'Well what?' said Poirot.
'Well, does she know something, then?' he asked.
'I do not think so as yet,' said Poirot, 'but she might know something before very long.' He added thoughtfully, 'She's that kind of person. She gets around, if you know what I mean.'
'Yes,' said Spence. 'Yes. Has she got any ideas?' he asked.
'Do you mean Mrs. Ariadne Oliver, the writer?' asked Garroway with some interest.
'That's the one,' said Spence.
'Does she know a good deal about crime? I know she writes crime stories. I've never known where she got her ideas from or her facts.'
'Her ideas,' said Poirot, 'come out of her head. Her facts- well, that's more difficult.' He paused for a moment.
'What are you thinking of, Poirot? Something in particular?'
'Yes,' said Poirot. 'I ruined one of her stories once, or so she tells me. She had just had a very good idea about a fact, something that had to do with a long-sleeved woolen vest. I asked her something over the telephone and it put the idea for the story out other head. She reproaches me at intervals.'
'Dear, dear,' said Spence. 'Sounds rather like that parsley that sank into the butter on a hot day. You know. Sherlock Holmes and the dog who did nothing in the nighttime.'
'Did they have a dog?' asked Poirot.
'I beg your pardon?'
'I said did they have a dog? General and Mrs. Ravenscroft. Did they take a dog for that walk with them on the day they were shot? The Ravenscrofts.'
'They had a dog-yes,' said Garroway. 'I suppose, I suppose they did take him for a walk most days.'
'If it had been one of Mrs. Oliver's stories,' said Spence, 'you ought to have found the dog howling over the two dead bodies. But that didn't happen.' Garroway shook his head.
'I wonder where the dog is now?' said Poirot.
'Buried in somebody's garden, I expect,' said Garroway. 'It's fourteen years ago.'
'So we can't go and ask the dog, can we?' said Poirot. He added thoughtfully, 'A pity. It's astonishing, you know, what dogs can know. Who was there exactly in the house? I mean on the day when the crime happened?'
'I brought you a list,' said Superintendent Garroway, 'in case you like to consult it. Mrs. Whittaker, the elderly cookhousekeeper.
It was her day out, so we couldn't get much from her that was helpful. A visitor was staying there who had been governess to the Ravenscroft children once, I believe.
Mrs. Whittaker was rather deaf and slightly blind. She couldn't tell us anything of interest, except that recently Lady Ravenscroft had been in hospital or in a nursing home-for nerves but not illness, apparently. There was a gardener, too.'
'But a stranger might have come from outside. A stranger from the past. That's your idea, Superintendent Garroway?'
'Not so much an idea as just a theory.' Poirot was silent, he was thinking of a time when he had asked to go back into the past, had studied five people out of the past who had reminded him of the nursery rhyme 'Five little pigs.' Interesting it had been, and in the end rewarding, because he had found out the truth.
Chapter VI. An Old Friend Remembers
When Mrs. Oliver returned to the house the following morning, she found Miss Livingstone waiting for her.
'There have been two telephone calls, Mrs. Oliver.'
'Yes?' said Mrs. Oliver.
'The first one was from Crichton and Smith. They wanted to know whether you had chosen the lime-green brocade or the pale blue one.'
'I haven't made up my mind yet,' said Mrs. Oliver. 'Just remind me tomorrow morning, will you? I'd like to see it by night light.'
'And the other was from a foreigner, a Mr. Hercules Poirot, I believe.'
'Oh, yes,' said Mrs. Oliver. 'What did he want?'
'He asked if you would be able to call and see him this afternoon.'
'That will be quite impossible,' said Mrs. Oliver. 'Ring him up, will you? I've got to go out again at once, as a matter of fact. Did he leave a telephone number?'
'Yes, he did.'
'That's all right, then. We won't have to look it up again.
All right. Just ring him. Tell him I'm sorry that I can't but that I'm out on the track of an elephant.'
'I beg your pardon?' said Miss Livingstone, 'Say that I'm on the track of an elephant.'
'Oh, yes,' said Miss Livingstone, looking shrewdly at her employer to see if she was right in the feelings that she sometimes had that Mrs. Ariadne Oliver, though a successful novelist, was at the same time not quite right in the head.
'I've never hunted elephants before,' said Mrs. Oliver. 'It's quite an interesting thing to do, though.' She went into the sitting room, opened the top volume of the assorted books on the sofa, most of them looking rather the worse for wear, since she had toiled through them the evening before and written out a paper with various addresses.
'Well, one has got to make a start somewhere,' she said. 'On the whole I think that if Julia hasn't gone completely off her rocker by now, I might start with her. She always had ideas, and after all, she knew that part of the country because she lived near there. Yes, I think we'll start with Julia.'
'There are four letters for you here to sign,' said Miss Livingstone.
'I can't be bothered now,' said Mrs. Oliver. 'I really can't spare a moment. I've got to go down to Hampton Court, and it's quite a long ride.' The Honorable Julia Carstairs, struggling with some slight difficulty out of her armchair, the difficulty that those over the age of seventy have when rising to their feet after prolonged rest, even a possible nap, stepped forward, peering a little to see who it was who had just been announced by the faithful retainer who shared the apartment which she occupied in her status of a member of 'Homes for the Privileged.' Being slightly deaf, the name had not come clearly to her.
Mrs. Gulliver. Was that it? But she didn't remember a Mrs. Gulliver. She advanced on slightly shaky knees, still peering forward.
'I don't expect you'll remember me, it's so many years since we met.' Like many elderly people, Mrs. Carstairs could remember voices better than she did faces.
'Why,' she exclaimed, 'it's-dear me, it's Ariadne! My dear, how very nice to see you.' Greetings passed.
'I just happened to be in this part of the world,' explained Mrs. Oliver. 'I had to come down to see someone not far from here. And then I remembered that looking in my address book last night I had seen that this was quite near where you had your apartment. Delightful, isn't it?' she added, looking round.
'Not too bad,' said Mrs. Carstairs. 'Not quite all it's written up to be, you know. But it has many advantages. One brings one's own furniture and things like that, and there is a central restaurant where you can have a meal, or you can have your own things, of course. Oh, yes, it's very good, really. The grounds are charming and well-kept-up. But sit down, Ariadne; do sit down. You look very well. I saw you were at a literary lunch the other day, in the paper. How odd it is that one just sees something in the paper and almost the next day one meets the person. Quite extraordinary.'
'I know,' said Mrs. Oliver, taking the chair that was offered her. 'Things do go like that, don't they?'
'You are still living in London?' Mrs. Oliver said yes, she was still living in London. She then entered into what she thought of in her own mind, with vague memories of going to dancing class as a child, the first figure of the Lancers. Advance, retreat, hands out, turn round twice, whirl round, and so on.
