Elephants Can Remember

"You saw Desmond, didn't you?" she said. "He went to see you. He told me he had." "Yes. He came to see me. Did you not want him to do so?" "He didn't ask me." "If he had asked you?" "I don't know. I don't know whether I should have forbid128 den?iii11 to do s0'told ^lm on n0 account to do such a thing, or whether I should have encouraged it." "I would like to ask you one question, mademoiselle. I want to know if there is one clear thing in your mind that matters to you, that could matter to you more than anything else." "V^ell, what is that?" "as you say, Desmond Burton-Cox came to see me. A very attract^® ^d likeable young man, and very much in earnest over what he came to say. Now that-that is the really important thing. The important thing is if you and he really wish to marry--because that is serious. That is-though young people do not always think so nowadays-that is a link together for life. D° y011 want to enter into that state? It matters. What difference can it make to you or to Desmond whether the death of tw0 P^ple was a double suicide or something quite different?" "You think it is something quite different-or, it was?" "I do not as yet know," said Poirot. "I have reason to believe that it might be. There are certain things that do not accord with a double suicide, but as far as I can go on the opinion of the police-and the police are very reliable, Mademoiselle Celia, very reliable-they put together all the evidence and they thought very definitely that it could be nothing else but a double suicide." "But they never knew the cause of it? That's what you mean-" "Yes," said Poirot, "that's what I mean." "Afld don't you know the cause of it, either? I mean, from looking lnto things or thinking about them, or whatever you do?" "No, I am not sure about it," said Poirot. "I think there might be something very painful to learn and I am asking you whether you will be wise enough to say: The past is the past.

Here is a young man whom I care for and who cares for me.

This is the future we are spending together, not the past.' " "Did be tell you he was an adopted child?" asked Celia.

"Yes, he did." "You see, what business is it really, of hers? Why should she come worrying Mrs. Oliver here, trying to make Mrs.