"Mrs. Carstairs, she's seventy-seven and rather gaga. Quote from her: 'I do remember the Ravenscrofts quite well. Yes, yes, a very nice couple. It's very sad, I think. Yes. Cancer it was!' I asked then which of them had cancer," said Mrs. Oliver, "but Mrs. Carstairs had rather forgotten about that.
She said she thought the wife came to London and consulted a doctor and had an operation and then came home and was very miserable, and her husband was very upset about her. So of course he shot her and himself." "Was that her theory or did she have any exact knowledge?" "I think it was entirely theory. As far as I can see and hear in the course of my investigations," said Mrs. Oliver, making rather a point of this last word, "when anybody has heard that any of their friends whom they don't happen to know very well have sudden illnesses or consult doctors, they always think it's cancer. And so do the people themselves, I think. Somebody else-I can't read her name here, I've forgotten, I think it began with T-she said that it was the husband who had cancer. He was very unhappy, and so was his wife. And they talked it over together and they couldn't bear the thought of it all, so they decided to commit suicide." "Sad and romantic," said Poirot.
"Yes, and I don't think really true," said Mrs. Oliver. "It is worrying, isn't it? I mean, the people remembering so much and that they really mostly seem to have made it up themselves." "They have made up the solution of something they knew about," said Poirot. "That is to say, they know that somebody comes to London, say, to consult a doctor,*or that somebody has been in hospital for two or three months. That is a fact that they know." "Yes," said Mrs. Oliver, "and then when they come to talk about it a long time afterwards, they've got the solution for it which they've made up themselves. That isn't awfully helpful, is it?" "It is helpful," said Poirot. "You are quite right, you know, in what you said to me." "About elephants?" said Mrs. Oliver rather doubtfully.
"About elephants," said Poirot. "It is important to know certain facts which have lingered in people's memories although they may not know exactly what the fact was, why it happened or what led to it. But they might easily know something that we do not know and that we have no means of learning. So there have been memories leading to theories- theories of infidelity, of illness, of suicide pacts, of jealousy.
All these things have been suggested to you. Further search could be made as to points if they seem in any way probable." "People like talking about the past," said Mrs. Oliver. "They like talking about the past really much more than they like talking about what's happening now, or what happened last year. It brings things back to them. They tell you, of course, first about a lot of other people that you don't want to hear about and then you hear what the other people that they've remembered knew about somebody else that they didn't know but they heard about. You know, so that the General and Lady Ravenscroft you hear about is at once removed, as it were.
It's like family relationships," she said. "You know, first cousin once removed, second cousin twice removed, all the rest of it. I don't think I've been really very helpful, though." "You must not think that," said Poirot. "I am pretty sure that you will find that some of these things in your agreeable little purple-colored notebook will have something to do with the past tragedy. I can tell you from my own inquiries into the official accounts of these two deaths that they have remained a mystery. That is, from the police point of view.
They were an affectionate couple, there was no gossip or hearsay much about them of any sex trouble, there was no illness discovered such as would have caused anyone to take their own lives. I talk now only of the time, you understand, immediately preceding the tragedy. But there was a time before that, further back." "I know what you mean," said Mrs. Oliver, "and I've got something about that from an old Nanny. An old Nanny who is now-I don't know, she might be a hundred, but I think she's only about eighty. I remember her from my childhood days. She wasn't very young then. She used to tell me stories about people in the Services abroad-India, Egypt, Siam and Hong Kong and the rest." "Anything that interested you?" "Yes," said Mrs. Oliver, "there was some tragedy that she talked about. She seemed a bit uncertain about what it was.
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.