Agatha Christie: Crooked House

"Do you like Mr. Laurence Brown?"

"He's very quiet. Quite nice, but you hardly know he's there. I haven't really seen very much of him." r "Is his teaching satisfactory?"

"I suppose so. I really wouldn't know.

Philip seems quite satisfied."

Taverner essayed some shock tactics.

"I'm sorry to ask you this, but in your opinion was there anything in the nature of a love affair between Mr. Brown and Mrs.

Brenda Leonides."

Magda got up. She was very much the grande dame.

"I have never seen any evidence of anything of that kind," she said. "I don't think really. Inspector, that that is a question you ought to ask me. She was my father-in-law's wife."

I almost applauded.

The Chief Inspector also rose.

"More a question for the servants?" he suggested.

Magda did not answer.

"Thank you, Mrs. Leonides," said the

Inspector and went out.

"You did that beautifully, darling," said Sophia to her mother warmly.

Magda twisted up a curl reflectively behind her right ear and looked at herself in the glass.

"Ye-es," she said, "I think it was the right way to play it."

Sophia looked at me.

"Oughtn't you," she asked, "to go with the Inspector?"

"Look here, Sophia, what am I supposed -"

I stopped. I could not very well ask outright in front of Sophia's mother exactly what my role was supposed to be. Magda Leonides had so far evinced no interest in my presence at all, except as a useful recipient of an exit line on daughters. I might be a reporter, her daughter's fiance, or an obscure hanger on of the police force, or even an undertaker - to Magda Leonides they would one and all come under the general heading of audience.

Looking down at her feet, Mrs. Leonides said with dissatisfaction:

"These shoes are wrong. Frivolous."

Obeying Sophia's imperious wave of the head I hurried after Taverner. I caught up with him in the outer hall just going through the door to the stairway.

"Just going up to see the older brother," he explained.

I put my problem to him without more ado.

"Look here, Taverner, who am I supposed to be?" r He looked surprised.

"Who are you supposed to be?" ^ "Yes, what am I doing here in this house?

If anyone asks me, what do I say?"

"Oh I see." He considered a moment.

Then he smiled. "Has anybody asked you?"

"Well - no."

"Then why not leave it at that. Never explain. That's a very good motto. Especially in a house upset like this house is.

Everyone is far too full of their own private worries and fears to be in a questioning mood. They'll take you for granted so long as you just seem sure of yourself. It's a great mistake ever to say anything when you needn't. H'm, now we go through this door and up the stairs. Nothing locked. Of course you realise, I expect, that these questions I'm asking are all a lot of hooey 1 Doesn't matter a hoot who was in the house and who wasn't, or where they all were on that particular day -"

"Then why -" He went on: "Because it at least gives me a chance to look at them all, and size them up, and hear what they've got to say, and to hope that, quite by chance, somebody might give me a useful pointer." He was silent a moment and then murmured: "I bet Mrs. Magda Leonides could spill a mouthful if she chose."

"Would it be reliable?" I asked.

"Look here, Sophia, what am I supposed -"

I stopped. I could not very well ask outright in front of Sophia's mother exactly what my role was supposed to be. Magda Leonides had so far evinced no interest in my presence at all, except as a useful recipient of an exit line on daughters. I might be a reporter, her daughter's fiance, or an obscure hanger on of the police force, or even an undertaker - to Magda Leonides they would one and all come under the general heading of audience.

Looking down at her feet, Mrs. Leonides said with dissatisfaction:

"These shoes are wrong. Frivolous."

Obeying Sophia's imperious wave of the head I hurried after Taverner. I caught up with him in the outer hall just going through the door to the stairway.

"Just going up to see the older brother," he explained.

I put my problem to him without more ado.

"Look here, Taverner, who am I supposed to be?" t He looked surprised.

"Who are you supposed to be?" ^ "Yes, what am I doing here in this house?

If anyone asks me, what do I say?"

"Oh I see." He considered a moment.

Then he smiled. "Has anybody asked you?"

"Well - no."

"Then why not leave it at that. Never explain. That's a very good motto. Especially in a house upset like this house is.

Everyone is far too full of their own private worries and fears to be in a questioning mood. They'll take you for granted so long as you just seem sure of yourself. It's a great mistake ever to say anything when you needn't. H'm, now we go through this door and up the stairs. Nothing locked. Of course you realise, I expect, that these questions I'm asking are all a lot of hooey i Doesn't matter a hoot who was in the house and who wasn't, or where they all were on that particular day -"

"Then why-" 5 ^

He went on: "Because it at least gives me a chance to look at them all, and size them up, and hear what they've got to say, and to hope that, quite by chance, somebody might give me a useful pointer." He was silent a moment and then murmured: "I bet Mrs. Magda Leonides could spill a mouthful if she chose."

"Would it be reliable?" I asked.

"Oh, no," said Taverner, "it wouldn't be reliable. But it might start a possible line of enquiry. Everybody in the damned house had means and opportunity. What I want is a motive."

At the top of the stairs, a door barred off the right hand corridor. There was a brass knocker on it and Inspector Taverner duly knocked.

It was opened with startling suddenness by a man who must have been standing just inside. He was a clumsy giant of a man with powerful shoulders, dark rumpled hair, and an exceedingly ugly but at the same time rather pleasant face. His eyes looked at us and then quickly away in that furtive embarrassed manner which shy but honest people often adopt.

"Oh, I say," he said. "Come in. Yes, do.

I was going - but it doesn't matter. Come into the sitting room. I'll get Clemency -oh, you're there, darling. It's Chief Inspector Taverner. He - are there any cigarettes?

Just wait a minute. If you don't mind -"

He collided with a screen, said "I beg your pardon" to it in a flustered manner, and went out of the room.

It was rather like the exit of a bumble bee and left a noticeable silence behind it.

Mrs. Roger Leonides was standing up by the window. I was intrigued at once by her personality and by the atmosphere of the room in which we stood.

It was quite definitely her room. I was sure of that.

The walls were painted white - really white, not an ivory or a pale cream which is what one usually means when one says "white" in house decoration. They had no pictures on them except one over the mantelpiece, a geometrical fantasia in triangles of dark grey and battleship blue.

There was hardly any furniture - only mere utilitarian necessities, three or four chairs, a glass topped table, one small bookshelf. There were no ornaments. There was light and space and air. It was as different from the big brocaded and flowered drawing room on the floor below as chalk from cheese. And Mrs. Roger Leonides was as different from Mrs. Philip Leonides as one woman could be from another. Whilst one felt that Magda Leonides could be, and often was, at least half a dozen different women. Clemency Leonides, I was sure, could never be anyone but herself. She was a woman of very sharp and definite personality.

She was about fifty, I suppose, her hair was grey, cut very short in what was almost an Eton crop but which grew so beautifully on her small well shaped head that it had none of the ugliness I have always associated with that particular cut. She had an intelligent, sensitive face, with light grey eyes of a peculiar and searching intensity. She had on a simple dark red woollen frock that fitted her slenderness perfectly.