‘Yes?’ said Mrs Oliver.
‘The first one was from Crichton and Smith. They wanted to know whether you had chosen the lime-green brocade or the pale blue one.’
‘I haven’t made up my mind yet,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘Just remind me tomorrow morning, will you? I’d like to see it by night light.’
‘And the other was from a foreigner, a Mr Hercule Poirot, I believe.’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘What did he want?’
‘He asked if you would be able to call and see him this afternoon.’
‘That will be quite impossible,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘Ring him up, will you? I’ve got to go out again at once, as a matter of fact. Did he leave a telephone number?’
‘Yes, he did.’
‘That’s all right, then. We won’t have to look it up again. All right. Just ring him. Tell him I’m sorry that I can’t but that I’m out on the track of an elephant.’
‘I beg your pardon?’ said Miss Livingstone.
‘Say that I’m on the track of an elephant.’
‘Oh yes,’ said Miss Livingstone, looking shrewdly at her employer to see if she was right in the feelings that she sometimes had that Mrs Ariadne Oliver, though a successful novelist, was at the same time not quite right in the head.
‘I’ve never hunted elephants before,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘It’s quite an interesting thing to do, though.’
She went into the sitting-room, opened the top volume of the assorted books on the sofa, most of them looking rather the worse for wear, since she had toiled through them the evening before and written out a paper with various addresses.
‘Well, one has got to make a start somewhere,’ she said. ‘On the whole I think that if Julia hasn’t gone completely off her rocker by now, I might start with her. She always had ideas and after all, she knew that part of the country because she lived near there. Yes, I think we’ll start with Julia.’
‘There are four letters here for you to sign,’ said Miss Livingstone.
‘I can’t be bothered now,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘I really can’t spare a moment. I’ve got to go down to Hampton Court, and it’s quite a long ride.’
The Honourable Julia Carstairs, struggling with some slight difficulty out of her armchair, the difficulty that those over the age of seventy have when rising to their feet after prolonged rest, even a possible nap, stepped forward, peering a little to see who it was who had just been announced by the faithful retainer who shared the apartment which she occupied in her status of a member of ‘Homes for the Privileged’. Being slightly deaf, the name had not come clearly to her. Mrs Gulliver. Was that it? But she didn’t remember a Mrs Gulliver. She advanced on slightly shaky knees, still peering forward.
‘I don’t expect you’ll remember me, it’s so many years since we met.’
Like many elderly people, Mrs Carstairs could remember voices better than she did faces.
‘Why,’ she exclaimed, ‘it’s – dear me, it’s Ariadne! My dear, how very nice to see you.’
Greetings passed.
‘I just happened to be in this part of the world,’ explained Mrs Oliver. ‘I had to come down to see someone not far from here. And then I remembered that looking in my address book last night I had seen that this was quite near where you had your apartment. Delightful, isn’t it?’ she added, looking round.
‘Not too bad,’ said Mrs Carstairs. ‘Not quite all it’s written up to be, you know. But it has many advantages. One brings one’s own furniture and things like that, and there is a central restaurant where you can have a meal, or you can have your own things, of course. Oh yes, it’s very good, really. The grounds are charming and well kept up. But sit down, Ariadne, do sit down. You look very well. I saw you were at a literary lunch the other day, in the paper. How odd it is that one just sees something in the paper and almost the next day one meets the person. Quite extraordinary.’
‘I know,’ said Mrs Oliver, taking the chair that was offered her. ‘Things do go like that, don’t they.’
‘You are still living in London?’
Mrs Oliver said yes, she was still living in London. She then entered into what she thought of in her own mind, with vague memories of going to dancing class as a child, as the first figure of the Lancers. Advance, retreat, hands out, turn round twice, whirl round, and so on.
She enquired after Mrs Carstairs’s daughter and about the two grandchildren, and she asked about the other daughter, what she was doing. She appeared to be doing it in New Zealand. Mrs Carstairs did not seem to be quite sure what it was. Some kind of social research. Mrs Carstairs pressed an electric bell that rested on the arm of her chair, and ordered Emma to bring tea. Mrs Oliver begged her not to bother. Julia Carstairs said:
‘Of course Ariadne has got to have tea.’
The two ladies leant back. The second and third figures of the Lancers. Old friends. Other people’s children. The death of friends.
‘It must be years since I saw you last,’ said Mrs Carstairs.
‘I think it was at the Llewellyns’ wedding,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘Yes, that must have been about it. How terrible Moira looked as a bridesmaid. That dreadfully unbecoming shade of apricot they wore.’
‘I know. It didn’t suit them.’
‘I don’t think weddings are nearly as pretty as they used to be in our day. Some of them seem to wear such very peculiar clothes. The other day one of my friends went to a wedding and she said the bridegroom was dressed in some sort of quilted white satin and ruffles at his neck. Made of Valenciennes lace, I believe. Most peculiar. And the girl was wearing a very peculiar trouser suit. Also white but it was stamped with green shamrocks all over.’
‘Well, my dear Ariadne, can you imagine it. Really, extraordinary. In church too. If I’d been a clergyman I’d have refused to marry them.’
Tea came. Talk continued.
‘I saw my goddaughter, Celia Ravenscroft, the other day,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘Do you remember the Ravenscrofts? Of course, it’s a great many years ago.’
‘The Ravenscrofts? Now wait a minute. That was that very sad tragedy, wasn’t it? A double suicide, didn’t they think it was? Near their house at Overcliffe.’
‘You’ve got such a wonderful memory, Julia,’ said Mrs Oliver.
‘Always had. Though I have difficulties with names sometimes. Yes, it was very tragic, wasn’t it.’
‘Very tragic indeed.’
‘One of my cousins knew them very well in Malaya, Roddy Foster, you know. General Ravenscroft had had a most distinguished career. Of course he was a bit deaf by the time he retired. He didn’t always hear what one said very well.’
‘Do you remember them quite well?’
‘Oh yes. One doesn’t really forget people, does one? I mean, they lived at Overcliffe for quite five or six years.’
‘I’ve forgotten her Christian name now,’ said Mrs Oliver.
‘Margaret, I think. But everyone called her Molly. Yes, Margaret. So many people were called Margaret, weren’t they, at about that time? She used to wear a wig, do you remember?’
‘Oh yes,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘At least I can’t quite remember, but I think I do.’
‘I’m not sure she didn’t try to persuade me to get one. She said it was so useful when you went abroad and travelled. She had four different wigs. One for evening and one for travelling and one – very strange, you know. You could put a hat on over it and not really disarrange it.’
‘I didn’t know them as well as you did,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘And of course at the time of the shooting I was in America on a lecture tour. So I never really heard any details.’
‘Well, of course, it was a great mystery,’ said Julia Carstairs. ‘I mean to say, one didn’t know. There were so many different stories going about.’
‘What did they say at the inquest – I suppose they had an inquest?’
‘Oh yes, of course. The police had to investigate it. It was one of those indecisive things, you know, in that th
e death was due to revolver shots. They couldn’t say definitely what had occurred. It seemed possible that General Ravenscroft had shot his wife and then himself, but apparently it was just as probable that Lady Ravenscroft had shot her husband and then herself. It seemed more likely, I think, that it was a suicide pact, but it couldn’t be said definitely how it came about.’
‘There seemed to be no question of its being a crime?’
‘No, no. It was said quite clearly there was no suggestion of foul play. I mean there were no footprints or any signs of anyone coming near them. They left the house to go for a walk after tea, as they so often did. They didn’t come back again for dinner and the manservant or somebody or the gardener – whoever it was – went out to look for them, and found them both dead. The revolver was lying by the bodies.’
‘The revolver belonged to him, didn’t it?’
‘Oh yes. He had two revolvers in the house. These ex-military people so often do, don’t they? I mean, they feel safer what with everything that goes on nowadays. A second revolver was still in the drawer in the house, so that he – well, he must have gone out deliberately with the revolver, presumably. I don’t think it likely that she’d have gone out for a walk carrying a revolver.’
‘No. No, it wouldn’t have been so easy, would it?’
‘But there was nothing apparently in the evidence to show that there was any unhappiness or that there’d been any quarrel between them or that there was any reason why they should commit suicide. Of course one never knows what sad things there are in people’s lives.’
‘No, no,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘One never knows. How very true that is, Julia. Did you have any idea yourself ?’
‘Well, one always wonders, my dear.’
‘Yes,’ said Mrs Oliver, ‘one always wonders.’
‘It might be of course, you see, that he had some disease. I think he might have been told he was going to die of cancer, but that wasn’t so, according to the medical evidence. He was quite healthy. I mean, he had – I think he had had a – what do they call those things? – coronary, is that what I mean? It sounds like a crown, doesn’t it, but it’s really a heart attack, isn’t it? He’d had that but he’d recovered from it, and she was, well, she was very nervy. She was neurotic always.’
‘Yes, I seem to remember that,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘Of course I didn’t know them well, but –’ she askedsuddenly – ‘was she wearing a wig?’
‘Oh. Well, you know, I can’t really remember that. She always wore her wig. One of them, I mean.’
‘I just wondered,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘Somehow I feel if you were going to shoot yourself or even shoot your husband, I don’t think you’d wear your wig, do you?’
The ladies discussed this point with some interest.
‘What do you really think, Julia?’
‘Well, as I said, dear, one wonders, you know. There were things said, but then there always are.’
‘About him or her?’
‘Well, they said that there was a young woman, you know. Yes, I think she did some secretarial work for him. He was writing his memoirs of his career abroad – I believe commissioned by a publisher at that – and she used to take dictation from him. But some people said – well, you know what they do say sometimes, that perhaps he had got – er – tied up with this girl in some way. She wasn’t very young. She was over thirty, and not very good-looking and I don’t think – there were no scandals about her or anything, but still, one doesn’t know. People thought he might have shot his wife because he wanted to – well, he might have wanted to marry her, yes. But I don’t really think people said that sort of thing and I never believed it.’
‘What did you think?’
‘Well, of course I wondered a little about her.’
‘You mean that a man was mentioned?’
‘I believe there was something out in Malaya. Some kind of story I heard about her. That she got embroiled with some young man much younger than herself. And her husband hadn’t liked it much and it had caused a bit of scandal. I forget where. But anyway, that was a long time ago and I don’t think anything ever came of it.’
‘You don’t think there was any talk nearer home? No special relationship with anyone in the neighbourhood? There wasn’t any evidence of quarrels between them, or anything of that kind?’
‘No, I don’t think so. Of course I read everything about it at the time. One did discuss it, of course, because one couldn’t help feeling there might be some – well, some really very tragic love story connected with it.’
‘But there wasn’t, you think? They had children, didn’t they. There was my goddaughter, of course.’
‘Oh yes, and there was a son. I think he was quite young. At school somewhere. The girl was only twelve, no – older than that. She was with a family in Switzerland.’
‘There was no – no mental trouble, I suppose, in the family?’
‘Oh, you mean the boy – yes, might be of course. You do hear very strange things. There was that boy who shot his father – that was somewhere near Newcastle, I think. Some years before that. You know. He’d been very depressed and at first I think they said he tried to hang himself when he was at the university, and then he came and shot his father. But nobody quite knew why. Anyway, there wasn’t anything of that sort with the Ravenscrofts. No, I don’t think so, in fact I’m pretty sure of it. I can’t help thinking, in some ways –’
‘Yes, Julia?’
‘I can’t help thinking that there might have been a man, you know.’
‘You mean that she –’
‘Yes, well – well, one thinks it rather likely, you know. The wigs, for one thing.’
‘I don’t quite see how the wigs come into it.’
‘Well, wanting to improve her appearance.’
‘She was thirty-five, I think.’
‘More. More. Thirty-six, I think. And, well, I know she showed me the wigs one day, and one or two of them really made her look quite attractive. And she used a good deal of make-up. And that had all started just after they had come to live there, I think. She was rather a good-looking woman.’
‘You mean, she might have met someone, some man?’
‘Well, that’s what I’ve always thought,’ said Mrs Carstairs. ‘You see, if a man’s getting off with a girl, people notice it usually because men aren’t so good at hiding their tracks. But a woman, it might be – well, I mean like someone she’d met and nobody knew much about it.’
‘Oh, do you really think so, Julia?’
‘No I don’t really think so,’ said Julia, ‘because I mean, people always do know, don’t they? I mean, you know, servants know, or gardeners or bus drivers. Or somebody in the neighbourhood. And they know. And they talk. But still, there could have been something like that, and either he found out about it . . .’
‘You mean it was a crime of jealousy?’
‘I think so, yes.’
‘So you think it’s more likely that he shot her, then himself, than that she shot him and then herself.’
‘Well, I should think so, because I think if she were trying to get rid of him – well, I don’t think they’d have gone for a walk together and she’d have to have taken the revolver with her in a handbag and it would have been rather a bigger handbag if so. One has to think of the practical side of things.’
‘I know,’ said Mrs Oliver. ‘One does. It’s very interesting.’
‘It must be interesting to you, dear, because you write these crime stories. So I expect really you would have better ideas. You’d know more what’s likely to happen.’
‘I don’t know what’s likely to happen,’ said Mrs Oliver, ‘because, you see, in all the crimes that I write, I’ve invented the crimes. I mean, what I want to happen, happens in my stories. It’s not something that actually has happened or that could happen. So I’m really the worst person to talk about it. I’m interested to know what you think because you know people very well, Julia, and you knew them well. And I th
ink she might have said something to you one day – or he might.’
‘Yes. Yes, now wait a minute when you say that, that seems to bring something back to me.’
Mrs Carstairs leaned back in her chair, shook her head doubtfully, half closed her eyes and went into a kind of coma. Mrs Oliver remained silent with a look on her face which women are apt to wear when they are waiting for the first signs of a kettle coming to the boil.
‘She did say something once, I remember, and I wonder what she meant by it,’ said Mrs Carstairs. ‘Something about starting a new life – in connection I think with St Teresa. St Teresa of Avila. . . .’
Mrs Oliver looked slightly startled.
‘But how did St Teresa of Avila come into it?’
‘Well, I don’t know really. I think she must have been reading a Life of her. Anyway, she said that it was wonderful how women get a sort of second wind. That’s not quite the term she used, but something like that. You know, when they are forty or fifty or that sort of age and they suddenly want to begin a new life. Teresa of Avila did. She hadn’t done anything special up till then except being a nun, then she went out and reformed all the convents, didn’t she, and flung her weight about and became a great Saint.’
‘Yes, but that doesn’t seem quite the same thing.’
‘No, it doesn’t,’ said Mrs Carstairs. ‘But women do talk in a very silly way, you know, when they are referring to love-affairs when they get on in life. About how it’s never too late.’
Chapter 7
Back to the Nursery
Mrs Oliver looked rather doubtfully at the three steps and the front door of a small, rather dilapidated-looking cottage in the side street. Below the windows some bulbs were growing, mainly tulips.
Mrs Oliver paused, opened the little address book in her hand, verified that she was in the place she thought she was, and rapped gently with the knocker after having tried to press a bell-push of possible electrical significance but which did not seem to yield any satisfactory bell ringing inside, or anything of that kind. Presently, not getting any response, she knocked again. This time there were sounds from inside. A shuffling sound of feet, some asthmatic breathing and hands apparently trying to manage the opening of the door. With this noise there came a few vague echoes in the letter-box.