She inquired after Mrs. Carstairs's daughter and about the two grandchildren, and she asked about the other daughter, what she was doing. She appeared to be doing it in New Zealand. Mrs. Carstairs did not seem to be quite sure what it was. Some kind of social research. Mrs. Carstairs pressed an electric bell that rested on the arm of her chair, and ordered Emma to bring tea. Mrs. Oliver begged her not to bother.
Julia Carstairs said: 'Of course Ariadne has got to have tea.' The two ladies leaned back. The second and third figures of the Lancers. Old friends. Other people's children. The death of friends.
'It must be years since I saw you last,' said Mrs. Carstairs.
'I think it was at the Llewellyns' wedding,' said Mrs. Oliver.
'Yes, that must have been about it. How terrible Moira looked as a bridesmaid. That dreadfully unbecoming shade of apricot they wore.'
'I know. It didn't suit them.'
'I don't think weddings are nearly as pretty as they used to be in our day. Some of them seem to wear such very peculiar clothes. The other day one of my friends went to a wedding and she said the bridegroom was dressed in some sort of quilted white satin and ruffles at his neck. Made of Valenciennes lace, I believe. Most peculiar. And the girl was wearing a very peculiar trouser suit. Also white, but it was stamped with green shamrocks all over.
'Well, my dear Ariadne, can you imagine it. Really, extraordinary. In church, too. If I'd been a clergyman, I'd have refused to marry them.' Tea came. Talk continued.
'I saw my goddaughter, Celia Ravenscroft, the other day,' said Mrs. Oliver. 'Do you remember the Ravenscrofts? Of course, it's a great many years ago.'
'The Ravenscrofts? Now wait a minute. That was that very sad tragedy, wasn't it? A double suicide, didn't they think it was? Near their house at Overcliffe.'
'You've got such a wonderful memory, Julia,' said Mrs. Oliver.
'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.
Yes, I think she did some secretarial work for him. He was writing his memoirs of his career in India-I believe commissioned by a publisher at that-and she used to take dictation from him. But some people said-well, you know what they do say sometimes, that perhaps he had got-er-tied up with this girl in some way. She wasn't very young. She was over thirty, and not very good-looking and I don't think- there were no scandals about her or anything, but still, one doesn't know. People thought he might have shot his wife because he wanted to-well, he might have wanted to marry her, yes. But I don't really think people said that sort of thing and I never believed it.'
'What did you think?'
'Well, of course I wondered a little about her.'
'You mean that a man was mentioned?'
'I believe there was something out in Malaya. Some kind of story I heard about her. That she got embroiled with some young man much younger than herself. And her husband hadn't liked it much and it had caused a bit of scandal. I forget where. But anyway, that was a long time ago and I don't think anything ever came of it.'
'You don't think there was any talk nearer home? No special relationship with anyone in the neighborhood? There wasn't any evidence of quarrels between them, or anything of that kind?'
'No, I don't think so. Of course I read everything about it at the time. One did discuss it, of course, because one couldn't help feeling there might be some-well, some really very tragic love story connected with it.'
'But there wasn't, you think? They had children, didn't they? There was my goddaughter, of course.'
'Oh, yes, and there was a son. I think he was quite young, At school somewhere. The girl was only twelve,
