Elephants Can Remember

Did You Know?

• The novel was serialised in the Star Weekly Novel, a Toronto newspaper supplement, in two abridged instalments from 10 to 17 February 1973.
• The novel was succeeded by Curtain: Poirot's Last Case, which had been written in the early 1940s but was published last.

Plot summary

Ariadne Oliver is at a literary luncheon when a woman named Mrs. Burton-Cox approaches her. Mrs. Burton-Cox’s son, Desmond, is engaged to Oliver’s goddaughter, Celia Ravenscroft. Mrs. Burton-Cox wants to know the truth about how Celia’s parents died. Twelve years earlier, Oliver’s close school friend Margaret Ravenscroft and her husband, General Alistair Ravenscroft, were found shot dead near their manor house in Overcliffe. A revolver lay between their bodies, and only their fingerprints were on it. The investigation could not decide if it was a double suicide or if one killed the other and then took their own life. The deaths left Celia and another child orphaned. After speaking with Celia, Oliver asks her friend Hercule Poirot to look into the matter.

Poirot and Oliver meet elderly witnesses connected to the case, whom they call “elephants.” They learn that Margaret owned four wigs. The Ravenscrofts’ dog was devoted to the family but bit Margaret a few days before she died. Margaret had an identical twin sister, Dorothea, who had stayed in several psychiatric nursing homes and was believed to have been involved in two violent incidents in Asia, including drowning her infant son after her husband died. A month before the couple died, Dorothea had been sleepwalking and fell off a cliff to her death. Poirot finds out the names of governesses who worked for the Ravenscrofts. One of them, Zélie Meauhourat, went to Lausanne after the couple died.

Poirot then focuses on the Burton-Cox family. He learns Desmond was adopted and knows nothing about his birth mother. Through his agent, Mr. Goby, Poirot discovers Desmond is the illegitimate son of a deceased actress named Kathleen Fenn. Kathleen had an affair with Mrs. Burton-Cox’s husband and left Desmond a large fortune, held in trust until he came of age or married. If Desmond died, the money would go to his adoptive mother. Poirot suspects Mrs. Burton-Cox wants to stop the marriage so she can keep using the money, but he finds no evidence she wants to kill her son. Eventually, Poirot begins to guess the truth about the Ravenscrofts’ deaths and asks Zélie to return to England to help him explain everything to Desmond and Celia.

Literary significance and reception

When Maurice Richardson reviewed it for The Observer in 1972, he described it as a quiet but consistently interesting mystery with a clever twin-based solution, adding that any young elephant would be proud of it. Other reviewers were far harsher. Robert Barnard called it another murder-in-the-past case where nobody can remember anything clearly, including the author, and pointed out contradictions in the ages of General Ravenscroft and his wife, as well as confusion over how long ago the deaths occurred.

The Cambridge Guide to Women's Writing in English listed it among Christie's execrable final novels, saying she loses her grip entirely. A 2009 computer analysis of Christie's earlier and later work used this novel as an example, finding a sharp drop in vocabulary and more repeated phrases and vague nouns, which suggested she may have been suffering from late-onset dementia, possibly Alzheimer's.

References to other works

Superintendent Spence had already appeared in three earlier novels: Taken at the Flood, Mrs McGinty's Dead, and Hallowe'en Party. In Chapter 5 of this book, the cases from Mrs McGinty's Dead and Hallowe'en Party are discussed, as is the mystery from Five Little Pigs. Mr Goby, a figure who pops up in several later Poirot stories, is also part of this novel. In Chapter 3, Mrs Oliver remembers a copy of Enquire Within upon Everything that belonged to her Aunt Alice. That same book, in a different copy, hides a will in Hallowe'en Party.

Adaptations

The television adaptation of Elephants Can Remember aired as part of the final season of Agatha Christie's Poirot, with David Suchet playing the detective. ITV first broadcast it on 9 June 2013, and it later appeared on Acorn TV on 11 August 2014. Zoë Wanamaker returned as Ariadne Oliver, her fifth of six appearances in the series. Other cast members included Greta Scacchi, Vanessa Kirby, Iain Glen, and Ferdinand Kingsley.

The adaptation added a new plot thread about Dorothea's daughter Marie seeking revenge for her mother's harsh psychiatric treatments, such as electroconvulsive therapy and "hydriation," which involved alternating hot and cold water. The setting was also moved from the early 1970s to the late 1930s, creating an anachronism when chemotherapy is mentioned as a cancer cure. A radio adaptation aired on BBC Radio 4 in 2006, with John Moffatt as Poirot and Julia Mackenzie as Ariadne Oliver.

The 2007 Thai film Alone drew loose inspiration from the novel, with Marsha Vadhanapanich playing the twins. The 2012 Filipino film Guni-Guni shares plot similarities with Alone, with Lovi Poe in the twin roles.