Agatha Christie: Crooked House

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 have cut us right out of everything. Horrible creature! After all, poor old Sweetie Pie | was just on ninety - all the family feeling in the world couldn't have stood up against a dreadful woman who was on the spot.

You know, Philip, I really believe that this would be a wonderful opportunity to put on the Edith Thompson play. This murder would give us a lot of advance publicity.

Bildenstein said he could get the Thespian - that dreary play in verse about miners is coming off any minute - It's a wonderful part - wonderful. I know they say I must always play comedy because of my nose -but you know there's quite a lot of comedy to be got out of Edith Thompson - I don't think the author realised that - comedy heightens the suspense. I know just how I'd play it - commonplace, silly, makebelieve up to the last minute and then -"

She cast out an arm - the cigarette fell out of the holder onto the polished mahogany of Philip's desk and began to burn it.

Impassively he reached for it and dropped it into the waste paper basket.

"And then," whispered Magda Leonides, her eyes suddenly widening, her face stiffening,

"just terror…"

The stark fear stayed on her face for about twenty seconds, then her face relaxed, crumpled, a bewildered child was about to burst into tears.

Suddenly all emotion was wiped away as though by a sponge and turning to me, she asked in a businesslike tone:

"Don't you think that would be the way to play Edith Thompson?"

I said I thought that would be exactly the way to play Edith Thompson. At the moment I could only remember very vaguely who Edith Thompson was, but I was anxious to start off well with Sophia's mother.

"Rather like Brenda, really, wasn't she?" said Magda. "D'you know, I never thought of that. It's very interesting. Shall I point that out to the Inspector?"

The man behind the desk frowned very slightly.

"There's really no need, Magda," he said, "for you to see him at all. I can tell him anything he wants to know."

"Not see him?" Her voice went up. "But of course I must see him! Darling, darling, you're so terribly unimaginative! You don't realise the importance of details. He'll want to know exactly how and when everything happened, all the little things one noticed and wondered about at the time -"

"Mother," said Sophia, coming through the open door, "you're not to tell the Inspector a lot of lies."

"Sophia - darling…"

"I know, precious, that you've got it all set and that you're ready to give a most beautiful performance. But you've got it wrong. Quite wrong."

"Nonsense. You don't know -"

"I do know. You've got to play it quite differently, darling. Subdued - saying very little - holding it all back - on your guard - protecting the family."

S; Magda Leonides' face showed the naive perplexity of a child.

"Darling," she said, "do you really think -"

"Yes, I do. Throw it away. That's the idea."

Sophia added, as a little pleased smile began to show on her mother's face:

"I've made you some chocolate. It's in the drawing room."

"Oh - good - I'm starving -"

She paused in the doorway.

"You don't know," she said, and the words appeared to be addressed either to me or to the bookshelf behind my head,

"how lovely it is to have a daughter!"

On this exit line she went out.

"God knows," said Miss de Haviland,

"what she will say to the police!"

"She'll be all right," said Sophia.

"She might say anything."

"Don't worry," said Sophia. "She'll play it the way the producer says. I'm the producer!"

She went out after her mother, then wheeled back to say:

"Here's Chief Inspector Taverner to see you, father. You don't mind if Charles stays, do you?"

I thought that a very faint air of bewilderment showed on Philip Leonides' face. It well might!.But his incurious habit served me in good stead. He murmured:

"Oh certainly - certainly," in a rather vague voice.

Chief Inspector Taverner came in, solid, dependable, and with an air of businesslike promptitude that was somehow soothing.

"Just a little unpleasantness," his manner seemed to say, "and then we shall be out of the house for good - and nobody will be more pleased than I shall. We don't want to hang about, I can assure you…"

I don't know how he managed, without any words at all, but merely by drawing up a chair to the desk, to convey what he did, but it worked. I sat down unobtrusively a little way off.

"Yes, Chief Inspector?" said Philip. «

Miss de Haviland said abruptly:

"You don't want me. Chief Inspector?" "Not just at the moment. Miss de Haviland. Later, if I might have a few words with you -"