Agatha Christie: Crooked House

"It's quite a nice day," said Edith de Haviland, pulling on her gloves and glancing up at the sky. The Ford 10 was waiting in front of the house. "Cold - but bracing.

A real English autumn day. How beautiful 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…"

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.