Crooked House
research, for example."
I had suspected that Clemency might be
a fanatic about her work, but she merely
said:
"I doubt if endowments ever do much
good. They're usually spent in the wrong
way. The things that are worth while are
usually accomplished by someone with
enthusiasm and drive ? and with natural
vision. Expensive equipment and training
and experiment never does what you'd
imagine it might do. The spending of it
usually gets into the wrong hands."
"Will you mind giving up your work
when you go to Barbados?" I asked. "You're
still going, I presume?"
"Oh yes, as soon as the police will let us.
No, I shan't mind giving up my work at
all. Why should I? I wouldn't like to be
idle, but I shan't be idle in Barbados."
She added impatiently:
"Oh, if only this could all be cleared up
quickly and we could get away."
"Clemency," I said, "have you any idea
at all who did do this? Granting that you
and Roger had no hand in it, (and really I
can't see any reason to think you had)
surely, with your intelligence, you must
have some idea of who did?"
She gave me a rather peculiar look, a
darting sideways glance. When she spoke
her voice had lost its spontaneity. It was
awkward, rather embarrassed.
"One can't make guesses, it's unscientific,"
she said. "One can only say that
Brenda and Laurence are the obvious
suspects."
"So you think they did it?"
Clemency shrugged her shoulders.
She stood for a moment as though
listening 5 then she went out of the room, passing Edith de Haviland in the doorway.
Edith came straight over to me. "I want to talk to you," she said.
My father's words leapt into my mind.
Was this --
But Edith de Haviland was going on:
"I hope you didn't get the wrong impression," she said. "About Philip, I mean. | Philip is rather difficult to understand. He I
may seem to you reserved and cold, but
that is not so at all. It's just a manner. He
can't help it."
"I really hadn't thought --" I began.
But she swept on. I
"Just now -- about Roger. It isn't really
that he's grudging. He's never been mean
about money. And he's really a dear -- he's
always been a dear -- but he needs
understanding."
I looked at her with the air, I hope, of
one who was willing to understand. She
went on:
"It's partly, I think, from having been
the second of the family. There's often
something about a second child -- they
o^oft konrli canned He adored his father,
you see. Of course, all the children adored
Aristide and he adored them. But Roger
was his especial pride and joy. Being the
eldest -- the first. And I think Philip felt
it. He drew back right into himself. He
began to like books and the past and things
that were well divorced from everyday life.
I think he suffered -- children do suffer
"
J.^'J.
She paused and went on:
{"What I really mean, I suppose, is that
he's always been jealous of Roger. I think
perhaps he doesn't know it himself. But I
think the fact that Roger has come a cropper
-- oh, it seems an odious thing to say and
really I'm sure he doesn't realise it himself
| -- but I think perhaps Philip isn't as sorry
about it as he ought to be."
"You mean really that he's rather pleased
Roger has made a fool of himself."
"Yes," said Miss de Haviland. "I mean
just exactly that."
She added, frowning a little:
"It distressed me, you know, that he
didn't at once offer help to his brother."
"Why should he?" I said. "After all,
Roger has made a muck of things. He's a
grown man. There are no children to
consider. If he were ill or in real want, of
course his family would help -- but I've no
doubt Roger would really much prefer to
start afresh entirely on his own."
"Oh! he would. It's only Clemency he
minds about. And Clemency is an extraordinary
creature. She really likes being
uncomfortable and having only one utility
teacup to drink out of. Modern, I suppose.
She's no sense of the past 5 no sense of
beauty."
I felt her shrewd eyes looking me up and
down.
"This is a dreadful ordeal for Sophia,"
she said. "I am so sorry her youth should
be dimmed by it. I love them all, you
know. Roger and Philip, and now Sophia
and Eustace and Josephine. All the dear
children. Marcia's children. Yes, I love
them dearly." She paused and then added
sharply: "But, mind you, this side idolatry."
She turned abruptly and went. I had the
feeling that she had meant something by
her last remark that I did not quite
understand.
Fifteen
"Your room's ready," said Sophia.
She stood by my side looking out at the garden. It looked bleak and grey now with
the half denuded trees swaying in the wind.
Sophia echoed my thought as she said:
"How desolate it looks. ..."
As we watched, a figure, and then presently
another came through the yew hedge
from the rock garden. They both looked
grey and unsubstantial in the fading light.
Brenda Leonides was the first. She was
wrapped in a grey chinchilla coat and there
was something catlike and stealthy in the
way she moved. She slipped through the
twilight with a kind of eerie grace.
I saw her face as she passed the window.
There was a half smile on it, the curving
crooked smile I had noticed upstairs. A few
minutes later Laurence Brown, looking slender
and shrunken, also slipped through the
twilight. I can only put it that way. They
did not seem like two people walking, two
people who had been out for a stroll. There
was something furtive and unsubstantial
about them like two ghosts.
I wondered if it was under Brenda's or
Laurence's foot that a twig had snapped.
By a natural association of ideas, I asked:
"Where's Josephine?"
"Probably with Eustace up in the schoolroom." She frowned. "I'm worried about
Eustace, Charles."
"Why?"
"He's so moody and odd. He's been so
different ever since that wretched paralysis.
I can't make out what's going on in his
mind. Sometimes he seems to hate us all."
"He'll probably grow out of all that. It's
just a phase."
"Yes, I suppose so. But I do get worried,
Charles."
"Why, dear heart?"
"Really, I suppose, because mother and
father never worry. Th
ey're not like a
mother and father."
"That may be all for the best. More
children suffer from interference than from
noninterference.''
"That's true. You know, I never thought
about it until I came back from abroad, but
they really are a queer couple. Father living
determinedly in a world of obscure historical
bypaths and mother having a lovely time
creating scenes. That tomfoolery this evening
was all mother. There was no need for
it. She just wanted to play a family conclave
scene. She gets bored, you know, down
here and has to try and work up a drama."
For the moment I had a fantastic vision
of Sophia's mother poisoning her elderly
father-in-law in a light-hearted manner in order to observe a murder drama at first
hand with herself in the leading role.
An amusing thought! I dismissed it as
such -- but it left me a little uneasy.
"Mother," said Sophia, "has to be looked
after the whole time. You never know what
she's up to!"
"Forget your family, Sophia," I said
firmly.
"I shall be only too delighted to, but it's
a little difficult at the present moment. But
I was happy out in Cairo when I had
forgotten them all."
I remembered how Sophia had never nientioned her home or her people.
"Is that why you never talked about
them?" I asked. "Because you wanted to
forget them?"
did not seem like two people walking, two
people who had been out for a stroll. There
was something furtive and unsubstantial
about them like two ghosts.
I wondered if it was under Brenda's or
Laurence's foot that a twig had snapped.
By a natural association of ideas, I asked:
"Where's Josephine?"
"Probably with Eustace up in the schoolroom." She frowned. "I'm worried about
Eustace, Charles."
"Why?"
"He's so moody and odd. He's been so
different ever since that wretched paralysis.
I can't make out what's going on in his
mind. Sometimes he seems to hate us all."
"He'll probably grow out of all that. It's
just a phase."
"Yes, I suppose so. But I do get worried, Charles."
"Why, dear heart?"
"Really, I suppose, because mother and
father never worry. They're not like a
mother and father."
"That may be all for the best. More
children suffer from interference than from
noninterference.''
"That's true. You know, I never thought
about it until I came back from abroad, but
they really are a queer couple. Father living
determinedly in a world of obscure historical
bypaths and mother having a lovely time
creating scenes. That tomfoolery this evening
was all mother. There was no need for
it. She just wanted to play a family conclave
scene. She gets bored, you know, down
here and has to try and work up a drama.55
For the moment I had a fantastic vision
of Sophia's mother poisoning her elderly
father-in-law in a light-hearted manner in
order to observe a murder drama at first
hand with herself in the leading role.
An amusing thought! I dismissed it as
such -- but it left me a little uneasy.
"Mother," said Sophia, "has to be looked
after the whole time. You never know what
she's up to!"
"Forget your family, Sophia," I said
firmly.
"I shall be only too delighted to, but it's
a little difficult at the present moment. But
I was happy out in Cairo when I had
forgotten them all."
I remembered how Sophia had never mentioned her home or her people.
"Is that why you never talked about
them?" I asked. "Because you wanted to
| forget them?"
"I think so. We've always, all of us, lived
too much in each other's pockets. We're --.
we're all too fond of each other. We're not
like some families where they all hate each
other like poison. That must be pretty bad, but it's almost worse to live all tangled up
in conflicting affections."
She added:
" I think that's what I meant when I said
we all lived together in a little crooked
house. I didn't mean that it was crooked in
the dishonest sense. I think what I meant
was that we hadn't been able to grow up
independent, standing by ourselves, upright.
We're all a bit twisted and twining."
I saw Edith de Haviland's heel grinding
a weed into the path as Sophia added:
"Like bindweed . . ."
And then suddenly Magda was with us
-- flinging open the door -- crying out:
"Darlings, why don't you have the lights
on? It's almost dark."
And she pressed the switches and the
lights sprang up on the walls and on the tables, and she and Sophia and I pulled the
heavy rose curtains, and there we were in
the flower-scented interior, and Magda,
flinging herself on the sofa, cried:
"What an incredible scene it was, wasn't
it? How cross Eustace was! He told me he
thought it was all positively indecent. How
funny boys are!"
She sighed.
"Roger's rather a pet. I love him when
he rumples his hair and starts knocking
things over. Wasn't it sweet of Edith to
offer her legacy to him? She really meant
it, you know, it wasn't just a gesture. But
it was terribly stupid -- it might have made
Philip think he ought to do it, too! Of
course Edith would do anything for the
family! There's something very pathetic in
the love of a spinster for her sister's children.
Someday I shall play one of those devoted
spinster aunts. Inquisitive, and obstinate
and devoted."
"It must have been hard for her after her
sister died," I said, refusing to be sidetracked
into discussion of another of Magda's
roles. "I mean if she disliked old
Leonides so much."
Magda interrupted me.
"Disliked him? Who told you that?
Nonsense. She was in love with him."
"Mother!" said Sophia.
"Now don't try and contradict me,
Sophia. Naturally at your age, you think
I love is all two good looking young people
in the moonlight."
"She told me," I said, "that she had
always disliked him."
"Probably she did when she first came.
She'd been angry with her sister for marrying
him. I daresay there was always some
antagonism ? but she was in love with him
all right! Darlings, I do know what I'm
talking about! Of course, with deceased
wife's sister and all that, he couldn't have
married her, and I daresay he never thought
of it ? and quite probably she didn't either.
She was quite happy mothering the chil
dren,
and having fights with him. But she didn't
like it when he .married Brenda. She
didn't like it a bit!"
"No more did you and father," said
Sophia.
"No, of course we hated it! Naturally!
But Edith hated it most. Darling, the way
I've seen her look at Brenda!"
"Now, mother," said Sophia.
Magda threw her an affectionate and half
guilty glance, the glance of a mischievous
spoilt child.
She went on, with no apparent realization
of any lack of continuity:
"I've decided Josephine really must go
to school."
"Josephine? To school."
"Yes. To Switzerland. I'm going to see
about it tomorrow. I really think we might
get her off at once. It's so bad for her to
be mixed up in a horrid business like this.
She's getting quite morbid about it. What
she needs is other children of her own age.
School life. I've always thought so."
"Grandfather didn't want her to go to
school," said Sophia slowly. "He was very
much against it."
"Darling old Sweetie Pie liked us all here
under his eye. Very old people are often
selfish in that way. A child ought to be
amongst other children. And Switzerland is
so healthy ? all the winter sports, and theair, and such much, much better food than
we get here!"
"It will be difficult to arrange for
Switzerland now with all the currency
regulations, won't it?" I asked.
"Nonsense, Charles. There's some kind
of educational racket ? or you exchange
with a Swiss child ? there are all sorts of
ways. Rudolf Alstir's in Lausanne. I shall
wire him tomorrow to arrange everything.
We can get her off by the end of the week!"
Magda punched a cushion, smiled at us,
| Went to the door, stood a moment looking
back at us in a quite enchanting fashion.
"It's only the young who count," she
said. As she said it, it was a lovely line. "They must always come first. And, darlings
-- think of the flowers -- the blue gentians, the narcissus. ..."
"In November?" asked Sophia, but
Magda had gone.
Sophia heaved an exasperated sigh.
"Really," she said, "Mother is too trying! She gets these sudden ideas, and she sends
thousands of telegrams and everything has
to be arranged at a moment's notice. Why
should Josephine be hustled off to Switzerland
all in a flurry?"
"There's probably something in the idea
of school. I think children of her own age
would be a good thing for Josephine."
"Grandfather didn't think so," said Sophia
obstinately.
I felt slightly irritated.
"My dear Sophia, do you really think an
old gentleman of over eighty is the best
judge of a child's welfare?"
"He was about the best judge of anybody
in this house," said Sophia.
"Better than your Aunt Edith?"
"No, perhaps not. She did rather favour
school. I admit Josephine's got into rather
tt
difficult ways ? she's got a horrible habit
of snooping. But I really think it's just
because she's playing detectives."
Was it only the concern for Josephine's
welfare which had occasioned Magda's
sudden decision? I wondered. Josephine
was remarkably well informed about all
sorts of things that had happened prior to
the murder and which had been certainly
no business of hers. A healthy school life
with plenty of games would probably do
her a world of good. But I did rather
wonder at the suddenness and urgency of
Magda's decision ? Switzerland was a long
way off.
h
Sixteen
The Old Man had said:
"Let them talk to you."
As I shaved the following morning, I
considered just how far that had taken
me.
Edith de Haviland had talked to me --
she had sought me out for that especial
purpose. Clemency had talked to me (or
had I talked to her?). Magda had talked to
me in a sense -- that is I had formed part
of the audience to one of her broadcasts.
Sophia naturally had talked to me. Even
Nannie had talked to me. Was I any the
wiser for what I had learned from them all?
Was there any significant word or phrase?
More, was there any evidence of that
abnormal vanity on which my father had
laid stress? I couldn't see that there was.
The only person who had shown absolutely
no desire to talk to me in any way?
nr on any subject, was Philip. Was not that,
in a way, rather abnormal? He must know
by now that I wanted to marry his daughter.
Yet he continued to act as though I was
not in the house at all. Presumably he
resented my presence there. Edith de
Haviland had apologised for him. She had
said it was just "manner." She had shown
herself concerned about Philip. Why?
I considered Sophia's father. He was in
every sense a repressed individual. He had
been an unhappy jealous child. He had
been forced back into himself. He had taken
refuge in the world of books -- in the
historical past. That studied coldness and
reserve of his might conceal a good deal of
passionate feeling. The inadequate motive
of financial gain by his father's death was
unconvincing -- I did not think for a
moment that Philip Leonides would kill his
father because he himself had not quite as