Elephants Can Remember

But that was years ago." "Where is he now?" "He's at university, in Canada, I think. Or he's taking some engineering course there. Do you want to go and ask him things?" "No, not at the moment. I should just like to know where he is now. But I gather he was not in the house whpen this suicide happened?" i "You're not thinking-you're not thinking for a moment that fee did it, are you? I mean, shot his father and his mother, both of them. I know boys do sometimes. Very queer they are sometimes when they're at a funny age." "He was not in the house," said Poirot. "That I know already from my police reports." "Have you found out anything else interesting? You look quite excited." "I am excited, in a way. I have found out certain things that may throw light upon what we already know." "Well, what throws light on what?" "It seems to me possible now that I can understand why Mrs. Burton-Cox approached you as she did and tried to get you to obtain information for her about the facts of the suicide of the Ravenscrofts." "You mean she wasn't just being a nosey-parker?" "No. I think there was some motive behind it. This is where, perhaps, money comes in." "Money? What's money got to do with that? She's quite well off, isn't she?" "She has enough to live upon, yes. But it seems that her adopted son, whom she regards apparently as her true son-he knows that he was adopted although he knows nothing about the family from which he really came. It seems that when he came of age he made a will, possibly urged by his adopted mother to do so. Perhaps it was merely hinted to him by some friends of hers or possibly by some lawyer that she had consulted. Arayway, on coming of age he may have felt that he might as welU leave everything to her, to his adopted mother.

Presumably sat that time he had nobody else to leave it to." "I don't sees how that leads to wanting news about a suicide." "Don't youu? She wanted to discourage the marriage. If young Desmond had a girl friend, if he proposed to marry her in the near tfuture, which is what a lot of young people do nowadays-tAey can't wait or think it over. In that case, Mrs.

Burton-Cox would not inherit the money he left, since the marriage woruld invalidate any earlier will, and presumably if he did marr~y this girl, he would make a new will leaving everything too her and not to his adopted mother," "And you mean Mrs. Burton-Cox didn't want that?" "She wantlted to find something that would discourage him from marryii ng the girl. I think she hoped, and probably really believed as far as that goes, that Celia's mother killed her husband, aftterwards shooting herself. That is the sort of thing that might discourage a boy. Even if her father killed her mother, it iss still a discouraging thought. It might quite easily prejudice amd influence a boy at that age." "You mearn he'd think if her father or mother was a murderer, the girl mig;ht have murderous tendencies?" "Not quitte as crude as that, but that might be the main idea, I shouuld think." "But he wasn't rich, was he? An adopted child." "He didna't know his real mother's name or who she was, but it seem- s that his mother, who was an actress and a singer and who maanaged to make a great deal of money before she became ill and died, wanted at one time to get her child returned too her, and when Mrs. Burton-Cox would not agree to that, I sl hould imagine she thought about this boy a great deal and daecided that she would leave her money to him. He will inheriWt this money at the age of twenty-five, but it is held in trust fo"r him until then. So of course Mrs. Burton-Cox doesn't warnt him to marry, or only to marry someone that she really apprroves 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 XVIII. Interlude

Hercule Poirot passed through the gate of the churchyard.