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''Elephants Can Remember'' is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie, first published in 1972〔Chris Peers, Ralph Spurrier and Jamie Sturgeon. ''Collins Crime Club – A checklist of First Editions''. Dragonby Press (Second Edition) March 1999 (Page 15)〕 It features her Belgian detective Hercule Poirot and the recurring character Ariadne Oliver. This was the last Christie novel to feature either character, although in terms of publication it was succeeded by ''Curtain: Poirot's Last Case'', which had been written in the early 1940s but published last. The novel is notable for its concentration on memory and oral testimony. ==Plot summary== At a literary luncheon, Mrs Burton-Cox, to whose son Celia Ravenscroft is engaged, approaches Mrs Ariadne Oliver, a school friend of the late Margaret Ravenscroft and godmother to her daughter. Mrs Burton-Cox asks Mrs Oliver what she believes is an important question: which of Celia's parents was the murderer, and which was murdered? Ten years earlier, the bodies of General Alistair Ravenscroft and his wife Margaret were found near their manor house in Overcliffe. Both had bullet wounds, and a revolver with only their fingerprints left between them. In the original investigation, no one was able to prove whether the case was a double suicide or murder/suicide and, if the latter, who killed whom. Left behind are the couple's two children, including daughter Celia. Mrs Ariadne Oliver is initially put off by Mrs Burton-Cox's attitude; but, after consulting with Celia, Oliver agrees to try to resolve the issue. She invites her friend Hercule Poirot to solve the disquieting puzzle. Together, they conduct interviews with several elderly witnesses whom they term “elephants”, based on the assumption that, like the proverbial elephants, they may have long memories. Each "elephant" remembers (or mis-remembers) a very different set of circumstances, but Poirot notes two items of significance: Margaret Ravenscroft owned four wigs at the time of her death; and, a few days before her death, she was seriously bitten by the otherwise devoted family dog. Poirot decides to investigate more deeply into the past. He and Mrs Oliver learn that Dolly (Dorothea) and Molly (Margaret) Preston-Grey were identical twin sisters, both of whom died within the space of a few weeks. While Molly led an ordinary life, Dolly had previously been connected with two violent incidents and had spent protracted periods of her life in psychiatric nursing homes. Dolly had married a Major Jarrow and, shortly after his death in India, was strongly suspected of drowning her infant son, which she blamed on his Indian ayah. A second murder was committed in Malaya while Dolly was staying with the Ravenscrofts; it was an attack on the child of a neighbour. While staying with the Ravenscrofts, this time at Overcliffe, Dolly apparently sleep-walked off a cliff and died on the evening of 15 September 1960. Molly and her husband died less than a month later, on 3 October. Desmond Burton-Cox, Celia's fiancé, gives Poirot the names of two governesses who had served the Ravenscroft family. Turning an investigative light on the Burton-Cox family, Poirot's agent, Mr Goby, discovers that Desmond (who knows that he is adopted, but has no details about the adoption or his origins) is the illegitimate son of a now-deceased actress, Kathleen Fenn, with whom Mrs Burton-Cox's husband had conducted an affair. Fenn had bequeathed Desmond a considerable personal fortune, which would, under the terms of his will, be left to his adoptive mother were he to die. Mrs Burton-Cox's attempt to prevent Desmond's marriage to Celia Ravenscroft is thus an attempt to obtain the use of his money, although there is no suggestion that she plans to kill him for the money. Poirot suspects the truth but can substantiate it only after contacting Zélie Meauhourat, the governess employed by the Ravenscrofts at the time of their death. She returns with him from Lausanne to England, where she explains the truth to Desmond and Celia. Dolly had fatally injured Molly as part of a psychotic episode; but, such was Molly's love for her sister that she made her husband promise to protect Dolly from arrest. Accordingly, Zélie and Alistair made it appear that Dolly's was the corpse found at the foot of the cliff. Dolly took her sister's place, playing the role of Molly to the servants. Only the Ravenscrofts' dog knew the difference, and this is why it bit her. Alistair committed suicide after killing Dolly to prevent her from injuring anyone else. Desmond and Celia recognise the sadness of the true events, but now knowing the facts are able to face a future together. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Elephants Can Remember」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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