Agatha Christie - Crooked House

"Oh no, it isn't. It's abnormal, but it happens. It's human. What about Magda?"

"She's rather childish. She - gets things out of proportion. But I would never have thought twice about her being involved if it hadn't been for the sudden way she wanted to pack Josephine off to Switzerland.

I couldn't help feeling she was afraid of something that Josephine knew or might say…"

"And then Josephine was conked on the head?"

"Well, that couldn't be her mother!"

"Why not?"

"But, dad, a mother wouldn't -"

"Charles, Charles, don't you ever read the police news. Again and again a mother takes a dislike to one of her children. Only one - she may be devoted to the others.

There's some association, some reason, but it's often hard to get at. But when it exists, it's an unreasoning aversion, and it's very strong."

"She called Josephine a changeling," I admitted unwillingly.

"Did the child mind?"

"I don't think so."

"Who else is there? Roger?"

"Roger didn't kill his father. I'm quite sure of that."

"Wash out Roger then. His wife -what's her name - Clemency?"

"Yes," I said. "If she killed old Leonides it was for a very odd reason." ^ I told him of my conversations with Clemency. I said I thought it possible that in her passion to get Roger away from England she might have deliberately poisoned the old man.

"She'd persuaded Roger to go without telling his father. Then the old man found out. He was going to back up Associated Catering. All Clemency's hopes and plans were frustrated. And she really does care desperately for Roger - beyond idolatry."

"You're repeating what Edith de Haviland said!"

"Yes. And Edith's another who I think - might have done it. But I don't know why. I can only believe that for what she considered good and sufficient reason she might take the law into her own hand. She's that kind of a person."

"And she also was very anxious that

Brenda should be adequately defended?"

"Yes. That, I suppose, might be conscience.

I don't think for a moment that if she did do it, she intended them to be accused of the crime."

"Probably not. But would she knock out the child Josephine?"

"No," I said slowly, "I can't believe that.

Which reminds me that there's something that Josephine said to me that keeps nagging at my mind, and I can't remember what it is. It's slipped my memory. But it's something that doesn't fit in where it should. If only I could remember -"

"Never mind. It will come back. Anything or anyone else on your mind?"

"Yes," I said. "Very much so. How much do you know about infantile paralysis.

Its after effects on character, I mean?"

"Eustace?"

"Yes. The more I think about it, the more it seems to me that Eustace might fit the bill. His dislikes and resentment against his grandfather. His queerness and moodiness.

He's not normal.

"He's the only one of the family who I can see knocking out Josephine quite callously if she knew something about him - and she's quite likely to know. That child knows everything. She writes it down in a little book -"

I stopped.

"Good Lord," I said. "What a fool I am."

"What's the matter?"

"I know now what was wrong. We assumed, Taverner and I, that the wrecking of Josephine's room, the frantic search, was for those letters. I thought that she'd got hold of them and that she'd hidden them up in the cistern room. But when she was talking to me the other day she made it quite clear that it was Laurence who had hidden them there. She saw him coming out of the cistern room and went snooping around and found the letters. Then, of course she read them. She would! But she left them where they were."

"Well?"

"Don't you see? It couldn't have been the letters someone was looking for in Josephine's room. It must have been something else."

"And that something -"

"Was the little black book she writes down her 'detection5 in. That's what someone was looking for! I think, too, that whoever it was didn't find it. I think Josephine has it. But if so -"

I half rose.

"If so," said my father, "she still isn't safe. Is that what you were going to say?"

"Yes. She won't be out of danger until she's actually started for Switzerland.

They're planning to send her there, you know."

"Does she want to go?"

I considered.

"I don't think she does."

"Then she probably hasn't gone," said my father drily. "But I think you're right about the danger. You'd better go down there."

"Eustace?" I cried desperately. "Clemency?"

My father said gently:

"To my mind the facts point clearly in one direction… I wonder you don't see it yourself. I…"

Glover opened the door.

"Beg pardon, Mr. Charles, the telephone.

Miss Leonides speaking from Swinly. It's urgent."

It seemed like a horrible repetition. Had Josephine again fallen a victim. And had the murderer this time made no mistake? …

I hurried to the telephone.

"Sophia? It's Charles here."

Sophia's voice came with a kind of hard desperation in it.

"Charles, it isn't all over. The murderer is still here."

"What on earth do you mean? What's wrong? Is it - Josephine?"

"It's not Josephine. It's Nannie."

"Nannie?"

"Yes, there was some cocoa - Josephine's cocoa, she didn't drink it. She left it on the table. Nannie thought it was a pity to waste it. So she drank it."

"Poor Nannie. Is she very bad?"

Sophia's voice broke.

"Oh, Charles, she's dead."

We were back again in the nightmare.

That is what I thought as Taverner and I drove out of London. It was a repetition of our former journey.

At intervals, Taverner swore.

As for me, I repeated from time to time, stupidly, unprofitably:

"So it wasn't Brenda and Laurence. It wasn't Brenda and Laurence."

Had I ever really thought it was? I had been so glad to think it. So glad to escape from other, more sinister, possibilities…

They had fallen in love with each other.

They had written silly sentimental romantic letters to each other. They had indulged in hopes that Brenda5 s old husband might soon die peacefully and happily - but I wondered really if they had even acutely desired his death. I had a feeling that the despairs and longings of an unhappy love affair suited them as well or better than commonplace married life together. I didn't think Brenda was really passionate. She was too anaemic, too apathetic. It was romance she craved for. And I thought Laurence, too, was the type to enjoy frustration and vague future dreams of bliss rather than the concrete satisfactions of the flesh.

They had been caught in a trap and, terrified, they had not had the wit to find their way out. Laurence with incredible stupidity, had not even destroyed Brenda5 s letters. Presumably Brenda had destroyed his, since they had not been found. And it was not Laurence who had balanced the marble door stop on the wash house door.

It was someone else whose face was still hidden behind a mask.

We drove up to the door. Taverner got out and I followed him. There was a plain clothes man in the hall whom I didn't know. He saluted Taverner and Taverner drew him aside.

My attention was taken by a pile of luggage in the hall. It was labelled and ready for departure. As I looked at it Clemency came down the stairs and through the open door at the bottom. She was dressed in her same red dress with a tweed coat over it and a red felt hat.

'*. , 'f'f .IPfeY •"•air'.^-. '••. • '• •'

' ^A-'ft^A? - •aSKN.'^1^- ' "S-S^W:

"You're in time to say goodbye, Charles," she said.

"You're leaving?"

"We go to London tonight. Our plane goes early tomorrow morning."

She was quiet and smiling, but I thought her eyes were watchful.