Having failed to find her friend Hercule Poirot at home, Mrs. Oliver had to resort to a telephoneenquiry.
“Are you by any chance going to be at home this evening?” asked Mrs. Oliver.
She sat by her telephone, her fingers tapping rather nervously1 on the table.
“Would that be—?”
“Ariadne Oliver,” said Mrs. Oliver, who was always surprised to find she had to give her namebecause she always expected all her friends to know her voice as soon as they heard it.
“Yes, I shall be at home all this evening. Does that mean that I may have the pleasure of a visitfrom you?”
“It’s very nice of you to put it that way,” said Mrs. Oliver. “I don’t know that it will be such apleasure.”
“It is always a pleasure to see you, chère Madame.”
“I don’t know,” said Mrs. Oliver. “I might be going to—well, bother you rather. Ask things. Iwant to know what you think about something.”
“That I am always ready to tell anyone,” said Poirot.
“Something’s come up,” said Mrs. Oliver. “Something tiresome2 and I don’t know what to doabout it.”
“And so you will come and see me. I am flattered. Highly flattered.”
“What time would suit you?” said Mrs. Oliver.
“Nine o’clock? We will drink coffee together, perhaps, unless you prefer a Grenadine or a Siropde Cassis. But no, you do not like that. I remember.”
“George,” said Poirot, to his invaluable3 manservant, “we are to receive tonight the pleasure of avisit from Mrs. Oliver. Coffee, I think, and perhaps a liqueur of some kind. I am never sure whatshe likes.”
“I have seen her drink kirsch, sir.”
“And also, I think, crème de menthe. But kirsch, I think, is what she prefers. Very well then,”
said Poirot. “So be it.”
Mrs. Oliver came punctual to time. Poirot had been wondering, while eating his dinner, what itwas that was driving Mrs. Oliver to visit him, and why she was so doubtful about what she wasdoing. Was she bringing him some difficult problem, or was she acquainting him with a crime? AsPoirot knew well, it could be anything with Mrs. Oliver. The most commonplace things or themost extraordinary things. They were, as you might say, all alike to her. She was worried, hethought. Ah well, Hercule Poirot thought to himself, he could deal with Mrs. Oliver. He alwayshad been able to deal with Mrs. Oliver. On occasion she maddened him. At the same time he wasreally very much attached to her. They had shared many experiences and experiments together. Hehad read something about her in the paper only that morning—or was it the evening paper? Hemust try and remember it before she came. He had just done so when she was announced.
She came into the room and Poirot deduced at once that his diagnosis4 of worry was true enough.
Her hairdo, which was fairly elaborate, had been ruffled5 by the fact that she had been running herfingers through it in the frenzied6 and feverish7 way that she did sometimes. He received her withevery sign of pleasure, established her in a chair, poured her some coffee and handed her a glass ofkirsch.
“Ah!” said Mrs. Oliver, with the sigh of someone who has relief. “I expect you’re going to thinkI’m awfully8 silly, but still. .?.?.”
“I see, or rather, I saw in the paper that you were attending a literary luncheon9 today. Famouswomen writers. Something of that kind. I thought you never did that kind of thing.”
“I don’t usually,” said Mrs. Oliver, “and I shan’t ever do it again.”
“Ah. You suffered much?” Poirot was quite sympathetic.
He knew Mrs. Oliver’s embarrassing moments. Extravagant10 praise of her books always upsether highly because, as she had once told him, she never knew the proper answers.
“You did not enjoy it?”
“Up to a point I did,” said Mrs. Oliver, “and then something very tiresome happened.”
“Ah. And that is what you have come to see me about.”
“Yes, but I really don’t know why. I mean, it’s nothing to do with you and I don’t think it’s thesort of thing you’d even be interested in. And I’m not really interested in it. At least, I suppose Imust be or I wouldn’t have wanted to come to you to know what you thought. To know what—well, what you’d do if you were me.”
“That is a very difficult question, that last one,” said Poirot. “I know how I, Hercule Poirot,would act in anything, but I do not know how you would act, well though I know you.”
“You must have some idea by this time,” said Mrs. Oliver. “You’ve known me long enough.”
“About what—twenty years now?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I can never remember what years are, what dates are. You know, I get mixedup. I know 1939 because that’s when the war started and I know other dates because of queerthings, here and there.”
“Anyway, you went to your literary luncheon. And you did not enjoy it very much.”
“I enjoyed the lunch but it was afterwards. .?.?.”
“People said things to you,” said Poirot, with the kindliness11 of a doctor demanding symptoms.
“Well, they were just getting ready to say things to me. Suddenly one of those large, bossywomen who always manage to dominate everyone and who can make you feel moreuncomfortable than anyone else, descended12 on me. You know, like somebody who catches abutterfly or something, only she’d have needed a butterfly net. She sort of rounded me up andpushed me onto a settee and then she began to talk to me, starting about a goddaughter of mine.”
“Ah yes. A goddaughter you are fond of?”
“I haven’t seen her for a good many years,” said Mrs. Oliver, “I can’t keep up with all of them,I mean. And then she asked me a most worrying question. She wanted me—oh dear, how verydifficult it is for me to tell this—”
“No, it isn’t,” said Poirot kindly13. “It is quite easy. Everyone tells everything to me sooner orlater. I’m only a foreigner, you see, so it does not matter. It is easy because I am a foreigner.”
“Well, it is rather easy to say things to you,” said Mrs. Oliver. “You see, she asked me about thegirl’s father and mother. She asked me whether her mother had killed her father or her father hadkilled her mother.”
“I beg your pardon,” said Poirot.
“Oh, I know it sounds mad. Well, I thought it was mad.”
“Whether your goddaughter’s mother had killed her father, or whether her father had killed hermother.”
“That’s right,” said Mrs. Oliver.
“But—was that a matter of fact? Had her father killed her mother or her mother killed herfather?”
“Well, they were both found shot,” said Mrs. Oliver. “On the top of a cliff. I can’t remember ifit was in Cornwall or in Corsica. Something like that.”
“Then it was true, then, what she said?”
“Oh yes, that part of it was true. It happened years ago. Well, but I mean—why come to me?”
“All because you were a crime writer,” said Poirot. “She no doubt said you knew all aboutcrime. This was a real thing that happened?”
“Oh yes. It wasn’t something like what would A do—or what would be the proper procedure ifyour mother had killed your father or your father had killed your mother. No, it was somethingthat really happened. I suppose really I’d better tell you all about it. I mean, I can’t remember allabout it but it was quite well known at the time. It was about—oh, I should think it was abouttwelve years ago at least. And, as I say, I can remember the names of the people because I didknow them. The wife had been at school with me and I’d known her quite well. We’d beenfriends. It was a well-known case—you know, it was in all the papers and things like that. SirAlistair Ravenscroft and Lady Ravenscroft. A very happy couple and he was a colonel or a generaland she’d been with him and they’d been all over the world. Then they bought this housesomewhere—I think it was abroad but I can’t remember. And then there were suddenly accountsof this case in the papers. Whether somebody else had killed them or whether they’d beenassassinated or something, or whether they killed each other. I think it was a revolver that hadbeen in the house for ages and—well, I’d better tell you as much as I can remember.”
Pulling herself slightly together, Mrs. Oliver managed to give Poirot a more or less clear résuméof what she had been told. Poirot from time to time checked on a point here or there.
“But why?” he said finally, “why should this woman want to know this?”
“Well, that’s what I want to find out,” said Mrs. Oliver. “I could get hold of Celia, I think. Imean, she still lives in London. Or perhaps it’s Cambridge she lives in, or Oxford—I think she’sgot a degree and either lectures here or teaches somewhere, or does something like that. And—very modern, you know. Goes about with long-haired people in queer clothes. I don’t think shetakes drugs. She’s quite all right and—just very occasionally I hear from her. I mean, she sends acard at Christmas and things like that. Well, one doesn’t think of one’s godchildren all the time,and she’s quite twenty-five or -six.”
“Not married?”
“No. Apparently14 she is going to marry—or that is the idea—Mrs.—What’s the name of thatwoman again?—oh yes, Mrs. Brittle—no—Burton-Cox’s son.”
“And Mrs. Burton-Cox does not want her son to marry this girl because her father killed hermother or her mother killed her father?”
“Well, I suppose so,” said Mrs. Oliver. “It’s the only thing I can think. But what does it matterwhich? If one of your parents killed the other, would it really matter to the mother of the boy youwere going to marry, which way round it was?”
“That is a thing one might have to think about,” said Poirot. “It is—yes, you know it is quiteinteresting. I do not mean it is very interesting about Sir Alistair Ravenscroft or Lady Ravenscroft.
I seem to remember vaguely15—oh, some case like this one, or it might not have been the same one.
But it is very strange about Mrs. Burton-Cox. Perhaps she is a bit touched in the head. Is she veryfond of her son?”
“Probably,” said Mrs. Oliver. “Probably she doesn’t want him to marry this girl at all.”
“Because she may have inherited a predisposition to murder the man she marries—or somethingof that kind?”
“How do I know?” said Mrs. Oliver. “She seems to think that I can tell her, and she’s really nottold me enough, has she? But why, do you think? What’s behind it all? What does it mean?”
“It would be almost interesting to find out,” said Poirot.
“Well, that’s why I’ve come to you,” said Mrs. Oliver. “You like finding out things. Things thatyou can’t see the reason for at first. I mean, that nobody can see the reason for.”
“Do you think Mrs. Burton-Cox has any preference?” said Poirot.
“You mean that she’d rather the husband killed the wife, or the wife killed the husband? I don’tthink so.”
“Well,” said Poirot, “I see your dilemma16. It is very intriguing17. You come home from a party.
You’ve been asked to do something that is very difficult, almost impossible, and—you wonderwhat is the proper way to deal with such a thing.”
“Well, what would you think is the proper way?” said Mrs. Oliver.
“It is not easy for me to say,” said Poirot. “I’m not a woman. A woman whom you do not reallyknow, whom you had met at a party, has put this problem to you, asked you to do it, giving nodiscernible reason.”
“Right,” said Mrs. Oliver. “Now what does Ariadne do? What does A do, in other words, if youwere reading this as a problem in a newspaper?”
“Well, I suppose,” said Poirot, “there are three things that A could do. A could write a note toMrs. Burton-Cox and say, ‘I’m very sorry but I really feel I cannot oblige you in this matter,’ orwhatever words you like to put. B. You get into touch with your goddaughter and you tell herwhat has been asked of you by the mother of the boy, or the young man, or whatever he is, whomshe is thinking of marrying. You will find out from her if she is really thinking of marrying thisyoung man. If so, whether she has any idea or whether the young man has said anything to herabout what his mother has got in her head. And there will be other interesting points, like findingout what this girl thinks of the mother of the young man she wants to marry. The third thing youcould do,” said Poirot, “and this really is what I firmly advise you to do, is .?.?.”
“I know,” said Mrs. Oliver, “one word.”
“Nothing,” said Poirot.
“Exactly,” said Mrs. Oliver. “I know that is the simple and proper thing to do. Nothing. It’sdarned cheek to go and tell a girl who’s my goddaughter what her future mother-in-law is goingabout saying, and asking people. But—”
“I know,” said Poirot, “it is human curiosity.”
“I want to know why that odious18 woman came and said what she did to me,” said Mrs. Oliver.
“Once I know that I could relax and forget all about it. But until I know that. .?.?.”
“Yes,” said Poirot, “you won’t sleep. You’ll wake up in the night and, if I know you, you willhave the most extraordinary and extravagant ideas which presently, probably, you will be able tomake into a most attractive crime story. A whodunit—a thriller19. All sorts of things.”
“Well, I suppose I could if I thought of it that way,” said Mrs. Oliver. Her eyes flashed slightly.
“Leave it alone,” said Poirot. “It will be a very difficult plot to undertake. It seems as thoughthere could be no good reason for this.”
“But I’d like to make sure that there is no good reason.”
“Human curiosity,” said Poirot. “Such a very interesting thing.” He sighed. “To think what weowe to it throughout history. Curiosity. I don’t know who invented curiosity. It is said to beusually associated with the cat. Curiosity killed the cat. But I should say really that the Greekswere the inventors of curiosity. They wanted to know. Before them, as far as I can see, nobodywanted to know much. They just wanted to know what the rules of the country they were living inwere, and how they could avoid having their heads cut off or being impaled20 on spikes21 orsomething disagreeable happening to them. But they either obeyed or disobeyed. They didn’t wantto know why. But since then a lot of people have wanted to know why and all sorts of things havehappened because of that. Boats, trains, flying machines and atom bombs and penicillin22 and curesfor various illnesses. A little boy watches his mother’s kettle raising its lid because of the steam.
And the next thing we know is we have railway trains, leading on in due course to railway strikesand all that. And so on and so on.”
“Just tell me,” said Mrs. Oliver, “do you think I’m a terrible nosey parker?”
“No, I don’t,” said Poirot. “On the whole I don’t think you are a woman of great curiosity. But Ican quite see you getting in a het-up state at a literary party, busy defending yourself against toomuch kindness, too much praise. You ran yourself instead into a very awkward dilemma, and tooka very strong dislike to the person who ran you into it.”
“Yes. She’s a very tiresome woman, a very disagreeable woman.”
“This murder in the past of this husband and wife who were supposed to get on well togetherand no apparent signs of a quarrel was known. One never really read about any cause for it,according to you?”
“They were shot. Yes, they were shot. It could have been a suicide pact23. I think the policethought it was at first. Of course, one can’t find out about things all those years afterwards.”
“Oh yes,” said Poirot, “I think I could find out something about it.”
“You mean—through the exciting friends you’ve got?”
“Well, I wouldn’t say the exciting friends, perhaps. Certainly there are knowledgeable24 friends,friends who could get certain records, look up the accounts that were given of the crime at thetime, some access I could get to certain records.”
“You could find out things,” said Mrs. Oliver hopefully, “and then tell me.”
“Yes,” said Poirot, “I think I could help you to know at any rate the full facts of the case. It’lltake a little time, though.”
“I can see that if you do that, which is what I want you to do, I’ve got to do something myself.
I’ll have to see the girl. I’ve got to see whether she knows anything about all this, ask her if she’dlike me to give her mother-in-law-to-be a raspberry or whether there is any other way in which Ican help her. And I’d like to see the boy she’s going to marry, too.”
“Quite right,” said Poirot. “Excellent.”
“And I suppose,” said Mrs. Oliver, “there might be people—” She broke off, frowning.
“I don’t suppose people will be very much good,” said Hercule Poirot. “This is an affair of thepast. A cause célèbre perhaps at the time. But what is a cause célèbre when you come to think ofit? Unless it comes to an astonishing dénouement, which this one didn’t. Nobody remembers it.”
“No,” said Mrs. Oliver, “that is quite true. There was a lot about it in the papers and mentions ofit for some time, and then it just—faded out. Well, like things do now. Like that girl, the other day.
You know, who left her home and they couldn’t find her anywhere. Well, I mean, that was five orsix years ago and then suddenly a little boy, playing about in a sand heap or a gravel25 pit orsomething, suddenly came across her dead body. Five or six years later.”
“That is true,” said Poirot. “And it is true that knowing from that body how long it is since deathand what happened on the particular day and going back over various events of which there is awritten record, one may in the end turn up a murderer. But it will be more difficult in your problemsince it seems the answer must be one of two things: that the husband disliked his wife and wantedto get rid of her, or that the wife hated her husband or else had a lover. Therefore, it might havebeen a passionate26 crime or something quite different. Anyway, there would be nothing, as it were,to find out about it. If the police could not find out at the time, then the motive27 must have been adifficult one, not easy to see. Therefore it has remained a nine days’ wonder, that is all.”
“I suppose I can go to the daughter. Perhaps that is what that odious woman was getting me todo—wanted me to do. She thought the daughter knew—well, the daughter might have known,”
said Mrs. Oliver. “Children do, you know. They know the most extraordinary things.”
“Have you any idea how old this goddaughter of yours would have been at the time?”
“Well, I have if I reckon it up, but I can’t say offhand28. I think she might have been nine or ten,but perhaps older, I don’t know. I think that she was away at school at the time. But that may bejust my fancy, remembering back what I read.”
“But you think Mrs. Burton-Cox’s wish was to make you get information from the daughter?
Perhaps the daughter knows something, perhaps she said something to the son, and the son saidsomething to his mother. I expect Mrs. Burton-Cox tried to question the girl herself and gotrebuffed, but thought the famous Mrs. Oliver, being both a godmother and also full of criminalknowledge, might obtain information. Though why it should matter to her, I still don’t see,” saidPoirot. “And it does not seem to me that what you call vaguely ‘people’ can help after all thistime.” He added, “Would anybody remember?”
“Well, that’s where I think they might,” said Mrs. Oliver.
“You surprise me,” said Poirot, looking at her with a somewhat puzzled face. “Do peopleremember?”
“Well,” said Mrs. Oliver, “I was really thinking of elephants.”
“Elephants?”
As he had thought often before, Poirot thought that really Mrs. Oliver was the mostunaccountable woman. Why suddenly elephants?
“I was thinking of elephants at the lunch yesterday,” said Mrs. Oliver.
“Why were you thinking of elephants?” said Poirot, with some curiosity.
“Well, I was really thinking of teeth. You know, things one tries to eat, and if you’ve got somesort of false teeth—well, you can’t do it very well. You know, you’ve got to know what you caneat and what you can’t.”
“Ah!” said Poirot, with a deep sigh. “Yes, yes. The dentists, they can do much for you, but noteverything.”
“Quite so. And then I thought of—you know—our teeth being only bone and so not awfullygood, and how nice it would be to be a dog, who has real ivory teeth. And then I thought ofanyone else who has ivory teeth, and I thought about walruses29 and—oh, other things like that. AndI thought about elephants. Of course when you think of ivory you do think of elephants, don’tyou? Great big elephant tusks30.”
“That is very true,” said Poirot, still not seeing the point of what Mrs. Oliver was saying.
“So I thought that what we’ve really got to do is to get at the people who are like elephants.
Because elephants, so they say, don’t forget.”
“I have heard the phrase, yes,” said Poirot.
“Elephants don’t forget,” said Mrs. Oliver. “You know, a story children get brought up on?
How someone, an Indian tailor, stuck a needle or something in an elephant’s tusk31. No. Not a tusk,his trunk, of course, an elephant’s trunk. And the next time the elephant came past he had a greatmouthful of water and he splashed it out all over the tailor though he hadn’t seen him for severalyears. He hadn’t forgotten. He remembered. That’s the point, you see. Elephants remember. WhatI’ve got to do is—I’ve got to get in touch with some elephants.”
“I do not know yet if I quite see what you mean,” said Hercule Poirot. “Who are you classifyingas elephants? You sound as though you were going for information to the Zoo.”
“Well, it’s not exactly like that,” said Mrs. Oliver. “Not elephants, as elephants, but the waypeople up to a point would resemble elephants. There are some people who do remember. In fact,one does remember queer things, I mean there are a lot of things that I remember very well. Theyhappened—I remember a birthday party I had when I was five, and a pink cake—a lovely pinkcake. It had a sugar bird on it. And I remember the day my canary flew away and I cried. And Iremember another day when I went into a field and there was a bull there and somebody said itwould gore32 me, and I was terrified and wanted to run out of the field. Well, I remember that quitewell. It was a Tuesday too. I don’t know why I should remember it was a Tuesday, but it was aTuesday. And I remember a wonderful picnic with blackberries. I remember getting prickedterribly, but getting more blackberries than anyone else. It was wonderful! By that time I was nine,I think. But one needn’t go back as far as that. I mean, I’ve been to hundreds of weddings in mylife, but when I look back on a wedding there are only two that I remember particularly. Onewhere I was a bridesmaid. It took place in the New Forest, I remember, and I can’t remember whowas there actually. I think it was a cousin of mine getting married. I didn’t know her very well butshe wanted a good many bridesmaids and, well, I came in handy, I suppose. But I know anotherwedding. That was a friend of mine in the Navy. He was nearly drowned in a submarine, and thenhe was saved, and then the girl he was engaged to, her people didn’t want her to marry him butthen he did marry her after that and I was one of her bridesmaids at the marriage. Well, I mean,there’s always things you do remember.”
“I see your point,” said Poirot. “I find it interesting. So you will go à la recherche33 deséléphants?”
“That’s right. I’d have to get the date right.”
“There,” said Poirot, “I hope I may be able to help you.”
“And then I’ll think of people I knew about at that time, people that I may have known who alsoknew the same friends that I did, who probably knew General What-not. People who may haveknown them abroad, but whom I also knew although I mayn’t have seen them for a good manyyears. You can look up people, you know, that you haven’t seen for a long time. Because peopleare always quite pleased to see someone coming up out of the past, even if they can’t remembervery much about you. And then you naturally will talk about the things that were happening at thatdate, that you remember about.”
“Very interesting,” said Poirot. “I think you are very well equipped for what you propose to do.
People who knew the Ravenscrofts either well or not very well; people who lived in the same partof the world where the things happened or who might have been staying there. More difficult, but Ithink one could get at it. And so, somehow or other one would try different things. Start a little talkgoing about what happened, what they think happened, what anyone else has ever told you aboutwhat might have happened. About any love affairs the husband or wife had, about any money thatsomebody might have inherited. I think you could scratch up a lot of things.”
“Oh dear,” said Mrs. Oliver. “I’m afraid really I’m just a nosey parker.”
“You’ve been given an assignment,” said Poirot, “not by someone you like, not by someoneyou wish to oblige, but someone you entirely34 dislike. That does not matter. You are still on aquest, a quest of knowledge. You take your own path. It is the path of the elephants. The elephantsmay remember. Bon voyage,” said Poirot.
“I beg your pardon,” said Mrs. Oliver.
“I’m sending you forth35 on your voyage of discovery,” said Poirot. “? la recherche deséléphants.”
“I expect I’m mad,” said Mrs. Oliver sadly. She brushed her hands through her hair again sothat she looked like the old picture books of Struwelpeter. “I was just thinking of starting a storyabout a golden retriever. But it wasn’t going well. I couldn’t get started, if you know what Imean.”
“All right, abandon the golden retriever. Concern yourself only with elephants.”
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nervously
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tiresome
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invaluable
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| adj.无价的，非常宝贵的，极为贵重的 | |
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diagnosis
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ruffled
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frenzied
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feverish
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awfully
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luncheon
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extravagant
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kindliness
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descended
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kindly
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apparently
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vaguely
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dilemma
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intriguing
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odious
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thriller
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impaled
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spikes
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| n.穗( spike的名词复数 )；跑鞋；（防滑）鞋钉；尖状物v.加烈酒于( spike的第三人称单数 )；偷偷地给某人的饮料加入（更多）酒精（ 或药物）；把尖状物钉入；打乱某人的计划 | |
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penicillin
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pact
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| n.合同，条约，公约，协定 | |
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knowledgeable
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| adj.知识渊博的；有见识的 | |
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gravel
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| n.砂跞；砂砾层；结石 | |
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passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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motive
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| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
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offhand
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| adj.临时，无准备的；随便，马虎的 | |
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walruses
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| n.海象( walrus的名词复数 ) | |
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tusks
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| n.（象等动物的）长牙( tusk的名词复数 )；獠牙；尖形物；尖头 | |
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tusk
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| n.獠牙，长牙，象牙 | |
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gore
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| n.凝血，血污；v.（动物）用角撞伤，用牙刺破；缝以补裆；顶 | |
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recherche
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| adj.精选的；罕有的 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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