Agatha Christie - Crooked House

"Oh - er - good morning. Inspector."

"Good morning," Taverner was curt.

"Can I have a word with you?" c

"Yes, of course. Only too pleased. At least-"..

Eustace got up.

"Do you want me to go away. Chief Inspector?" His voice was pleasant with a faintly arrogant note. I r yi "We - we can continue our studies later," said the tutor.

Eustace strolled negligently towards the door. He walked rather stiffly. Just as he went through the door, he caught my eye, drew a forefinger across the front of his throat and grinned. Then he shut the door behind him.

"Well, Mr. Brown," said Taverner. "The analysis is quite definite. It was eserine that caused Mr. Leonides's death."

"I - you mean - Mr. Leonides was really poisoned? I have been hoping -"

"He was poisoned," said Taverner curtly.

"Someone substituted eserine eyedrops for insulin."

"I can't believe it… It's incredible."

The question is, who had a motive?"

"Nobody. Nobody at all!" The young man's voice rose excitedly.

"You wouldn't like to have your solicitor present, would you?" inquired Taverner.

"I haven't got a solicitor. I don't want one. I have nothing to hide - nothing …"

"And you quite understand that what you say is about to be taken down."

"I'm innocent - I assure you, I'm innocent."

"I have not suggested anything else."

Taverner paused. "Mrs. Leonides was a good deal younger than her husband, was she not?"

"I - I suppose so - I mean, well, yes."

"She must have felt lonely sometimes?"

Laurence Brown did not answer. He passed his tongue over his dry lips.

"To have a companion of more or less her own age living here must have been agreeable to her?"

"I - no, not at all - I mean - I don't know."

"It seems to me quite natural that an attachment should have sprung up between you."

The young man protested vehemently.

"It didn't! It wasn't! Nothing of the kind!

I know what you're thinking, but it wasn't so! Mrs. Leonides was very kind to me always and I had the greatest - the greatest respect for her - but nothing more -nothing more, I do assure you. It's monstrous to suggest things of that kind! Monstrous!

I wouldn't kill anybody - or tamper with bottles - or anything like that. I'm very sensitive and highly strung. I - the very idea of killing is a nightmare to me -they quite understood that at the tribunal - I have religious objections to killing. I did hospital work instead - stoking boilers - terribly heavy work - I couldn't go on with it - but they let me take up educational work. I have done my best here with Eustace and with Josephine - a very intelligent child, but difficult. And everybody has been most kind to me - Mr.

Leonides and Mrs. Leonides and Miss de Haviland. And now this awful thing happens. … And you suspect me - me -of murder!"

Inspector Taverner looked at him with a slow appraising interest.

"I haven't said so," he remarked.

"But you think so! I know you think so!

They all think so! They look at me. I - I can't go on talking to you. I'm not well."

He hurried out of the room. Taverner turned his head slowly to look at me.

"Well, what do you think of him?"

"He's scared stiff."

"Yes, I know, but is he a murderer?"

"If you ask me," said Sergeant Lamb, "he'd never have had the nerve."

"He'd never have bashed anyone on the head, or shot off a pistol," agreed the Chief Inspector, "But in this particular crime what is there to do? Just monkey about with a couple of bottles… Just help a very old man out of the world in a comparatively painless manner."

"Practically euthanasia," said the Sergeant.

"And then, perhaps, after a decent interval, marriage with a woman who inherits a hundred thousand pounds free of legacy duty, who already has about the same amount settled upon her, and who has in addition pearls and rubies and emeralds the size of what's-its-name eggs!

"Ah well -" Taverner sighed. "It's all theory and conjecture! I managed to scare him all right, but that doesn't prove anything. He's just as likely to be scared if he's innocent. And anyway, I rather doubt if he was the one actually to do it. More likely to have been the woman - only why on earth didn't she throw away the insulin bottle, or rinse it out?" He turned to the Sergeant. "No evidence from the servants about any goings on?"

"The parlourmaid says they're sweet on each other."

"What grounds?"

"The way he looks at her when she pours out his coffee."

"Fat lot of good that would be in a court of law! Definitely no carryings on?"

"Not that anybody's seen."

"I bet they would have seen, too, if there had been anything to see. You know I'm beginning to believe there really is nothing between them." He looked at me. "Go back and talk to her. I'd like your impression of her."

I went half reluctantly, yet I was interested.

I found Brenda Leonides sitting exactly where I had left her. She looked up sharply as I entered. p"Where's Inspector Taverner. Is he coming back?"?;i "Not just yet."

"Who are you?"

At last I had been asked the question that I had been expecting all the morning.

I answered it with reasonable truth.

"I'm connected with the police, but I'm also a friend of the family."

"The family! Beasts! I hate them all."

She looked at me, her mouth working.

She looked sullen and frightened and angry.

"They've been beastly to me always -always. From the very first. Why shouldn't I marry their precious father? What did it matter to them? They'd all got loads of nioney. He gave it to them. They wouldn't have had the brains to make any for themselves!"

She went on:

"Why shouldn't a man marry again - j even if he is a bit old? And he wasn't really old at all - not in himself. I was very fond I of him. I was fond of him." She looked at me defiantly.

"I see," I said. "I see."

"I suppose you don't believe that - but it's true. I was sick of men. I wanted to have a home - I wanted someone to make a fuss of me and say nice things to me.

Aristide said lovely things to me - and he could make you laugh - and he was clever.

He thought up all sorts of smart ways to get round all these silly regulations. He was very very clever. I'm not glad he's dead.

I'm sorry."

She leaned back on the sofa. She had rather a wide mouth, it curled up sideways in a queer sleepy smile.

"I've been happy here. I've been safe. I went to all those posh dressmakers - the ones I'd read about. I was as good as anybody. And Aristide gave me lovely things." She stretched out a hand looking at the ruby on it.

Just for a moment I saw the hand and arm like an outstretched cat's claw, and heard her voice as a purr. She was still smiling to herself.

"What's wrong with that?" she demanded.

"I was nice to him. I made him happy." She leaned forward. "Do you know how I met him?"

She went on without waiting for an answer.

"It was in the Gay Shamrock. He'd ordered scrambled eggs on toast and when I brought them to him I was crying. 'Sit down,' he said, 'and tell me what's the matter.' 'Oh, I couldn't,' I said. 'I'd get the sack if I did a thing like that.' 'No, you won't,' he said, 'I own this place.' I looked at him then. Such an odd little old man he was, I thought at first - but he'd got a sort of power. I told him all about it…

You'll have heard about it all from them, I expect - making out I was a regular bad lot - but I wasn't. I was brought up very carefully. We had a shop - a very high class shop - art needlework. I was never the sort of girl who had a lot of boy friends or made herself cheap. But Terry was different. He was Irish - and he was going overseas… He never wrote or anything I suppose I was a fool. So there it was, you see. I was in trouble - just like some dreadful little servant girl…"