"And you mean Mrs. Burton-Cox didn't want that?"
"She wanted to find something that would discourage him from marrying the girl. I think she hoped, and probably really believed as far as that goes, that Celia's mother killed her husband, afterwards shooting herself. That is the sort of thing that might discourage a boy. Even if her father killed her mother, it is still a discouraging thought. It might quite easily prejudice and influence a boy at that age."
"You mean he'd think if her father or mother was a murderer, the girl might have murderous tendencies?"
"Not quite as crude as that, but that might be the main idea, I should think."
"But he wasn't rich, was he? An adopted child."
"He didn't know his real mother's name or who she was, but it seems that his mother, who was an actress and a singer and who managed to make a great deal of money before she became ill and died, wanted at one time to get her child returned to her, and when Mrs. Burton-Cox would not agree to that, I should imagine she thought about this boy a great deal and decided that she would leave her money to him. He will inherit this money at the age of twenty-five, but it is held in trust for him until then. So of course Mrs. Burton-Cox doesn't want him to marry, or only to marry someone that she really approves of or over whom she might have influence."
"Yes, that seems to me fairly reasonable. She's not a nice woman, though, is she?"
"No," said Poirot, "I did not think her a very nice woman."
"And that's why she didn't want you coming to see her and messing about with things and finding out what she was up to."
"Possibly," said Poirot.
"Anything else you have learned?"
"Yes, I have learned - that is, only a few hours ago really - when Superintendent Garroway happened to ring me up about some other small matters, but I did ask him and he told me that the housekeeper, who was elderly, had very bad eyesight."
"Does that come into it anywhere?"
"It might," said Poirot. He looked at his watch.
"I think," he said, "it is time that I left."
"You are on your way to catch your plane at the airport?"
"No. My plane does not leave until tomorrow morning. But there is a place I have to visit today - a place that I wish to see with my own eyes. I have a car waiting outside now to take me there -"
"What is it you want to see?" Mrs. Oliver asked with some curiosity.
"Not so much to see - to feel. Yes, that is the right word - to feel and to recognize what it will be that I feel..."
Chapter 18
INTERLUDE
Hercule Poirot passed through the gate of the churchyard.
He walked up one of the paths, and presently, against a moss-grown wall, he stopped, looking down on a grave. He stood there for some minutes looking first at the grave, then at the view of the Downs and sea beyond. Then his eyes came back again. Flowers had been put recently on the grave. A small bunch of assorted wild flowers, the kind of bunch that might have been left by a child, but Poirot did not think that it was a child who had left them. He read the lettering on the grave.
TO THE MEMORY OF
DOROTHEA JARROW
Died Sept. 15th, 1952
ALSO OF
MARGARET RAVENSCROFT
Died Oct. 3rd, 1952
SISTER OF ABOVE
ALSO OF
ALISTAIR RAVENSCROFT
Died Oct. 3rd, 1952
HER HUSBAND
In their Death they were not divided
Forgive us our trespasses
As we forgive those that trespass against us.
Lord, have mercy upon us.
Christ, have mercy upon us.
Lord, have mercy upon us.
Poirot stood there a moment or two. He nodded his head once or twice. Then he left the churchyard and walked by a footpath that led out on to the cliff and along it. Presently he stood still again, looking out to the sea. He spoke to himself.
"I am sure now that I know what happened and why. I understand the pity of it and the tragedy. One has to go back such a long way. In my end is my beginning, or should one put it differently? 'In my beginning was my tragic end'? The Swiss girl must have known - but will she tell me? The boy believes she will. For their sakes - the girl and the boy. They cannot accept life unless they know."
Chapter 19
MADDY AND ZéLIE
"Mademoiselle Rouselle?" said Hercule Poirot. He bowed.
Mademoiselle Rouselle extended her hand. About fifty, Poirot thought. A fairly imperious woman. Would have her way.
Intelligent, intellectual, satisfied, he thought, with life as she had lived it, enjoying the pleasures and suffering the sorrows life brings.
"I have heard your name," she said. "You have friends, you know, both in this country and in France. I do not know exactly what I can do for you. Oh, I know that you explained, in the letter that you sent me. It is an affair of the past, is it not? Things that happened. Not exactly things that happened, but the clue to things that happened many, many years ago. But sit down. Yes. Yes, that chair is quite comfortable, I hope. There are some petits fours and the decanter is on the table."
She was quietly hospitable without any urgency. She was unworried but amiable.
"You were at one time a governess in a certain family," said Poirot. "The Ravenscrofts. Perhaps now you hardly remember them."
"Oh, yes, one does not forget, you know, things that happen when you were young. There was a girl, and a boy about four or five years younger in the family I went to. They were nice children. Their father was a general in the Army."
"There was also another sister."
"Ah, yes, I remember. She was not there when I first came. I think she was delicate. Her health was not good. She was having treatment somewhere."
"You remember their mother's Christian name?"
"Margaret, I think was one. The other one I am not sure of by now."
"Dorothea."
"Ah, yes. A name I have not often come across. But they called each other by shorter names. Molly and Dolly. They were identical twins, you know, remarkably alike. They were both very handsome young women."
"And they were fond of each other?"
"Yes, they were devoted. But we are, are we not, becoming slightly confused? Preston-Grey is not the name of the children I went to teach. Dorothea Preston-Grey married a major - ah, I cannot remember the name now. Arrow? No, Jarrow."
"Ravenscroft," said Poirot.
"Ah, that. Yes. Curious how one cannot remember names. The Preston-Greys are a generation older. Margaret Preston-Grey had been in a pensionnat in this part of the world, and when she wrote after her marriage asking Madame Benoit, who ran that pensionnat, if she knew of someone who would come to her as nursery-governess to her two children, I was recommended. That is how I came to go there. I spoke only of the other sister because she happened to be staying there during part of my time of service with the children. The children were a girl, I think then of six or seven. She had a name out of Shakespeare, I remember. Rosalind or Celia."
"Celia," said Poirot.
"And the boy was only about three or four. His name was Edward. A mischievous but lovable child. I was happy with them."
"And they were happy, I hear, with you. They enjoyed playing with you and you were very kind in your playing with them."
"Moi, j'aime les enfants," said Mademoiselle Rouselle.
"They called you Maddy, I believe."
She laughed.
"Ah, I like hearing that word. It brings back past memories."
"Did you know a boy called Desmond? Desmond Burton-Cox?"
"Ah, yes. He lived, I think, in a house next door or nearly next door. We had several neighbors and the children very often came to play together. His name was Desmond. Yes, I remember."
"You were there long, mademoiselle?"
"No. I was only there for three or four years at most. Then I was recalled to this country. My mother was very ill. It was a question of coming back and nursing her, although I knew it would not be perhaps for very long. That was true. She died a year and a half or two years at the most after I returned here. After that I started a small pensionnat out here, taking in rather older girls who wanted to study languages and other things. I did not visit England again, although for a year or two I kept up communication with the country. The two children used to send me a card at Christmastime."
"Did General Ravenscroft and his wife strike you as a happy couple?"
"Very happy. They were fond of their children."
"They were very well suited to each other?"
"Yes, they seemed to me to have all the necessary qualities to make their marriage a success."
"You said Mrs. Ravenscroft was devoted to her twin sister. Was the twin sister also devoted to her?"
"Well, I had not very much occasion of judging. Frankly, I thought that the sister - Dolly, as they called her - was very definitely a mental case. Once or twice she acted in a very peculiar manner. She was a jealous woman, I think, and I understood that she had at one time thought she was engaged, or was going to be engaged, to Major Ravenscroft. As far as I could see, he'd fallen in love with her first, then later, however, his affections turned towards her sister, which was fortunate, I thought, because Molly Ravenscroft was a well-balanced and very sweet woman. As for Dolly - sometimes I thought she adored her sister, sometimes that she hated her. She was a very jealous woman and she decided too much affection was being shown to the children. There is one who could tell you about all this better than I. Mademoiselle Meauhourat. She lives in Lausanne and she went to the Ravenscrofts about a year and a half to two years after I had to leave. She was with them for some years. Later I believe she went back as companion to Mrs. Ravenscroft when Celia was abroad at school."
"I am going to see her. I have her address," said Poirot.
"She knows a great deal that I do not, and she is a charming and reliable person. It was a terrible tragedy that happened later. She knows if anyone does what led to it. She is very discreet. She has never told me anything. Whether she will tell you, I do not know. She may do, she may not."
Poirot stood for a moment or two looking at Mademoiselle Meauhourat. He had been impressed by Mademoiselle Rouselle. He was impressed also by the woman who stood waiting to receive him now. She was not so formidable, she was much younger, at least ten years younger, he thought, and she had a different kind of impressiveness. She was alive, still attractive, eyes that watched you and made their own judgment on you, willing to welcome you, looking with kindliness on those who came her way, but without undue softness. Here is someone, thought Hercule Poirot, very remarkable.
"I am Hercule Poirot, mademoiselle."
"I know. I was expecting you either today or tomorrow."
"Ah. You received a letter from me?"
"No. It is no doubt still in the post. Our posts are a little uncertain. No, I had a letter from someone else."
"From Celia Ravenscroft?"
"No. It was a letter written by someone in close touch with Celia. A boy or a young man, whichever we like to regard him as, called Desmond Burton-Cox. He prepared me for your arrival."
"Ah. I see. He is intelligent and he wastes no time, I think. He was very urgent that I should come and see you."
"So I gathered. There's trouble, I understand. Trouble that he wants to resolve, and so does Celia. They think you can help them?"
"Yes, and they think that you can help me."
"They are in love with each other and wish to marry."
"Yes, but there are difficulties being put in their way."
"Ah, by Desmond's mother, I presume. So he lets me understand."
"There are circumstances, or have been circumstances, in Celia's life that have prejudiced his mother against his early marriage to this particular girl."
"Ah. Because of the tragedy, for it was a tragedy."
"Yes, because of the tragedy. Celia has a godmother who was asked by Desmond's mother to try and find out from Celia the exact circumstances under which that suicide occurred."
"There's no sense in that," said Mademoiselle Meauhourat.
She motioned with her hand. "Sit down. Please sit down. I expect we shall have to talk for some little time. Yes, Celia could not tell her godmother - Mrs. Ariadne Oliver, the novelist, is it not? Yes, I remember. Celia could not give her the information because she has not got the information herself."
"She was not there when the tragedy occurred, and no one told her anything about it. Is that right?"
"Yes, that is right. It was thought inadvisable."
"Ah. And do you approve of that decision or disapprove of it?"
"It is difficult to be sure. Very difficult. I've not been sure of it in the years that have passed since then, and there are quite a lot. Celia, as far as I know, has never been worried. Worried, I mean, as to the why and wherefore. She's accepted it as she would have accepted an airplane accident or a car accident. Something that resulted in the death of her parents. She spent many years in a pensionnat abroad."
"Actually I think the pensionnat was run by you, Mademoiselle Meauhourat."
"That is quite true. I have retired recently. A colleague of mine is now taking it on. But Celia was sent out to me and I was asked to find for her a good place for her to continue her education, as many girls do come to Switzerland for that purpose. I could have recommended several places. At the moment I took her into my own."
"And Celia asked you nothing, did not demand information?"
"No. It was, you see, before the tragedy happened."
"Oh. I did not quite understand that."
"Celia came out here some weeks before the tragic occurrence. I was at that time not here myself. I was still with General and Lady Ravenscroft. I looked after Lady Ravenscroft, acting as a companion to her rather than as a governess to Celia, who was still at that moment in boarding-school. But it was suddenly arranged that Celia should come to Switzerland and finish her education there."
