Elephants Can Remember by Agatha Christie #ReadChristie2024

I enjoy the Christies that feature Ariadne Oliver, the occasionally ditzy mystery author who dislikes the fictional detective she has made so popular, Sven Hjerson. 

She usually avoids public appearances but in this book she has agreed to attend a literary lunch where she is accosted by a stranger who asks about Mrs. Oliver’s goddaughter, Celia Ravenscroft, and says:

I want you to tell me, because I’m sure you must know or perhaps have a very good idea how it all came about. Did her mother kill her father or was it the father who killed the mother?

Mrs. Oliver had forgotten about the tragedy that befell Celia’s parents some fifteen years ago (although how could one not remember a school friend who was murdered?) and although she instantly dislikes the questioner, who wants to discourage her son’s relationship with Celia, she is so curious that she enlists her friend, Hercule Poirot, to help investigate the past. Mrs. Oliver starts by looking up people in her old address books and asking them what they recall about the Ravenscroft couple’s death. Poirot has an interesting perspective: he believes even if memories that are inaccurate can provide useful information:

“I’ve got a lot of different suggestions and stories. I don’t know whether any of them are true.”

“They could be not true, but still be of use,” said Poirot.

“Well, I know what you mean,” said Mrs. Oliver, “and that’s what I think, too. I mean, that’s what I thought when I went about it. When people remember something and tell you about it – I mean, it’s often not quite actually what occurred, but it’s what they themselves thought occurred.”

“But they must have had something on which to base it,” said Poirot.

Unlike some mysteries, there is no danger to the self-appointed investigators. Instead, it is interesting to see the key to the cold case revealed through the imperfect recollections of those who knew Celia’s parents – and Mrs. Oliver and Poirot each come up with important clues so their collaboration is necessary. Of course, if a future mother-in-law were really worried about Celia’s heredity, it wouldn’t matter whether it was Sir Alastair or Lady Ravenscroft who was the actual killer so long as it’s any one of her parents!

Cold cases are always enjoyable but I guess this is because only the successful ones make good plots! Can you think of a cold case that stays cold? This was one of those books where the murderer seemed extremely obvious to me but maybe the plot was embedded in my mind from whenever I read it in my teens. It did occur to me when Mrs. Oliver is digging up her old address books so she can ask people about their past interactions with the Ravenscrofts that the modern habit of only keeping contact information in phones is not conducive to investigating the past. Unless one never purges!

Christie in 1913

The Agatha Christie Companion (which I try not to read until my review is mostly done) points out that this was Christie’s second to last mystery and attributes some discrepancies to the fact she was in failing health.  However, her portrayal of Mrs. Oliver provides a glimpse of her own feelings about being a bestselling author and discomfort at being accosted by strangers. There is a story about a party to celebrate the 10th anniversary of The Mousetrap at the Savoy Hotel where Christie was not recognized and was denied admission, but was too shy to explain who she was. I haven’t had a chance to read Lucy Worsley’s biography of Christie yet but she is described as “a modest person who liked her privacy almost to the point of obsession.”

This is my 34th book for Carol’s Cloak and Dagger Challenge and I also read it for December’s ReadChristie24.

Source: Internet Archive, originally published in 1972.
Genre: Mystery