Agatha Christie - Elephants Can Remember

And eventually, as many twins do, instead of wanting to do everything in the same fashion and the same way, they wanted to do the opposite. To be as unlike each other as they could.

And even between them grew a certain amount of dislike.

More than that. There was a reason in the past for that.

Alistair Ravenscroft as a young man fell in love with Dorothea Preston-Grey, the elder twin of the two. But his affection shifted to the other sister, Margaret, whom he married.

There was jealousy then, no doubt, which led to an estrangement between the sisters. Margaret continued to be deeply attached to her twin, but Dorothea no longer was devoted in any way to Margaret. That seemed to me to be the explanation of a great many things. Dorothea was a tragic figure. By no fault of her own but by some accident of genes, of birth, of hereditary characteristics, she was always mentally unstable.

At quite an early age she had, for some reason which has never been made clear, a dislike of children. There is every reason to believe that a child came to its death through her action. The evidence was not definite, but it was definite enough for a doctor to advise that she should have mental treatment, and she was for some years treated in a mental home. When reported cured by doctors, she resumed normal life, came often to stay with her sister and went out to India, at a time when they were stationed out there, to join them there. And there, again, an accident happened. A child of a neighbor.

And again, although perhaps there was no very definite proof, it seems again Dorothea might have been responsible for it.

General Ravenscroft took her home to England and she was placed once more in medical care. Once again she appeared to be cured, and after psychiatric care it was again said that she could go once more and resume a normal life. Margaret believed this time that all would be well, and thought that she ought to live with them so that they could watch closely for any signs of any further mental disability. I don't think that General Ravenscroft approved. I think he had a very strong belief that just as someone can be born deformed, spastic or crippled in some way, she had a deformity of the brain which would recur from time to time and that she would have to be constantly watched and saved from herself in case some other tragedy happened."

"Are you saying," asked Desmond, "that it was she who shot both the Ravenscrofts?"

"No," said Poirot, "that is not my solution. I think what happened was that Dorothea killed her sister, Margaret. They walked together on the cliff one day and Dorothea pushed Margaret over. The dormant obsession of hatred and resentment of the sister who though so like herself, was sane and healthy, was too much for her. Hate, jealousy, the desire to kill all rose to the surface and dominated her. I think that there was one outsider who knew, who was here at the time that this happened. I think you knew. Mademoiselle Zelle."

"Yes," said Zelle Meauhourat, "I knew. I was here at the time. The Ravenscrofts had been worried about her. That is when they saw her attempt to injure their small son, Edward.

Edward was sent back to school and I and Celia went to my pensionnat. I came back here-after seeing Celia settled in.

Once the house was empty except for myself, General Ravenscroft and Dorothea and Margaret, nobody had any anxiety. And then one day it happened. The two sisters went out together. Dolly returned alone. She seemed in a very queer and nervous state. She came in and sat down at the tea table. It was then General Ravenscroft noticed that her right hand was covered with blood. He asked her if she had had a fall. She said, 'Oh, no, it was nothing. Nothing at all. I got scratched by a rosebush.' But there were no rosebushes on the Downs. It was a purely foolish remark and we were worried.

If she had said a gorse bush, we might have accepted the remark. General Ravenscroft went out and I went after him.

He kept saying as he walked, 'Something has happened to Margaret. I'm sure something has happened to Molly.' We found her on a ledge a little way down the cliff. She had been battered with a rock and stones. She was not dead, but she had bled heavily. For a moment we hardly knew what we could do. We dared not move her. We must get a doctor, we felt, at once, but before we could do that, she clung to her husband. She said, gasping for breath, 'Yes, it was Dolly. She didn't know what she was doing. She didn't know, Alistair.

You mustn't let her suffer for it. She's never known the things she does or why. She can't help it. She's never been able to help it. You must promise me, Alistair. I think I'm dying now. No-no, we won't have time to get a doctor and a doctor couldn't do anything. I've been lying here bleeding to death-and I'm very close to death. I know that, but promise me. Promise me you'll save her. Promise me you won't let the police arrest her. Promise me that she'll not be tried for killing me, not shut up for life as a criminal. Hide me somewhere so that my body won't be found. Please, please, it's the last thing I ask you. You whom I love more than anything in the world. If I could live for you I would, but I'm not going to live. I can feel that. I crawled a little way, but that was all I could do. Promise me. And you, Zelle, you love me, too. I know. You've loved me and been good to me and looked after me always. And you loved the children, so you must save Dolly. You must save poor Dolly. Please, please. For all the love we have for each other, Dolly must be saved.' "

"And then," said Poirot, "what did you do? It seems to me that you must in some way between you-"

"Yes. She died, you know. She died within about ten minutes of those last words, and I helped him. I helped him to hide her body. It was a place a little farther along the cliff.

We carried her there and there were rocks and boulders and stones, and we covered her body as best we could. There was no path to it, really, or no way. You had to scramble. We put her there. All Alistair said again and again' was-'I promised her. I must keep my word. I don't know how to do it. I don't know how anyone can save her. I don't know. But-' Well, we did do it. Dolly was in the house. She was frightened, desperate with fright, but at the same time she showed a horrible kind of satisfaction. She said, 'I always knew. I've known for years that Molly was really evil. She took you away from me, Alistair. You belonged to me-but she took you away from me and made you marry her and I always knew one day I should get even with her. I always knew. Now I'm frightened. What'll they do to me-what'll they say? I can't be shut up again. I can't, I can't. I shall go mad. You won't let me be shut up.

They'll take me away and they'll say I'm guilty of murder. It wasn't murder. I just had to do it. Sometimes I do have to do things. I wanted to see the blood, you know. I couldn't wait to see Molly die, though. I ran away. But I knew she would die. I just hoped you wouldn't find her. She just fell over the cliff.

People would say it was an accident.' "

"It's a horrible story," said Desmond.

"Yes," said Celia, "it's a horrible story, but it's better to know. It's better to know, isn't it? I can't even feel sorry for her. I mean for my mother. I know she was sweet. I know there was never any trace of evil in her-she was good all through-and I know, I can understand, why my father didn't want to marry Dolly. He wanted to marry my mother because he loved her and he had found out by then that there was something wrong with Dolly. Something bad and twisted. But how-how did you do it all?"

"We told a good many lies," said Zelle. "We hoped the body would not be found so that later perhaps it might be removed in the night or something like that to somewhere where it could look as though she'd fallen down into the sea. But then we thought of the sleep-walking story. What we had to do was really quite simple. Alistair said, 'It's frightening, you know.