Crooked House

instinct, had recognised that Josephine

  was in peril, and that may have been

  what occasioned her sudden feverish haste

  to get the child sent to Switzerland.

  Sophia came out to meet us as we arrived.

  Josephine, she said, had been taken by

  ambulance to Market Basing General Hospital.

  Dr. Gray would let them know as

  soon as possible the result of the X-ray. r- '"How did it happen?" asked Taverner.

  Sophia led the way round to the back of

  the house and through a door into a small

  disused yard. In one corner a door stood

  ajar. -

  "Tr's a kind of wash house," Sophialj

  W,f

  explained. "There's a cat hole cut in the

  bottom of the door, and Josephine used to

  stand on it and swing to and fro."

  I remembered swinging on doors in my

  own youth.

  The wash house was small and rather

  dark. There were wooden boxes in it, some

  old hose pipe, a few derelict garden implements

  and some broken furniture. Just

  inside the door was a marble lion door stop.

  "It's the door stop from the front door,"

  Sophia explained. "It must have been

  balanced on the top of the door."

  Taverner reached up a hand to the top

  of the door. It was a low door, the top of

  it only about a foot above his head.

  "A booby trap," he said.

  He swung the door experimentally to and

  fro. Then he stooped to the block of marble

  but he did not touch it.

  "Has anyone handled this?"

  "No," said Sophia. "I wouldn't let any

  one touch it."

  "Quite right. Who found her?"

  "I did. She didn't come in for her dinner

  at one o'clock. Nannie was calling her.

  She'd passed through the kitchen and out

  into the stable yard about a quarter of an

  hour before. Nannie said, 'She'll be bounc-

  ing her ball or swinging on that door again.'

  I said I'd fetch her in."

  Sophia paused.

  "She had a habit of playing in that way,

  you said? Who knew about that?"

  Sophia shrugged her shoulders.

  "Pretty well everybody in the house, I

  should think."

  "Who else used the wash house? Gardeners?"

  Sophia shook her head.

  "Hardly anyone ever goes into it."

  "And this little yard isn't overlooked

  from the house?" Taverner summed it up.

  "Anyone could have slipped out from the

  house or round the front and fixed up that

  trap ready. But it would be chancy ..."

  He broke off, looking at the door, and

  swinging it gently to and fro.

  "Nothing certain about it. Hit or miss.

  And likelier miss than hit. But she was

  unlucky. With her it was hit."

  Sophia shivered.

  He peered at the floor. There were

  various dents on it.

  "Looks as though someone experimented

  first M^. . to see just how it would fall. . .

  The sound wouldn't carry to the house."

  "No, we didn't hear anything. We'd no

  ., . .? ,i,- _/'ong until I came out

  idea anything was wi^ ? , ?

  /4 ^,,?/-i u i g face down -- all

  and found her lyin^, . , , ,. ,

  ? 1^/4 ^ ?? o rAS voice broke a little.

  sprawled out. Sophia, , . ?

  "There was blood on ner nalr' . , "That her scarf?" ^raverner Pointed to a

  checked woollen muf^ lymg on the floor> "Yes " Using the scarf he picked up the block

  of marble carefully. . , ? , .,

  "There mav be fi^rprmts, he said,

  u
  but he spoke withou ,., . ' r , ?

  rather think whoever ^lr was - careful

  He said to me: "Whac are you looking at?

  t ,,roo i^^ ^ i,,roken backed wooden

  I was looking at a V , , ,.

  i^'^k^/.ko^ u-u as among the derelicts.

  kitchen chair which w^ r r n

  n^ tk^ o i- c ^ J^ a Iev fragments of On the seat of it wei^

  "r'^^o '? ^ .Taverner. "Someone Curious, said . , ,, r . xr

  ci-r^ri ^r, tko^ i, ifh muddy feet. Now

  stood on that chair w

  why was that?"

  He shook his head.- , r i u

  "w/^nr t,r^ . when you found her, What time was it

  Miss Leonides?" p.

  "Tt ^^ot i, i- ^n Ilve minutes past it must have be^ "

  one."

  "And your Nannie saw hergolng out

  about twenty minuted earher- wh0 wasthe

  la
  in the wash house?"

  "I've no idea. Probably Josephine herself.

  Josephine was swinging on the door this

  morning after breakfast, I know."

  Taverner nodded.

  "So between then and a quarter to one

  someone set the trap. You say that bit of

  marble is the door stop you use for the

  front door? Any idea when that was

  missing?"

  Sophia shook her head.

  "The door hasn't been propped open at

  all to-day. It's been too cold."

  "Any idea where everyone was all the

  morning?" ?

  "I went out for a walk. Eustace and

  Josephine did lessons until half past twelve

  ? with a break at half past ten. Father 5 I

  think, has been in the library all the

  morning."

  "Your mother?"

  "She was just coming out of her bedroom

  when I came in from my walk ? that was

  about a quarter past twelve. She doesn't get

  up very early."

  We re-entered the house. I followed

  Sophia to the library. Philip 5 looking white

  and haggard, sat in his usual chair. Magda

  crouched against his knees, crying quietly.

  Sophia asked:

  "Have they telephoned yet from the

  hospital?"

  Philip shook his head.

  Magda sobbed:

  "Why wouldn't they let me go with her?

  My baby -- my funny ugly baby. And I

  used to call her a changeling and make her

  so angry. How could I be so cruel? And

  now she'll die. I know she'll die."

  "Hush, my dear," said Philip. "Hush."

  I felt that I had no place in this family

  scene of anxiety and grief. I withdrew

  quietly and went to find Nannie. She was

  sitting in the kitchen crying quietly.

  "It's a judgement on me, Mr. Charles,

  for the hard things I've been thinking. A

  judgement, that's what it is."

  I did not try and fathom her meaning.

  "There's wickedness in this house. That's

  what there is. I didn't wish to see it or

  believe it. But seeing's believing. Somebody

  killed the master and the same somebody

  must have tried to kill Josephine."

  "Why should they try and kill Josephine?"

  Nannie removed a corner of her handkerchief

  from her eye and gave me a shrewd

  glance.

  "You know well enough what she was

  like, Mr. Charles. She liked to know things.

  She was always like that, even as a tiny

  thing. Used to hide under the dinner table br />
  and listen to the maids talking and then

  she'd hold it over them. Made her feel

  important. You see, she was passed over,

  as it were, by the mistress. She wasn't a

  handsome child, like the other two. She

  was always a plain little thing. A changeling,

  the mistress used to call her. I blame the

  mistress for that, for it's my belief it turned

  the child sour. But in a funny sort of way

  she got her own back by finding out things

  about people and letting them know she

  knew them. But it isn't safe to do that

  when there's a poisoner about!"

  No, it hadn't been safe. And that brought

  something else to my mind. I asked Nannie:

  "Do you know where she kept a little black

  book ? a notebook of some kind where

  she used to write down things?"

  "I know what you mean, Mr. Charles.

  Very sly about it, she was. I've seen her

  sucking her pencil and writing in the book

  and sucking her pencil again. And 'don't

  do that,' I'd say, 'you'll get lead poisoning'

  and 'oh no, I shan't,' she said, 'because it

  isn't really lead in a pencil. It's carbon,

  though I don't see how that could be so,

  for if you call a thing a lead pencil it stands

  to reason that that's because there's lead in

  '^ 5? It.

  "You'd think so," I agreed. "But as a

  matter of fact she was right." (Josephine

  was always right!) "What about this notebook?

  Do you know where she kept it?"

  "I've no idea at all, sir. It was one of the

  things she was sly about."

  "She hadn't got it with her when she was found?"

  "Oh no, Mr. Charles, there was no

  notebook."

  Had someone taken the notebook? Or

  had she hidden it in her own room? The

  idea came to me to look and see. I was not

  sure which Josephine's room was, but as I

  stood hesitating in the passage Taverner's

  voice called me:

  "Come in here," he said. "I'm in the

  kid's room. Did you ever see such a

  sight?"

  I stepped over the threshold and stopped

  dead.

  The small room looked as though it had

  been visited by a tornado. The drawers of

  the chest of drawers were pulled out and

  their contents scattered on the floor. The

  niattress and bedding had been pulled from

  the small bed. The rugs were tossed into

  heaps. The chairs had been turned upside

  down 5 the pictures taken down from the

  wall, the photographs wrenched out of their

  tfqi-ppO

  "Good Lord," I exclaimed. "What was the big idea?" i

  "What do you think?"

  "Someone was looking for something."

  "Exactly."

  I looked round and whistled.

  "But who on earth -- Surely nobody

  could come in here and do all this and not

  be heard -- or seen?"

  "Why not? Mrs. Leonides spends the

  morning in her bedroom doing her nails

  and ringing up her friends on the telephone

  and playing with her clothes. Philip sits in

  the library browsing over books. The nurse

  woman is in the kitchen peeling potatoes

  and stringing beans. In a family that knows

  each other's habits it would be easy enough.

  And I'll tell you this. Anyone in the house

  could have done our little job -- could have

  set the trap for the child and wrecked her

  room. But it was someone in a hurry? someone who hadn't the time to search

  quietly."

  "Anvone in the house, you say?"

  "Yes, I've checked up. Everyone has

  some time or other unaccounted for. Philip,

  Magda, the nurse, your girl. The same

  upstairs. Brenda spent most of the morning

  alone. Laurence and Eustace had a half

  hour break ? from ten thirty to eleven ?

  you were with them part of that time ?

  but not all of it. Miss de Haviland was

  in the garden alone. Roger was in his

  study."

  "Only Clemency was in London at her

  job."

  "No, even she isn't out of it. She stayed

  at home today with a headache ? she was

  alone in her room having that headache.

  Any of them ? any blinking one of them!

  And I don't know which! I've no idea. If

  I knew what they were looking for in

  here ?"

  His eyes went round the wrecked room.

  "And if I knew whether they'd found

  it

  ?1*-. ...

  Something stirred in my brain ? a

  memory ...

  Taverner clinched it by asking me:

  "What was the kid doing when you last

  saw her?"

  "Wait," I said.

  ?. I dashed out of the room and up the

  stairs. I passed through the left hand door

  and went up to the top floor. I pushed open

  the door of the cistern room, mounted the

  two steps and bending my head, since the

  ceiling was low and sloping, I looked round

  me.

  Josephine had said when I asked her

  what she was doing there that she was

  "detecting."

  I didn't see what there could be to detect

  in a cobwebby attic full of water tanks. But

  such an attic would make a good hiding

  place. I considered it probable that Josephine

  had been hiding something there, something that she knew quite well she had

  no business to have. If so, it oughtn't to

  take long to find it.

  It took me just three minutes. Tucked

  away behind the largest tank, from the

  interior of which a sibilant hissing added

  an eerie note to the atmosphere, I found a packet of letters wrapped in a torn piece of

  brown paper.

  I read the first letter.

  Oh Laurence -- my darling, my own

  dear love ... It was wonderful last

  night when you quoted that verse of

  t Vnpw it was meant for me,

  though you didn't look at me. Aristide

  said, "You read verse well." He didn't

  guess what we were both feeling. My

  darling, I feel convinced that soon

  everything will come right. We shall be

  glad that he never knew, that he died

  happy. He's been good to me. I don't

  want him to suffer. But I don't really

  think that it can be any pleasure to live

  after you're eighty. I shouldn't want to!

  Soon we shall be together for always.

  How wonderful it will be when I can

  say to you: My dear dear husband

  .... Dearest, we were made for each

  other. I love you, love you, love you ?

  I can see no end to our love, I ?

  There was a good deal more, but I had

  no wish to go on.

  Grimly I went downstairs and thrust my

  parcel into Taverner's hands.

  "It's possible," I said, "that that's what

  our unknown friend was looking for."

  Taverner read a few passages, whistled

  and shuffled through the various letters.

  Then he looked at me with the e
xpression

  of a cat who has been fed with the best

  cream.

  "Well," he said softly. "This pretty well

  cooks Mrs. Brenda Leonides's goose. And

  Mr. Laurence Brown's. So it was them, all

  the time. ..."

  Nineteen

  It seems odd to me, looking back, how

  suddenly and completely my pity and

  sympathy for Brenda Leonides vanished

  with the discovery of her letters, the letters

  she had written to Laurence Brown. Was

  my vanity unable to stand up to the

  revelation that she loved Laurence Brown

  with a doting and sugarly infatuation and

  had deliberately lied to me? I don't know.

  I'm not a psychologist. I prefer to believe

  that it was the thought of the child

  Josephine, struck down in ruthless self

  preservation that dried up the springs of

  my sympathy.

  "Brown fixed that booby trap, if you ask

  me," said Taverner, "and it explains what

  puzzled me about it."

  "What did puzzle you?"

  "Well, it was such a sappy thing to do.

  Look here, say the kid's got hold of these

  letters -- letters that are absolutely damning! The first thing to do is to try and get

  them back ? (after all, if the kid talks

  about them, but has got nothing to show,

  it can be put down as mere romancing) but

  you can't get them back because you can't

  find them. Then the only thing to do is to

  put the kid out of action for good. You've

  done one murder and you're not squeamish

  about doing another. You know she's fond

  of swinging on a door in a disused yard.

  The ideal thing to do is wait behind the

  door and lay her out as she comes through

  with a poker, or an iron bar, or a nice bit

  of hose-pipe. They're all there ready to

  hand. Why fiddle about with a marble lion

  perched on top of a door which is as likely

  as not to miss her altogether and which

  even if it does fall on her may not do the

  job properly (which actually is how it turns

  out)? I ask you ? why?"

  "Well," I said, "what's the answer?"

  "The only idea I got to begin with was

  that it was intended to tie in with someone's

  alibi. Somebody would have a nice fat alibi

  for the time when Josephine was being

  slugged. But that doesn't wash because, to

  begin with, nobody seems to have any kind

  of alibi, and secondly someone's bound to

  look for the child at lunchtime, and they'll

  find the booby trap and the marble b100^3

  the whole modus operand! will be ^u1 e

  plain to see. Of course, if the murder^

  removed the block before the chiP was

  found, then we might have been pu22 ,'

  But as it is the whole thing just d068111

  make sense."

  He stretched out his hands. .,?

  ' ?"i
  "And what's your present explanat^01

  "The personal element. Personal id^05^"

  crasy. Laurence Brown's idiosyncrasy- e

  doesn't like violence ? he can't Iorce

  himself to do physical violence. He [[i^ y

  couldn't have stood behind the doo^ an

  socked the kid on the head. He cou^ n^

  -*- c f^f~^

  up a booby trap and go away and n^1

  it happen."

  "Yes, I see," I said slowly. "It^. me

  eserine in the insulin bottle all over a^^11'

  "Exactly."

  "Do you think he did that w^0^

  Brenda's knowing?"

  "It would explain why she didn't /throw

  away the insulin bottle. Of course, y

  /~T*

  may have fixed it up between them ~^~. ,

  she may have thought up the poison trlcK

  all by herself ? a nice easy death fc^ er

  tired old husband and all for the b^1 m

  the best of possible worlds! But I b^ she

  didn't fix the booby trap. Women never

  have any faith in mechanical things working

  properly. And are they right. I think myself

  the eserine was her idea, but that she made

  her besotted slave do the switch. She's the

  kind that usually manages to avoid doing

  anything equi vocable themselves. Then they

  keep a nice happy conscience."

  He paused then went on:

  "With these letters I think the D.P.P.

  will say we have a case. They'll take a bit

  of explaining away! Then 5 if the kid gets

  through all right everything in the garden

  will be lovely." He gave me a sideways

  glance. "How does it feel to be engaged to

  about a million pounds sterling?"

  I winced. In the excitement of the last

  few hours, I had forgotten the developments

  about the will.

  "Sophia doesn't know yet," I said. "Do

  you want me to tell her?"

  "I understand Gaitskill is going to break

  the sad (or glad) news after the inquest

  tomorrow." Taverner paused and looked at

  me thoughtfully.

  "I wonder," he said, "what the reactions

  will be from the family?"

  Twenty

  The inquest went off much as I had prophesied.

  It was adjourned at the request of

  the police.

  We were in good spirits for news had

  come through the night before from the

  hospital that Josephine's injuries were much

  less serious than had been feared and that

  her recovery would be rapid. For the

  moment. Dr. Gray said, she was to be

  allowed no visitors -- not even her mother.

  "Particularly not her mother," Sophia

  murmured to me. "I made that quite clear

  to Dr. Gray. Anyway, he knows Mother."

  I must have looked rather doubtful for

  Sophia said sharply:

  "Why the disapproving look?"

  "Well -- surely a mother --"

  "I'm glad you've got a few nice old