Elephants Can Remember

"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 India, 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.

"Muriel, I think. But everyone called her Molly. Yes, Muriel.

So many people were called Muriel, 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 traveled. She had four different wigs. One for evening and one for traveling 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 the 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 most 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 footsteps or any signs of anyone coming near them. They left the house to 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 exmilitary 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 ideas 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 asked suddenly- "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.