Crooked House

trees look with their bare branches against

  the sky ? and just a golden leaf or two

  still hanging . . ."

  She was silent a moment or two, then

  she turned and kissed Sophia.

  "Goodbye, dear," she said. "Don't worry

  too much. Certain things have to be faced

  and endured."

  Then she said, "Come, Josephine," and

  got into the car. Josephine climbed in beside

  her.

  They both waved as the car drove off.

  "I suppose she's right, and it's better to

  keep Josephine out of this for a while. But

  we've got to make that child tell what she

  knows, Sophia."

  "She probably doesn't know anything.

  She's just showing off. Josephine likes to

  make herself look important, you know."

  "It's more than that. Do they know what

  poison it was in the cocoa?"

  "They think it's digitalin. Aunt Edith

  takes digitalin for her heart. She has a

  whole bottle full of little tablets up in her

  room. Now the bottle's empty."

  "She ought to keep things like that locked

  up."

  "She did. I suppose it wouldn't be

  difficult for someone to find out where she

  hid the key."

  "Someone? Who?" I looked again at the

  pile of luggage. I said suddenly and loudly:

  "They can't go away. They mustn't be

  allowed to."

  Sophia looked surprised.

  "Roger and Clemency? Charles, you don't

  think ?"

  "Well, what do you think?"

  Sophia stretched out her hands in a

  helpless gesture.

  "I don't know, Charles," she whispered.

  "I only know that I'm back ? back in the

  nightmare ?"

  "I know. Those were the very words I

  used to myself as I drove down with

  Taverner."

  "Because this is just what a nightmare

  is. Walking about among people you know,

  looking in their faces ? and suddenly the

  faces change ? and it's not someone you

  know any longer ? it's a stranger ? a

  cruel stranger. ..."

  She cried:

  "Come outside, Charles ? come outside.

  It's safer outside . . . I'm afraid to stay in

  this house. . . ."

  Twenty-five

  We stayed in the garden a long time. By a

  kind of tacit consent, we did not discuss

  the horror that was weighing upon us.

  Instead Sophia talked affectionately of the

  dead woman, of things they had done, and

  games they had played as children with

  Nannie -- and tales that the old woman

  used to tell them about Roger and their

  father and the other brothers and sisters.

  "They were her real children, you see.

  She only came back to us to help during

  the war when Josephine was a baby and

  Eustace was a funny little boy."

  There was a certain balm for Sophia in

  these memories and I encouraged her to

  talk.

  I wondered what Taverner was doing.

  Questioning the household, I suppose. A

  car drove away with the police photographer

  and two other men, and presently an ambulance

  drove up. ^

  Sophia shivered a little. Presently the

  ambulance left and we knew that Nannie's

  body had been taken away in preparation

  for an autopsy.

  And still we sat or walked in the garden

  and talked ? our words becoming more

  and more of a cloak for our real thoughts.

  Finally, with a shiver, Sophia said:

  "It must be very late ? it's almost dark.

  We've got to go in. Aunt Edith and Josephine

  haven't come back . . . Surely they

  ought to be back by now?" (

  A vague uneasiness woke in me. What

  had happened? Was Edith deliberately

  keeping the child away from the Crooked

  House?

  We went in. Sophia drew all the curtains.

  The fire was lit and the big drawing room

  looked harmonious with an unreal air of

  bygone luxury. Great bowls of bronze

  chrysanthemums stood on the tables.

  Sophia rang and a maid who I recognised

  as having been formerly upstairs brought

  in tea. She had red eyes and sniffed

  continuously. Also I noticed that she had a

  frightened way of glancing quickly over her

  shoulder.

  Magda joined us, but Philip's tea was

  sent in to him in the library. Magda's role

  was a stiff frozen image of grief. She spoke

  little or not at all. She said once:

  "Where are Edith and Josephine? They're

  out very late."

  But she said it in a preoccupied kind of

  way.

  But I myself was becoming increasingly

  uneasy. I asked if Taverner were still in the

  house and Magda replied that she thought

  so. I went in search of him. I told him that

  I was worried about Miss de Haviland and

  the child.

  He went immediately to the telephone

  and gave certain instructions.

  "I'll let you know when I have news,"

  he said.

  I thanked him and went back to the

  drawing room. Sophia was there with Eustace.

  Magda had gone.

  "He'll let us know if he hears anything,"

  I said to Sophia.

  She said in a low voice:

  "Something's happened, Charles, something

  must have happened."

  "My dear Sophia, it's not really late yet."

  "What are you bothering about?" said

  Eustace. "They've probably gone to the

  cinema."

  He lounged out of the room. I said to

  Sophia: "She may have taken Josephine to

  a hotel -- or up to London. I think she

  fully realised that the child was in danger

  -- perhaps she realised it better than we

  did."

  Sophia replied with a sombre look that I

  could not quite fathom.

  "She kissed me goodbye. ..."

  I did not see quite what she meant by

  that disconnected remark, or what it was

  r supposed to show. I asked if Magda was

  worried.

  "Mother? No, she's all right. She's no

  sense of time. She's reading a new play of

  Vavasour Jones called 'The Woman Disposes5.

  It's a funny play about murder -- a

  | female Bluebeard -- cribbed from 'Arsenic

  and Old Lace' if you ask me, but it's got a

  good woman's part, a woman who's got a

  mania for being a widow."

  I said no more. We sat, pretending to

  read.

  I It was half past six when Taverner opened

  the door and came in. His face prepared us

  for what he had to say.

  Sophia got up.

  "Yes?" she said.

  "I'm sorry. I've got bad news for you. I

  sent out a general alarm for the car. A

  motorist reported having seen a Ford car

  with a number something like that turning

  off the main road at Flackspur Heath ?

  through the woods."

  "Not ? the track to the Flackspur

>   Quarry?"

  "Yes, Miss Leonides." He paused and

  went on: "The car's been found in the

  quarry. Both the occupants were dead.

  You'll be glad to know they were killed

  outright."

  "Josephine!" It was Magda standing in

  the doorway. Her voice rose in a wail.

  "Josephine . . . My baby."

  Sophia went to her and put her arms

  round her. I said: "Wait a minute."

  I had remembered something! Edith de

  Haviland writing a couple of letters at the

  desk, going out into the hall with them in

  her hand.

  But they had not been in her hand when

  she got into the car.

  I dashed out into the hall and went to

  the long oak chest. I found the letters ?

  pushed inconspicuously to the back behind

  a brass tea urn.

  The uppermost was addressed to Chief

  Inspector Taverner.

  Taverner had followed me. I handed the

  letter to him and he tore it open. Standing

  beside him I read its brief contents.

  k My expectation is that this will be

  opened after my death. I wish to enter

  into no details, but I accept full responsibility

  for the deaths of my brother-inlaw

  Aristide Leonides and Janet Rowe

  B (Nannie). I hereby solemnly declare that

  Brenda Leonides and Laurence Brown

  are innocent of the murder of Aristide

  Leonides. Enquiry of Dr Michael Chavasse, 783 Harley Street will confirm

  that my life could only have been

  prolonged for a few months. I prefer to

  take this way out and to spare two

  innocent people the ordeal of being

  charged with a murder they did not

  commit. I am of sound mind and fully

  conscious of what I write.

  Edith Elfrida de Haviland.

  As I finished the letter I was aware that

  Sophia, too, had read it -- whether with

  Taverner's concurrence or not, I don't

  know.

  "Aunt Edith .t". ." murmured Sophia.

  I remembered Edith de Haviland's ruthless

  foot grinding bindweed into the earth.

  I remembered my early, almost fanciful, suspicions of her. But why --

  Sophia spoke the thought in my mind

  before I came to it.

  "But why Josephine? Why did she take

  Josephine with her?"

  "Why did she do it at all?" I demanded.

  "What was her motive?"

  But even as I said that, I knew the truth.

  I saw the whole thing clearly. I realised

  that I was still holding her second letter in

  my hand. I looked down and saw my own

  name on it.

  It was thicker and harder than the other

  one. I think I knew what was in it before I

  opened it. I tore the envelope along and

  Josephine's little black notebook fell out. I

  picked it up off the floor -- it came open

  in my hand and I saw the entry on the first

  page . . .

  Sounding from a long way away, I heard

  Sophia's voice, clear and self controlled.

  "We've got it all wrong," she said. "Edith

  didn't do it."

  "No," I said.

  Sophia came closer to me -- she whispered:

  "It was -- Josephine -- wasn't it? That

  was it, Josephine." j

  Together we looked down on the first

  entry in the little black book, written in an

  unformed childish hand.

  "Today I killed grandfather"

  Twenty-six

  I was to wonder afterwards that I could

  have been so blind. The truth had stuck

  out so clearly all along. Josephine and only

  Josephine fitted in with all the necessary

  qualifications. Her vanity, her persistent

  self importance, her delight in talking, her

  reiteration on how clever she was, and how

  stupid the police were.

  I had never considered her because she

  was a child. But children have committed

  murders, and this particular murder had

  been well within a child's compass. Her

  grandfather himself had indicated the precise

  method -- he had practically handed

  her a blue print. All she had to do was to

  avoid leaving fingerprints and the slightest

  knowledge of detective fiction would teach

  her that. And everything else had been a

  mere hotch potch, culled at random from

  stock mystery stories. The notebook -- the

  sleuthing -- her pretended suspicions, her

  insistence that she was not going to tell till

  she was sure. . . .

  And finally the attack on herself. An

  almost incredible performance considering

  that she might easily have killed herself.

  But then, childlike, she never considered

  such a possibility. She was the heroine. The

  heroine isn't killed. Yet there had been a

  clue there ? the traces of earth on the seat

  of the old chair in the wash house. Josephine

  k was the only person who would have had

  to climb up on a chair to balance the block

  I of marble on the top of the door. Obviously

  it had missed her more than once, (the

  dints in the floor) and patiently she had

  E - climbed up again and replaced it, handling

  | it with her scarf to avoid fingerprints. And

  I then it had fallen ? and she had had a near

  escape from death.

  It had been the perfect set up ? the

  impression she was aiming for! She was in

  danger, she "knew something," she had

  ? been attacked!

  I saw how that had deliberately drawn

  | my attention to her presence in the cylinder

  I room. And she had completed the artistic

  I disorder of her room before going out to

  the wash house.

  | But when she had returned from hospital,

  when she had found Brenda and Laurence

  arrested, she must have become dissatisfied.

  The case was over -- and she -- Josephine, was out of the lime light.

  So she stole the digitalin from Edith's

  room and put it in her own cup of cocoa

  and left the cup untouched on the hall

  table.

  Did she know that Nannie would drink

  it? Possibly. From her words that morning, she had resented Nannie's criticisms of her.

  Did Nannie, perhaps, wise from a lifetime

  of experience with children, suspect? I think

  that Nannie knew, had always known, that

  Josephine was not normal. With her precocious

  mental development had gone a

  retarded moral sense. Perhaps, too, the

  various factors of heredity -- what Sophia

  had called the "ruthlessness" of the family

  had met together.

  She had had an authoritarian ruthlessness

  of her grandmother's family, and the

  ruthless egoism of Magda, seeing only her

  own point of view. She had also presumably

  suffered, sensitive like Philip, from the

  stigma of being the unattractive -- the

  changeling child -- of the family. Finally, in her very marrow, had run the essential

  crooked strain of old Leonides. She ha
d

  been Leonides's grandchild, she had resembled

  him in brain and in cunning -- but

  his love had gone outwards to family and

  friends, hers had turned to herself.

  I thought that old Leonides had realised

  what none of the rest of the family had

  realised, that Josephine might be a source

  of danger to others and to herself. He had

  kept her from school life because he was

  afraid of what she might do. He had

  shielded her, and guarded her in the home, and I understood now his urgency to Sophia

  to look after Josephine.

  Magda's sudden decision to send Josephine

  abroad had that, too, been due to a

  fear for the child? Not, perhaps, a conscious

  fear, but some vague maternal instinct.

  And Edith de Haviland? Had she first

  suspected, then feared -- and finally known?

  I looked down at the letter in my hand.

  Dear Charles. This is in confidence

  for you -- and for Sophia if you so

  decide. It is imperative that someone

  should know the truth. I found the

  enclosed in the disused dog kennel

  I outside the back door. She kept it

  there. It confirms what I already suspected.

  The action I am about to take

  may be right or wrong ? I do not

  know. But my life, in any case, is close

  to its end, and I do not want the child

  to suffer as I believe she would suffer if

  called to earthly account for what she

  has done.

  There is often one of the litter who is

  "not quite right".

  If I do wrong. God forgive me ? but

  I do it out of love. God bless you both.

  Edith de Haviland

  I hesitated for only a moment, then I

  handed the letter to Sophia. Together we

  again opened Josephine's little black book.

  Today I killed grandfather.

  We turned the pages. It was an amazing

  production. Interesting, I should imagine,

  to a psychologist. It set out, with such

  terrible clarity, the fury of thwarted egoism.

  The motive for the crime was set down,

  pitifully childish and inadequate.

  Grandfather wouldn't let me do bally

  dancing so I made up my mind I would

  kill him. Then we would go to London

  and live and mother wouldn't mind

  me doing bally.

  I give only a few entries. They are all

  significant.

  I don't want to go to Switzerland -- I

  won't go. If mother makes me I will kill

  her too -- only I can't get any poison.

  Perhaps I could make it with youberries.

  They are poisonous, the book says so.

  Eustace has made me very cross to

  day. He says I am only a girl and no use

  and that its silly my detecting. He wouldn't

  think me silly if he knew it was me did

  the murder.

  I like Charles -- but he is rather

  stupid. I have not decided yet who I shall

  make have done the crime. Perhaps

  Brenda and Laurence -- Brenda is nasty

  to me -- she says I am not all there but

  I like Laurence -- he told me about

  Chariot Korday -- she killed someone in

  his bath. She was not very clever about

  it.

  The last entry was revealing.

  I hate Nannie ... I hate her ... I

  hate her . . . She says I am only a little

  girl. She says I show off. She's making

  mother send me abroad . . . I'm going

  to kill her too ? I think Aunt Edith's

  medicine would do it. If there is another

  murder 5 then the police will

  come back and it will all be exciting

  again.

  Nannie's dead. I am glad. I haven't

  decided yet where I'll hide the bottle with

  the little pill things. Perhaps in Aunt

  Clemency's room ? or else Eustace.

  When I am dead as an old woman I shall

  leave this behind me addressed to the

  Chief of the Police and they will see what

  a really great criminal I was.

  I closed the book. Sophia's tears were

  flowing fast.

  "Oh Charles ? oh Charles ? it's so

  dreadful. She's such a little monster ? and

  yet ? and yet it's so terribly pathetic."

  I had felt the same.

  I had liked Josephine ... I still felt a

  fondness for her . . . You do not like

  anyone less because they have tuberculosis

  or some other fatal disease. Josephine was,

  as Sophia had said, a little monster, but she

  was a pathetic little monster. She had been

  born with a kink ? the crooked child of

  the little crooked house.

  Sophia asked:

  "If ? she had lived ? what would have

  happened?"

  "I suppose she would have been sent to

  a reformatory or a special school. Later she

  would have been released ? or possibly

  certified, I don't know."

  Sophia shuddered.

  "It's better the way it is. But Aunt Edith

  ? I don't like to think of her taking the

  blame."

  "She chose to do so. I don't suppose it

  will be made public. I imagine that when

  Brenda and Laurence come to trial, no case

  will be brought against them and they will

  be discharged.

  "And you, Sophia," I said, this time on

  a different note and taking both her hands

  in mine, "will marry me. I've just heard

  I'm appointed to Persia. We will go out

  there together, and you will forget the little

  Crooked House. Your mother can put on

  plays and your father can buy more books

  and Eustace will soon go to a university.

  Don't worry about them any more. Think

  of me."

  Sophia looked at me straight in the

  eyes.

  "Aren't you afraid, Charles, to marry

  me?"

  "Why should I be? In poor little Josephine