Elephants Can Remember Read Online Free PDF Page B

“Do people remember?”
    “Well,” said Mrs. Oliver. “I was really thinking of elephants.”
    “Elephants?”
    As he had thought often before, Poirot thought that really Mrs. Oliver was the most unaccountable woman. Why suddenly elephants?
    “I was thinking of elephants at the lunch yesterday,” said Mrs. Oliver.
    “Why were you thinking of elephants?” said Poirot with some curiosity.
    “Well, I was really thinking of teeth. You know, things one tries to eat, and if you've got some sort of false teeth - well, you can't do it very well. You know, you've got to know what you can eat and what you can't.”
    “Ah!” said Poirot with a deep sigh. “Yes, yes. The dentists, they can do much for you, but not everything.”
    “Quite so. And then I thought of - you know - our teeth being only bone and so not awfully good, and how nice it would be to be a dog, who has really ivory teeth. And then I thought of anyone else who has ivory teeth, and I thought about walruses and - oh, other things like that. And I thought about elephants. Of course when you think of ivory, you do think of elephants, don't you? Great big elephant tusks.”
    “That is very true,” said Poirot, still not seeing the point of what Mrs. Oliver was saying.
    “So I thought that what we've really got to do is to get at the people who are like elephants. Because elephants, so they say, don't forget.”
    “I have heard the phrase, yes,” said Poirot.
    “Elephants don't forget,” said Mrs. Oliver. “You know, a story children get brought up on? How someone, an Indian tailor, stuck a needle or something in an elephant's tusk. No. Not a tusk, his trunk, of course, an elephant's trunk. And the next time the elephant came past he had a great mouthful of water and he splashed it out all over the tailor, though he hadn't seen him for several years. He hadn't forgotten. He remembered. That's the point, you see. Elephants remember. What I've got to do is - I've got to get in touch with some elephants.”
    “I do not know yet if I quite see what you mean,” said Hercule Poirot. “Who are you classifying as elephants? You sound as though you were going for information to the zoo.”
    “Well, it's not exactly like that,” said Mrs. Oliver. “Not elephants, as elephants, but the way people up to a point would resemble elephants. There are some people who do remember. In fact, one does remember queer things. I mean, there are a lot of things that I remember very well. They happened - I remember a birthday party I had when I was five, and a pink cake - a lovely pink cake. It had a sugar bird on it. And I remember the day my canary flew away and I cried. And I remember another day when I went into a field and there was a bull there and somebody said it would gore me, and I was terrified and wanted to run out of the field. Well, I remember that quite well. It was a Tuesday, too. I don't know why I should remember it was a Tuesday, but it was a Tuesday. And I remember a wonderful picnic with blackberries. I remember getting pricked terribly, but getting more blackberries than anyone else. It was wonderful! By that time I was nine, I think. But one needn't go back as far as that. I mean, I've been to hundreds of weddings in my life, but when I look back on a wedding there are only two that I remember particularly. One where I was a bridesmaid. It took place in the New Forest, I remember, and I can't remember who was there actually. I think it was a cousin of mine getting married. I didn't know her very well, but she wanted a good many bridesmaids and, well, I came in handy, I suppose. But I know another wedding. That was a friend of mine in the Navy. He was nearly drowned in a submarine, and then he was saved again, and then the girl he was engaged to, her people didn't want her to marry him, but then he did marry her after that and I was one of her bridesmaids at the marriage. Well, I mean, there's always things you do remember.”
    “I see your point,”