An amusing thought! I dismissed it as suchbut it left me a little uneasy.
Mother, said Sophia, has to be looked after the whole time. You never know what shes up to!
Forget your family, Sophia, I said firmly.
I shall be only too delighted to, but its a little difficult at the present moment. But I was happy out in Cairo when I had forgotten them all.
I remembered how Sophia had never mentioned her home or her people.
Is that why you never talked about them? I asked. Because you wanted to forget them?
I think so. Weve always, all of us, lived too much in each others pockets[111]. Werewere all too fond of each other. Were not like some families where they all hate each other like poison. That must be pretty bad, but its almost worse to live all tangled up in conflicting affections.
She added:
I think thats what I mean when I said we all lived together in a little crooked house. I didnt mean that it was crooked in the dishonest sense. I think what I meant was that we hadnt been able to grow up independent, standing by ourselves, upright. Were all a bit twisted and twining.
I saw Edith de Havilands heel grinding a weed into the path as Sophia added:
Like bindweed
And then suddenly Magda was with usflinging open the doorcrying out:
Darlings, why dont you have the lights on? Its almost dark.
And she pressed the switches and the lights sprang up on the walls and on the tables, and she and Sophia and I pulled the heavy rose curtains, and there we were in the flower-scented interior, and Magda flinging herself on the sofa, cried:
What an incredible scene it was, wasnt it? How cross Eustace was! He told me he thought it was all positively indecent. How funny boys are!
She sighed.
Rogers rather a pet. I love him when he rumples his hair and starts knocking things over. Wasnt it sweet of Edith to offer her legacy to him? She really meant it, you know, it wasnt just a gesture. But it was terribly stupidit might have made Philip think he ought to do it too! Of course Edith would do anything for the family! Theres something very pathetic in the love of a spinster for her sisters children. Some day I shall play one of those devoted spinster aunts. Inquisitive and obstinate and devoted.
It must have been hard for her after her sister died, I said, refusing to be side-tracked into discussion of another of Magdas roles. I mean if she disliked old Leonides so much.
Magda interrupted me.
Disliked him? Who told you that? Nonsense. She was in love with him.
Mother! said Sophia.
Now dont try and contradict me, Sophia. Naturally at your age, you think love is all two good-looking young people in the moonlight.
She told me, I said, that she had always disliked him.
Probably she did when she first came. Shed been angry with her sister for marrying him. I dare say there was always some antagonismbut she was in love with him all right! Darling, I do know what Im talking about! Of course, with deceased wifes sister and all that, he couldnt have married her, and I dare say he never thought of it and quite probably she didnt either. She was quite happy mothering the children, and having fights with him. But she didnt like it when he married Brenda. She didnt like it a bit!
No more did you and father, said Sophia.
No, of course we hated it! Naturally! But Edith hated it most. Darling, the way Ive seen her look at Brenda!
Now, Mother, said Sophia.
Magda threw her an affectionate and half-guilty glance, the glance of a mischieveous, spoilt child.
She went on, with no apparent realization of any lack of continuity[112]:
Ive decided Josephine really must go to school.
Josephine? To school?
Yes. To Switzerland. Im going to see about it tomorrow. I really think we might get her off at once. Its so bad for her to be mixed up in a horrid business like this. Shes getting quite morbid about it. What she needs is other children of her own age. School life. Ive always thought so.
Grandfather didnt want her to go to school, said Sophia slowly. He was very much against it.
Darling old Sweetie Pie liked us all here under his eye. Very old people are often selfish in that way. A child ought to be amongst other children. And Switzerland is so healthyall the winter sports, and the air, and so much, much better food than we get here!
It will be difficult to arrange for Switzerland now with all the currency regulations, wont it? I asked.
Nonsense, Charles. Theres some kind of educational racketor you exchange with a Swiss childthere are all sorts of ways. Rudolf Alstirs in Lausanne. I shall wire him tomorrow to arrange everything. We can get her off by the end of the week!
Magda punched a cushion, smiled at us, went to the door, stood a moment looking back at us in a quite enchanting fashion.
Its only the young who count, she said. As she said it, it was a lovely line. They must always come first. And, darlingsthink of the flowersthe blue gentians, the narcissus
In October? asked Sophia, but Magda had gone.
Sophia heaved an exasperated sigh.
Really, she said. Mother is too trying! She gets these sudden ideas, and she sends thousands of telegrams and everything has to be arranged at a moments notice. Why should Josephine be hustled off to Switzerland all in a flurry?
Theres probably something in the idea of school. I think children of her own age would be a good thing for Josephine.
Grandfather didnt think so, said Sophia obstinately.
I felt slightly irritated.
My dear Sophia, do you really think an old gentleman of over eighty is the best judge of a childs welfare?
He was about the best judge of anybody in this house, said Sophia.
Better than your Aunt Edith?
No, perhaps not. She did rather favour school. I admit Josephines got into rather difficult waysshes got a horrible habit of snooping. But I really think its just because shes playing detectives.
Was it only the concern for Josephines welfare which had occasioned Magdas sudden decision? I wondered. Josephine was remarkably well-informed about all sorts of things that had happened prior to the murder and which had been certainly no business of hers. A healthy school life with plenty of games would probably do her a world of good. But I did rather wonder at the suddenness and urgency of Magdas decisionSwitzerland was a long way off.
Chapter 16
The Old Man had said:
Let them talk to you.
As I shaved the following morning, I considered just how far that had taken me.
Edith de Haviland had talked to meshe had sought me out[113] for that especial purpose. Clemency had talked to me (or had I talked to her?). Magda had talked to me in a sensethat is, I had formed part of the audience to one of her broadcasts. Sophia naturally had talked to me. Even Nannie had talked to me. Was I any the wiser for what I had learned from them all? Was there any significant word or phrase? More, was there any evidence of that abnormal vanity on which my father had laid stress? I couldnt see that there was.
The only person who had shown absolutely no desire to talk to me in any way, or on any subject, was Philip. Was not that, in a way, rather abnormal? He must know by now that I wanted to marry his daughter. Yet he continued to act as though I was not in the house at all. Presumably he resented my presence there. Edith de Haviland had apologized for him. She had said it was just manner. She had shown herself concerned about Philip. Why?
I considered Sophias father. He was in every sense a repressed individual. He had been an unhappy jealous child. He had been forced back into himself. He had taken refuge in the world of booksin the historical past. That studied coldness and reserve of his might conceal a good deal of passionate feeling. The inadequate motive of financial gain by his fathers death was unconvincingI did not think for a moment that Philip Leonides would kill his father because he himself had not quite as much money as he would like to have. But there might be some deep psychological reason for his desiring his fathers death. Philip had come back to his fathers house to live, and later, as a result of the Blitz, Roger had comeand Philip had been obliged to see day by day that Roger was his fathers favourite Might things have come to such a pass in his tortured mind that the only relief possible was his fathers death? And supposing that death should incriminate his elder brother? Roger was short of money on the verge of a crash. Knowing nothing of that last interview between Roger and his father and the latters offer of assistance, might not Philip have believed that the motive would seem so powerful that Roger would be at once suspected? Was Philips mental balance sufficiently disturbed to lead him to do murder?
I cut my chin with the razor and swore.
What the hell was I trying to do? Fasten murder on Sophias father? That was a nice thing to try and do! That wasnt what Sophia had wanted me to come down here for.
Orwas it? There was something, had been something all along, behind Sophias appeal. If there was any lingering suspicion in her mind that her father was the killer, then she would never consent to marry mein case that suspicion might be true. And since she was Sophia, clear-eyed and brave, she wanted the truth, since uncertainty would be an eternal and perpetual barrier between us. Hadnt she been in effect saying to me, Prove that this dreadful thing I am imagining is not truebut if it is true, then prove its truth to meso that I can know the worst and face it!
Did Edith de Haviland know, or suspect, that Philip was guilty? What had she meant by this side idolatry?
And what had Clemency meant by that peculiar look she had thrown at me when I had asked her who she suspected and she had answered: Laurence and Brenda are the obvious suspects, arent they?
The whole family wanted it to be Brenda and Laurence, hoped it might be Brenda and Laurence, but didnt really believe it was Brenda and Laurence
And of course, the whole family might be wrong, and it might really be Laurence and Brenda after all.
Or, it might be Laurence, and not Brenda
That would be a much better solution.
I finished dabbing my cut chin and went down to breakfast filled with the determination to have an interview with Laurence Brown as soon as possible.
It was only as I drank my second cup of coffee that it occurred to me that the Crooked House was having its the first day aeffect on me also. I, too, wanted to find, not the true solution, but the solution that suited me best.