odious woman.’
‘And are you going to marry her son?’
‘Well, we’ve considered the question. I don’t know. You knew what she was talking about?’
‘Well, I know what I suppose anyone would know who was acquainted with your family.’
‘That my father and mother, after he had retired from the Army, bought a house in the country, that they went out one day for a walk together, a walk along the cliff path. That they were found there, both of them shot. There was a revolver lying there. It belonged to my father. He had two revolvers in the house, it seems. There was nothing to say whether it was a suicide pact or whether my father killed my mother and then shot himself, or my mother shot my father and then killed herself. But perhaps you know all this already.’
‘I know it after a fashion,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘It happened I think about twelve years ago.’
‘About that, yes.’
‘And you were about twelve or fourteen at the time.’
‘Yes . . .’
‘I don’t know much about it,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘I wasn’t even in England myself. At the time – I was on a lecture tour in America. I simply read it in the paper. It was given a lot of space in the press because it was difficult to know the real facts – there did not seem to be any motive. Your father and mother had always been happy together and lived on good terms. I remember that being mentioned. I was interested because I had known your father and mother when we were all much younger, especially your mother. I was at school with her. After that our ways led apart. I married and went somewhere and she married and went out, as far as I remember, to Malaya or some place like that, with her soldier husband. But she did ask me to be godmother to one of her children. You. Since your mother and father were living abroad, I saw very little of them for many years. I saw you occasionally.’
‘Yes. You used to take me out from school. I remember that. Gave me some specially good feeds, too. Lovely food you gave me.’
‘You were an unusual child. You liked caviar.’
‘I still do,’ said Celi
a, ‘though I don’t get it offered to me very often.’
‘I was shocked to read this mention of things in the paper. Very little was said. I gathered it was a kind of open verdict. No particular motive. Nothing to show. No accounts of a quarrel, there was no suggestion of there having been an attack from outside. I was shocked by it,’ said Mrs Oliver, ‘and then I forgot it. I wondered once or twice what could have led to it, but as I was not in the country – I was doing a tour at the time, in America as I’ve said – the whole thing passed out of my mind. It was some years later when I next saw you and naturally I did not speak of it to you.’
‘No,’ said Celia, ‘I appreciate that.’
‘All through life,’ Mrs Oliver said, ‘one comes across very curious things that happen to friends or to acquaintances. With friends, of course, very often you have some idea of what led to – whatever the incident might be. But if it’s a long time since you’ve heard them discussed or talked to them, you are quite in the dark and there is nobody that you can show too much curiosity to about the occasion.’
‘You were always very nice to me,’ said Celia. ‘You sent me nice presents, a particularly nice present when I was twenty-one, I remember.’
‘That’s the time when girls need some extra cash in hand,’ said Mrs Oliver, ‘because there are so many things they want to do and have just then.’
‘Yes, I always thought you were an understanding person and not – well, you know what some people are like. Always questioning, and asking things and wanting to know all about you. You never asked questions. You used to take me out to shows, or give me nice meals, and talk to me as though, well, as though everything was all right and you were just a distant relation of the family. I’ve appreciated that. I’ve known so many nosey-parkers in my life.’
‘Yes. Everyone comes up against that sooner or later,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘But you see now what upset me at this particular party. It seems an extraordinary thing to be asked to do by a complete stranger like Mrs Burton-Cox. I couldn’t imagine why she should want to know. It was no business of hers, surely. Unless –’
‘You thought it was, unless it was something to do with my marrying Desmond. Desmond is her son.’
‘Yes, I suppose it could have been, but I couldn’t see how, or what business it was of hers.’
‘Everything’s her business. She’s nosey – in fact she’s what you said she was, an odious woman.’
‘But I gather Desmond isn’t odious.’
‘No. No, I’m very fond of Desmond and Desmond is fond of me. I don’t like his mother.’
‘Does he like his mother?’
‘I don’t really know,’ said Celia. ‘I suppose he might like her – anything’s possible, isn’t it? Anyway, I don’t want to get married at present, I don’t feel like it. And there are a lot of – oh, well, difficulties, you know, there are a lot of fors and againsts. It must have made you feel rather curious,’ said Celia. ‘I mean, why Mrs Nosey Cox should have asked you to try and worm things out of me and then run along and spill it all to her – Are you asking me that particular question by the way?’
‘You mean, am I asking you whether you think or know that your mother killed your father or your father killed your mother, or whether it was a double suicide. Is that what you mean?’
‘Well, I suppose it is, in a way. But I think I have to ask you also, if you were wanting to ask me that, whether you were doing so with the idea of giving Mrs Burton-Cox the information you obtained, in case you did receive any information from me.’
‘No,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘Quite decidedly no. I shouldn’t dream of telling the odious woman anything of the sort. I shall tell her quite firmly that it is not any business of hers or of mine, and that I have no intention of obtaining information from you and retailing it to her.’
‘Well, that’s what I thought,’ said Celia. ‘I thought I could trust you to that extent. I don’t mind telling you what I do know. Such as it is.’
‘You needn’t. I’m not asking you for it.’
‘No. I can quite see that. But I’ll give you the answer all the same. The answer is – nothing.’
‘Nothing,’ said Mrs Oliver thoughtfully.
‘No. I wasn’t there at the time. I mean, I wasn’t in the house at the time. I can’t remember now quite where I was. I think I was at school in Switzerland, or else I was staying with a school friend during the school holidays. You see, it’s all rather mixed up in my mind by now.’
‘I suppose,’ said Mrs Oliver doubtfully, ‘it wouldn’t be likely that you would know. Considering your age at the time.’
‘I’d be interested,’ said Celia, ‘to know just what you feel about that. Do you think it would be likely for me to know all about it? Or not to know?’
‘Well, you said you weren’t in the house. If you’d been in the house at the time, then yes, I think it would be quite likely that you might know something. Children do. Teenagers do. People of that age know a lot, they see a lot, they don’t talk about it very often. But they do know things that the outside world wouldn’t know, and they do know things that they wouldn’t be willing, shall we say, to tell to police enquirers.’
‘No. You’re being quite sensible. I wouldn’t’ve known. I don’t think I did know. I don’t think Ihad any idea. What did the police think? You don’t mind my asking you that, I hope, because I should be interested. You see, I never read any account of the inquest or anything like that or the enquiry into it.’
‘I think they thought it was a double suicide, but I don’t think they ever had any inkling as to the reason for it.’
‘Do you want to know what I think?’
‘Not if you don’t want me to know,’ said Mrs Oliver.
‘But I expect you are interested. After all, you write crime stories about people who kill themselves or kill each other, or who have reasons for things. I should think you would be interested.’
‘Yes, I’ll admit that,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘But the last thing I want to do is to offend you by seeking for information which is no business of mine to know.’
‘Well, I wondered,’ said Celia. ‘I’ve often wondered from time to time why, and how, but I knew very little about things. I mean, about how things were going on at home. The holidays before that I had been away on exchange on the Continent, so I hadn’t seen my mother and father really very recently. I mean, they’d come out to Switzerland and taken me out from school once or twice, but that was all. They seemed much as usual, but they seemed older. My father, I think, was ailing. I mean, getting feebler. I don’t know if it was heart or what it was. One doesn’t really think about that. My mother, too, she was going rather nervy. Not hypochondriac but a little inclined to fuss over her health. They were on good terms, quite friendly. There wasn’t anything that I noticed. Only sometimes one would, well, sometimes one gets ideas. One doesn’t think they’re true or necessarily right at all, but one just wonders if –’
‘I don’t think we’d better talk about it any more,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘We don’t need to know or find out. The whole thing’s over and done with. The verdict was quite satisfactory. No means to show, or motive, or anything like that. But there was no question of your father having deliberately killed your mother, or of your mother having deliberately killed your father.’
‘If I thought which was most likely,’ said Celia, ‘I would think my father killed my mother. Because, you see, it’s more natural for a man to shoot anyone, I think. To shoot a woman for whatever reason it was. I don’t think a woman, or a woman like my mother, would be so likely to shoot my father. If she wanted him dead, I should think she might have chosen some other method. But I don’t think either of them wanted the other one dead.’
‘So it could have been an outsider.’
‘Yes, but what does one mean by an outsider?’ said Celia.
‘Who else was there living in the house?’
‘A housekeeper, elderly, rather blind and rather deaf, a foreign girl,
an au pair girl, she’d been my governess once – she was awfully nice – she came back to look after my mother who had been in hospital – And there was an aunt whom I never loved much. I don’t think any of them could have been likely to have any grudge against my parents. There was nobody who profited by their deaths, except, I suppose, myself and my brother Edward, who was four years younger than I was. We inherited what money there was but it wasn’t very much. My father had his pension, of course. My mother had a small income of her own. No. There was nothing there of any importance.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘I’m sorry if I’ve distressed you by asking all this.’
‘You haven’t distressed me. You’ve brought it up in my mind a little and it has interested me. Because, you see, I am of an age now that I wish I did know. I knew and was fond of them, as one is fond of parents. Not passionately, just normally, but I realize I don’t know what they were really like. What their life was like. What mattered to them. I don’t know anything about it at all. I wish I did know. It’s like a burr, something sticking into you, and you can’t leave it alone. Yes. I would like to know. Because then, you see, I shouldn’t have to think about it any more.’
‘So you do? Think about it?’
Celia looked at her for a moment. She seemed to be trying to come to a decision.
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I think about it nearly all the time. I’m getting to have a thing about it, if you know what I mean. And Desmond feels the same.’
Chapter 5
Old Sins Have Long Shadows
Hercule Poirot let the revolving door wind him round. Arresting the swing of it with one hand, he stepped forward into the small restaurant. There were not many people there. It was an unfashionable time of day, but his eyes soon saw the man he had come to meet. The square, solid bulk of Superintendent Spence rose from the table in one corner.
‘Good,’ he said. ‘You have arrived here. You had no difficulty in finding it?’
‘None at all. Your instructions were most adequate.’