Elephants don't forget
Elephants do not forget (original title Elephants Can Remember ) is the 63rd detective novel by Agatha Christie . It is the penultimate novel written by the author. It first appeared in the UK in November 1972 at the Collins Crime Club and later that year in the US at Dodd, Mead and Company . The German first edition was published by Scherz Verlag (Bern, Munich, Vienna) in 1973 with the translation by Ruth Bieling, which is still used today.
It is determined by Hercule Poirot in his 32nd novel and Ariadne Oliver in her seventh novel.
In terms of its genesis, it is the last novel with the two protagonists, because Christie had written the last novel with Poirot - curtain - back in the 1940s and had it placed in the vault of a bank.
introduction
At an afternoon literary event, the famous crime writer Ariadne Oliver is approached by a woman completely unknown to her. Mrs. Burton-Cox introduces herself as the adoptive mother of Desmond Burton-Cox, who plans to marry one of Mrs. Oliver's goddaughters, Celia Ravenscroft. The question Mrs. Burton-Cox would like to have answered before the wedding is: did Celia's mother murder her father, or did her father murder her mother?
action
Ten years earlier, the bodies of General Alistair Ravenscroft and his wife Margaret Molly Ravenscroft had been found near their home in Overcliffe. Both had gunshot wounds, and a revolver that lay between them only had fingerprints on both victims. The original police investigation had not been able to determine whether it was a double suicide or a murder / suicide and who killed whom. The couple left behind two children, daughter Celia and younger son Edward.
Mrs. Oliver was a friend of the late Margaret Ravenscroft and initially rejects Mrs. Burton-Cox's request. After consulting with Celia, however, she invites herself to Poirot to solve the riddle. You speak to the witnesses - named by the two elephants - mutual friends from the time of the accident. They hope the elephants have not forgotten anything, and indeed they do remember various things. Poirot reduces his investigation to two questions: why did Margaret Ravenscroft have four wigs at the time of her death and why was she bitten by the family dog?
Poirot also deduces from these initial interrogations that the truth must lie deeper in the past, and so they discover that Dolly (Dorothea) and Molly (Margaret) Preston-Gray were identical twins who died just a few weeks apart. While Molly had lived a largely unremarkable life, Dolly's life was marked by two serious incidents that had left her in psychiatric hospitals for several years. She was accused of drowning her son and murdering a neighbor's child.
After her release, Dolly lived with the Ravenscrofts in Overcliffe and died after falling as a sleepwalker off the cliff on the evening of September 15, 1960. Molly and her husband died less than a month later on October 3.
Poirot contacts Desmond Burton-Cox, Celia's fiancé, who can give him the names of the governesses of the Ravenscroft family. He hopes to find out from them what was really going on. He also sends Mr. Goby to shed some light on the Burton-Cox family. And so he finds out that Desmond is the illegitimate son of the late actress Kathleen Fenn and Mr. Burton-Cox. She left a sizable fortune to Desmond that if he died would go to his adoptive mother. The attempt to prevent his marriage is therefore only aimed at securing their share of this money.
Poirot travels to Zélie Meauhourat, who now lives in Switzerland, and, since only she knows the truth, can convince her to come to England with him. There she explains the whole story to Desmond and Celia. Dolly had fatally injured Molly in a psychotic attack. But Molly's love for her sister was so great that, as she was dying, she made her husband promise not to hand Dolly over to the police. And so Dolly took on the role of her sister, only the dog of course recognized that this woman is not his "mistress" and bitten Dolly. After Molly's funeral, Alistair shot Dolly first and then himself.
Despite these sad events, Desmond and Celia decide to spend their future together.
people
- Hercule Poirot, the Belgian detective
- Ariadne Oliver, the famous crime writer
- Chief Superintendent Garroway, the original investigator, now retired
- Superintendent Spence, a retired police officer
- Mr. Goby, a private investigator
- Celia Ravenscroft, daughter of the victims
- Desmond Burton-Cox, Celia's fiancé
- Mrs. Burton-Cox, Desmond's adoptive mother
- Dr. Willoughby, a psychologist specializing in twins
- Mademoiselle Rouselle, a governess of the Ravenscrofts
- Zélie Meauhourat, a governess of the Ravenscrofts
The elephants
- The Honorable Julia Carstairs, a friend of the Ravenscrofts
- Mrs. Matcham, a former Ravenscroft nanny
- Mrs. Buckle, a former cleaning lady for the Ravenscrofts
- Mrs. Rosentelle, a hairdresser and former wig maker
References to other works
- Superintendent Spence is already known to the reader from The Death Whirlwind , Four Women and a Murder and The Snow White Party .
- Mr. Goby is also a recurring role in the late Poiro novels, and although he does not appear in person in The Snow White Party , Chapter 21 recalls his contribution to solving this case.
- In the Miss Marple novel A Murder Is Heralded, writer Edmund Swettenham explains that he wrote a play called Elephants Forgotten .
Film adaptations
This novel was filmed in 2013 for the English television series Agatha Christie's Poirot . The episode aired on June 9, 2013.
Major expenses
- 1972 Collins Crime Club (London), November 1972
- 1972 Dodd Mead and Company (New York)
- 1973 German first edition by Scherz Verlag in the translation by Ruth Bieling
Audio books
- 2008 Elephants don't forget (5 CDs): only unabridged reading. Speaker: Martin Maria Schwarz . Director: Hans Eckardt. Translated from the English by Ruth Bieling: Publishing house and studio for audio book productions (Marburg)
Web links
- Elephants Can Remember on the official Agatha Christie website
Individual evidence
- ↑ Chris Peers, Ralph Spurrier and Jamie Sturgeon. Collins Crime Club - A checklist of First Editions . Dragonby Press (Second Edition) March 1999 (Page 15)
- ↑ John Cooper and BA Pyke. Detective Fiction - the collector's guide : Second Edition (Pages 82 and 87) Scholar Press. 1994. ISBN 0-85967-991-8
- ↑ American Tribute to Agatha Christie
- ↑ a b German first edition in the catalog of the German National Library
- ↑ Audiobook (complete) in the catalog of the German National Library