Crooked House

"Oh no," she said. "It isn't a rotten idea

  at all. It's the only thing that might be any

  good. Your father, Charles, knows exactly

  what's been going on in my mind. He

  knows better than you do."

  With sudden almost despairing vehemence, she drove one clenched hand into

  the palm of the other.

  "I've got to have the truth. I've got to

  know."

  "Because of us? But, dearest --"

  "Not only because of us, Charles. I've

  got to know for my own peace of mind.

  You see, Charles, I didn't tell you last night

  -- but the truth is -- I'm afraid."

  "Afraid?"

  "Yes -- afraid -- afraid -- afraid. The

  police think, your father thinks, everybody

  thinks -- that it was Brenda."

  "The probabilities --"

  "Oh yes, it's quite probable. It's possible.

  But when I say, 'Brenda probably did it'

  I'm quite conscious that it's only wishful

  thinking. Because, you see, I don't really

  think so." ^

  "You don't think so?" I said slowly.

  "I don't know. You've heard about it all

  from the outside as I wanted you to. Now

  I'll show it to you from the inside. I simply

  don't feel that Brenda is that kind of a

  person ? she's not the sort of person, I

  a feel, who would ever do anything that might

  involve her in any danger. She's far too

  careful of herself."

  "How about this young man? Laurence

  Brown."

  "Laurence is a complete rabbit. He

  wouldn't have the guts." ^

  "I wonder."

  "Yes, we don't really know, do we? I

  mean, people are capable of surprising one

  frightfully. One gets an idea of them into

  one's head, and sometimes it's absolutely

  wrong. Not always ? but sometimes. But

  all the same, Brenda ?" she shook her

  head ? "she's always acted so completely

  in character. She's what I call the harem

  type. Likes sitting about and eating sweets

  and having nice clothes and jewellery and

  reading cheap novels and going to the

  cinema. And it's a queer thing to say, when

  one remembers that he was eighty five, but

  I really think she was rather thrilled by

  grandfather. He had a power, you know. I

  should imagine he could make a woman

  feel ? oh ? rather like a queen ? the

  Sultan's favourite! I think -- I've always

  thought -- that he made Brenda feel as

  though she were an exciting romantic

  person. He's been clever with women all

  his life -- and that kind of thing is a sort

  of art -- you don't lose the knack of it, however old you are."

  p I left the problem of Brenda for the

  (homent and harked back to a phrase of

  Sophia's which had disturbed me.

  "Why did you say," I asked, "that you were afraid?" a

  Sophia shivered a little and pressed her

  hands together.

  I? "Because it's true," she said in a low

  voice. "It's very important, Charles, that I

  should make you understand this. You see, we're a very queer family . . . There's a

  lot of ruthlessness in us -- and -- different

  kinds of ruthlessness. That's what's so

  disturbing. The different kinds."

  She must have seen incomprehension in

  my face. She went on, speaking energetically.

  "I'll try and make what I mean clear.

  Grandfather, for instance. Once when he

  was telling us about his boyhood in Smyrna, he mentioned, quite casually, that he had

  stabbed two men. It was some kind of a

  brawl -- there had been some unforgivable

  insult -- I don't know -- but it was just a

  thing that had happened quite naturally.

  He'd really practically forgotten about it.

  But it was, somehow, such a queer thing

  to hear about, quite casually, in England."

  I nodded.

  "That's one kind of ruthlessness," went

  on Sophia, "and then there was my grandmother.

  I only just remember her, but I've

  heard a good deal about her. I think she

  might have had the ruthlessness that comes

  from having no imagination whatever. All

  those foxhunting forbears -- and the old

  Generals, the shoot 'em down type. Full of

  rectitude and arrogance, and not a bit afraid

  of taking responsibility in matters of life

  and death."

  "Isn't that a bit far fetched?"

  "Yes, I daresay -- but I'm always rather

  afraid of that type. It's full of rectitude but

  it is ruthless. And then there's my own

  mother -- she's an actress -- she's a darling, but she's got absolutely no sense of proportion.

  She's one of those unconscious egoists

  who can only see things in relation as to

  how it affects them. That's rather frightening, sometimes, you know. And there's

  Clemency, Uncle Roger's wife. She's a

  scientist -- she's doing some kind of very

  important research -- she's ruthless too, in

  a kind of coldblooded impersonal way.

  Uncle Roger's the exact opposite -- he's

  the kindest and most lovable person in the

  world, but he's got a really terrific temper.

  Things make his blood boil and then he

  hardly knows what he's doing. And there's

  father--"

  She made a long pause.

  "Father," she said slowly, "is almost too

  well controlled. You never know what he's

  thinking. He never shows any emotion at

  all. It's probably a kind of unconscious self

  defence against mother's absolute orgies of

  emotion, but sometimes -- it worries me a

  I little."

  "My dear child," I said, "you're working

  yourself up unnecessarily. What it comes

  to in the end is that everybody, perhaps, is

  B capable of murder."

  "I suppose that's true. Even me."

  "Not you!"

  "Oh yes, Charles, you can't make me an

  exception. I suppose I could murder someone

  . . ." She was silent a moment or two,

  then added, "But if so, it would have to be

  for something really worth while!"

  | I laughed then. I couldn't help it. And

  Sophia smiled.

  "Perhaps I'm a fool," she said, "but

  we've got to find out the truth about

  grandfather's death. We've got to. If only

  it was Brenda ..."

  I felt suddenly rather sorry for Brenda

  Leonides.

  jsaa

  ^t
  Five

  Along the path towards us came a tall figure

  walking briskly. It had on a battered old

  felt hat, a shapeless skirt 5 and a rather

  cumbersome jersey.

  "Aunt Edith," said Sophia.

  The figure paused once or twice, stooping

  to the flower borders, then it advanced

  upon us. I rose to my feet.

  "This is Charles Hayward, Aunt Edith.

  My aunt. Miss de Haviland."

  Edith de Haviland was a woman of about

  seventy. She had a mass of untidy grey

  hair, a weather beaten face and a sh
rewd

  and piercing glance.

  "How d'ye do?" she said. "I've heard

  about you. Back from the East. How's your

  father?"

  Rather surprised, I said he was very well.

  "Knew him when he was a boy," said

  Miss de Haviland. "Knew his mother very

  well. You look rather like her. Have you

  come to help us -- or the other thing?"

  "I hope to help," I said rather uncomfortably.

  She nodded.

  "We could do with some help. Place

  swarming with policemen. Pop out at you

  all over the place. Don't like some of the

  types. A boy who's been to a decent school

  oughtn't to go into the police. Saw Moyra

  Kinoul's boy the other day holding up the

  traffic at Marble Arch. Makes you feel you

  don't know where you are!"

  She turned to Sophia:

  "Nannie's asking for you, Sophia. Fish."

  "Bother," said Sophia. "I'll go and

  telephone about it." T

  She walked briskly towards the house.

  Miss de Haviland turned and walked slowly

  in the same direction. I fell into step beside

  her.

  "Don't know what we'd all do without

  Nannies," said Miss de Haviland. "Nearly

  everybody's got an old Nannie. They come

  back and wash and iron and cook and do

  housework. Faithful. Chose this one myself

  -- years ago."

  She stooped and pulled viciously at an

  entangling twining bit of green.

  "Hateful stuff-- bindweed! Worst weed

  there is! Choking, entangling -- and you

  can't get at it properly, runs along underground."

  With her heel she ground the handful of

  greenstuff viciously underfoot.

  "This is a bad business, Charles Hayward,"

  she said. She was looking towards

  the house. "What do the police think about

  it? Suppose I mustn't ask you that. Seems

  odd to think of Aristide being poisoned.

  For that matter it seems odd to think of

  him being dead. I never liked him -- never!

  But I can't get used to the idea of his being

  dead . . . Makes the house seem so --

  empty."

  I said nothing. For all her curt way of

  speech, Edith de Haviland seemed in a

  reminiscent mood.

  "Was thinking this morning -- I've lived

  here a long time. Over forty years. Came

  here when my sister died. He asked me to.

  Seven children -- and the youngest only a

  year old ... Couldn't leave 'em to be

  brought up by a dago, could I? An

  impossible marriage, of course. I always felt

  Marcia must have been -- well -- bewitched.

  Ugly common little foreigner! He

  gave me a free hand -- I will say that.

  Nurses, governesses, schools. And proper

  wholesome nursery food ? not those queer

  spiced rice dishes he used to eat."

  "And you've been here ever since?" I

  murmured.

  "Yes. Queer in a way ... I could have

  left, I suppose, when the children grew up

  and married ... I suppose, really, I'd got

  interested in the garden. And then there

  was Philip. If a man marries an actress he

  can't expect to have any home life. Don't

  know why actresses have children. As soon

  as a baby's born they rush off and play in

  Repertory in Edinburgh or somewhere as

  remote as possible. Philip did the sensible

  thing ? moved in here with his books."

  "What does Philip Leonides do?" ^

  "Writes books. Can't think why. Nobody ?

  wants to read them. All about obscure

  historical details. You've never even heard

  of them, have you?"

  I admitted it.

  "Too much money, that's what he's had,"

  said Miss de Haviland. "Most people have

  to stop being cranks and earn a living."

  "Don't his books pay?"

  "Of course not. He's supposed to be a

  great authority on certain periods and all

  that. But he doesn't have to make his books

  pay ? Aristide settled something like a I

  hundred thousand pounds -- something

  quite fantastic -- on him! To avoid death

  duties! Aristide made them all financially

  independent. Roger runs Associated Catering

  -- Sophia has a very handsome allowance.

  The children's money is in trust for

  them."

  "So no one gains particularly by his

  death?"

  She threw me a strange glance.

  "Yes, they do. They all get more money.

  But they could probably have had it, if they

  asked for it, anyway."

  "Have you any idea who poisoned him, Miss de Haviland?"

  She replied characteristically: fer

  "No, indeed I haven't. It's upset me very

  much! Not nice to think one has a Borgia

  sort of person loose about the house. I

  suppose the police will fasten on poor

  Brenda."

  "You don't think they'll be right in doing

  so?"

  "I simply can't tell. She's always seemed

  to me a singularly stupid and commonplace

  young woman -- rather conventional. Not

  my idea of a poisoner. Still, after all, if a

  young woman of twenty four marries a man

  close on eighty, it's fairly obvious that she's

  marrying him for his money. In the normal

  course of events she could have expected

  to become a rich widow fairly soon. But

  Aristide was a singularly tough old man.

  His diabetes wasn't getting any worse. He

  really looked like living to be a hundred. I

  suppose she got tired of waiting . . ." "In that case," I said, and stopped.

  "In that case," said Miss de Haviland . briskly, "it will be more or less all right.

  Annoying publicity, of course. But after all,

  she isn't one of the family."

  "You've no other ideas?" I asked.

  "What other ideas should I have?"

  I wondered. I had a suspicion that there

  might be more going on under the battered

  felt hat than I knew. |

  Behind the jerky, almost disconnected

  utterance, there was, I thought, a very

  shrewd brain at work. Just for a moment I

  even wondered whether Miss de Haviland

  had poisoned Aristide Leonides herself.

  . . .

  It did not seem an impossible idea. At

  the back of my mind was the way she had

  ground the bindweed into the soil with her

  heel with a kind of vindictive thoroughness.

  I remembered the word Sophia had used.

  Ruthlessness. |

  I stole a sideways glance at Edith de

  Haviland.

  Given good and sufficient reason. . . .

  But what exactly would seem to Edith de

  Haviland good and sufficient reason?

  To answer that, I should have to know

  her better.

  m

  h

  Six

  The front door was open. We passed through

  it into a rather surprisingly spacious hall.

  It was furnished with restraint ? wellpolished

  dark oak and gleaming brass
. At

  the back, where the staircase would normally

  appear, was a white panelled wall with a

  door in it.

  "My brother-in-law's part of the house,"

  said Miss de Haviland. "The ground floor

  is Philip and Magda's."

  We went through a doorway on the left

  into a large drawing room. It had pale blue

  panelled walls, furniture covered in heavy

  brocade, and on every available table and

  on the walls were hung photographs and

  pictures of actors, dancers and stage scenes

  and designs. A Degas of ballet dancers hung

  over the mantelpiece. There were masses of

  flowers, enormous brown chrysanthemums

  and great vases of carnations.

  "I suppose," said Miss de Haviland,

  "that you want to see Philip?"

  Did I want to see Philip? I had no idea.

  All I had wanted to do was to see Sophia.

  That I had done. She had given emphatic

  encouragement to the Old Man's plan ?

  but she had now receded from the scene

  and was presumably somewhere telephoning

  about fish, having given me no indication

  of how to proceed. Was I to approach Philip

  Leonides as a young man anxious to marry

  his daughter, or as a casual friend who had

  dropped in (surely not at such a moment!)

  or as an associate of the police?

  Miss de Haviland gave me no time to

  consider her question. It was, indeed, not

  a question at all, but more an assertion.

  I Miss de Haviland, I judged, was more

  inclined to assert than to question.

  "We'll go to the library," she said. ^

  She led me out of the drawing room,

  along a corridor and in through another

  door.

  It was a big room, full of books. The

  books did not confine themselves to the

  bookcases that reached up to the ceiling.

  They were on chairs and tables and even

  on the floor. And yet there was no sense of

  disarray about them.

  The room was cold. There was some

  smell absent in it that I was conscious of

  having expected. It smelt of the mustiness

  of old books and just a little of beeswax. In

  a second or two I realised what I missed.

  It was the scent of tobacco. Philip Leonides

  was not a smoker.

  He got up from behind his table as we

  entered -- a tall man aged somewhere

  around fifty, an extraordinarily handsome

  man. Everyone had laid so much emphasis

  on the ugliness of Aristide Leonides, that

  for some reason I expected his son to be

  ugly too. Certainly I was not prepared for

  this perfection of feature -- the straight

  nose, the flawless line of jaw, the fair hair

  touched with grey that swept back from a

  well shaped forehead.

  "This is Charles Hayward, Philip," said

  Edith de Haviland.

  "Ah, how do you do?"

  I could not tell if he had ever heard of

  me. The hand he gave me was cold. His

  face was quite incurious. It made me rather

  nervous. He stood there, patient and uninterested.

  "Where are those awful policemen?"

  demanded Miss de Haviland. "Have they

  been in here?"

  "I believe Chief Inspector --" (he glanced

  down at a card on the desk) "er -- Taverner

  is coming to talk to me presently."

  "Where is he now?"

  "I've no idea. Aunt Edith. Upstairs, I

  suppose."

  "With Brenda?"

  "I really don't know."

  Looking at Philip Leonides, it seemed

  quite impossible that a murder could have

  been committed anywhere in his vicinity.

  "Is Magda up yet?"

  "I don't know. She's not usually up

  before eleven."

  "That sounds like her," said Edith de

  Haviland.

  What sounded like Mrs. Philip Leonides

  was a high voice talking very rapidly and

  approaching very fast. The door behind me

  burst open and a woman came in. I don't

  know how she managed to give the impression

  of its being three women rather than

  one who entered.

  She was smoking a cigarette in a long- holder and was wearing a peach satin.

  negligee which she was holding up with one

  hand. A cascade of Titian hair rippled down- her back. Her face had that almost shocking- air of nudity that a woman's has nowadays- when it is not made up at all. Her eyes

  were blue and enormous and she was talking

  very rapidly in a husky rather attractive

  voice with a very clear enunciation.

  "Darling, I can't stand it ? I simply

  can't stand it ? just think of the notices

  ? it isn't in the papers yet, but of course

  it will be ? and I simply can't make up

  my mind what I ought to wear at the

  inquest ? very very subdued? ? not black

  though, perhaps dark purple ? and I |

  simply haven't got a coupon left ? I've lost .

  the address of that dreadful man who sells

  them to me ? you know, the garage

  somewhere near Shaftesbury Avenue ? and s

  if I went up there in the car the police

  would follow me, and they might ask the

  most awkward questions, mightn't they? I |

  mean, what could one say? How calm you

  are, Philip! How can you be so calm? Don't

  you realise we can leave this awful house

  now. Freedom ? freedom! Oh, how unkind

  ? the poor old Sweetie ? of course we'd

  never have left him while he was alive. He

  really did dote on us, didn't he ? in spite

  of all the trouble that woman upstairs tried

  to make between us. I'm quite sure that if

  we had gone away and left him to her, he'd