Perhaps Magda, by some obscure maternal instinct, had recognized that Josephine was in peril, and that may have been what occasioned her sudden feverish haste to get the child sent to Switzerland.
Sophia came out to meet us as we arrived. Josephine, she said, had been taken by ambulance to Market Basing General Hospital. Dr Gray would let them know as soon as possible the result of the X-ray.
How did it happen? asked Taverner.
Sophia led the way round to the back of the house and through a door in a small disused yard. In one corner a door stood ajar.
Its a kind of wash-house, Sophia explained. Theres a cat hole cut in the bottom of the door, and Josephine used to stand on it and swing to and fro.
I remembered swinging on doors in my own youth.
The wash-house was small and rather dark. There were wooden boxes in it, some old hose pipe, a few derelict garden implements, and some broken furniture. Just inside the door was a marble lion door-stop.
Its the door-stopper from the front door, Sophia explained. It must have been balanced on top of the door.
Taverner reached up a hand to the top of the door. It was a low door, the top of it only about a foot above his head.
A booby trap[124], he said.
He swung the door experimentally to and fro. Then he stooped to the block of marble but he did not touch it.
Has anyone handled this?
No, said Sophia. I wouldnt let anyone touch it.
Quite right. Who found her?
I did. She didnt come in for her dinner at one oclock. Nannie was calling her. Shed passed through the kitchen and out into the stable yard about a quarter of an hour before. Nannie said, Shell be bouncing her ball or swinging on that door again. I said Id fetch her in.
Sophia paused.
She had a habit of playing in that way, you said? Who knew about that?
Sophia shrugged her shoulders.
Pretty well everybody in the house, I should think.
Who else used the wash-house? Gardeners?
Sophia shook her head.
Hardly anyone ever goes into it.
And this little yard isnt overlooked from the house? Taverner summed it up. Anyone could have slipped out from the house or round the front and fixed up that trap ready. But it would be chancy
He broke off, looking at the door, and swinging it gently to and fro.
Nothing certain about it. Hit or miss. And likelier miss than hit. But she was unlucky. With her it was hit.
Sophia shivered.
He peered at the floor. There were various dents on it. Looks as though someone experimented first to see just how it would fall The sound wouldnt carry to the house.
No, we didnt hear anything. Wed no idea anything was wrong until I came out and found her lying face downall sprawled out[125]. Sophias voice broke a little. There was blood on her hair.
That her scarf? Taverner pointed to a checked woollen muffler lying on the floor.
Yes.
Using the scarf he picked up the block of marble carefully.
There may be fingerprints, he said, but he spoke without much hope. But I rather think whoever did it wascareful. He said to me: What are you looking at?
I was looking at a broken-backed wooden kitchen chair which was among the derelicts. On the seat of it were a few fragments of earth.
Curious, said Taverner. Someone stood on that chair with muddy feet. Now why was that?
He shook his head.
What time was it when you found her, Miss Leonides?
It must have been five minutes past one.
And your Nannie saw her going out about twenty minutes earlier. Who was the last person before that known to have been in the wash-house?
Ive no idea. Probably Josephine herself. Josephine was swinging on the door this morning after breakfast, I know.
Taverner nodded.
So between then and a quarter to one someone set the trap. You say that bit of marble is the door-stop you use for the front door? Any idea when that was missing?
Sophia shook her head.
The door hasnt been propped open all to-day. Its been too cold.
Any idea where everyone was all the morning?
I went out for a walk. Eustace and Josephine did lessons until half-past twelvewith a break at half-past ten. Father, I think, has been in the library all the morning.
Your mother?
She was just coming out of her bedroom when I came in from my walkthat was about a quarter-past twelve. She doesnt get up very early.
We re-entered the house. I followed Sophia to the library. Philip, looking white and haggard, sat in his usual chair. Magda crouched against his knees, crying quietly. Sophia asked:
Have they telephoned yet from the hospital?
Philip shook his head.
Magda sobbed.
Why wouldnt they let me go with her? My babymy funny ugly baby. And I used to call her a changeling and make her so angry. How could I be so cruel? And now shell die. I know shell die.
Philip shook his head.
Magda sobbed.
Why wouldnt they let me go with her? My babymy funny ugly baby. And I used to call her a changeling and make her so angry. How could I be so cruel? And now shell die. I know shell die.
Hush, my dear, said Philip. Hush.
I felt that I had no place in this family scene of anxiety and grief. I withdrew quietly and went to find Nannie. She was sitting in the kitchen crying quietly.
Its a judgement on me, Mr Charles, for the hard things Ive been thinking. A judgement, thats what it is.
I did not try and fathom her meaning.
Theres wickedness in this house. Thats what there is. I didnt wish to see it or believe it. But seeings believing. Somebody killed the master and the same somebody must have tried to kill Josephine.
Why should they try and kill Josephine?
Nannie removed a corner of her handkerchief from her eye and gave me a shrewd glance.
You know well enough what she was like, Mr Charles. She liked to know things. She was always like that, even as a tiny thing. Used to hide under the dinner table and listen to the maids talking and then shed hold it over them. Made her feel important. You see, she was passed over, as it were, by the mistress. She wasnt a handsome child, like the other two. She was always a plain little thing. A changeling, the mistress used to call her. I blame the mistress for that, for its my belief it turned the child sour. But in a funny sort of way she got her own back by finding out things about people and letting them know she knew them. But it isnt safe to do that when theres a poisoner about!
No, it hadnt been safe. And that brought something else to my mind. I asked Nannie: Do you know where she kept a little black booka note-book of some kind where she used to write down things?
I know what you mean, Mr Charles. Very sly about it, she was. Ive seen her sucking her pencil and writing in the book and sucking her pencil again. And dont do that, Id say, youll get lead poisoning and oh no, I shant,, she said, because it isnt really lead in a pencil. Its carbon, though I dont see how that could be so for if you call a thing a lead pencil it stands to reason that thats because theres lead in it.
Youd think so, I agreed. But as a matter of fact she was right. (Josephine was always right!) What about this note-book? Do you know where she kept it?
Ive no idea at all, sir. It was one of the things she was sly about.
She hadnt got it with her when she was found?
Oh no, Mr Charles, there was no note-book.
Had someone taken the note-book? Or had she hidden it in her own room? The idea came to me to look and see. I was not sure which Josephines room was, but as I stood hesitating in the passage Taver ners voice called me:
Come in here, he said. Tm in the kids room. Did you ever see such a sight?
I stepped over the threshold and stopped dead.
The small room looked as though it had been vi sited by a tornado. The drawers of the chest of drawers were pulled out and their contents scattered on the floor. The mattress and bedding had been pulled from the small bed. The rugs were tossed into heaps. The chairs had been turned upside down, the pictures taken down from the wall, the photographs wrenched out of their frames.
Good Lord, I exclaimed. What was the big idea?
What do you think?
Someone was looking for something.
Exactly.
I looked round and whistled.
But who on earthsurely nobody could come in here and do all this and not be heardor seen?
Why not? Mrs Leonides spends the morning in her bedroom doing her nails and ringing up her friends on the telephone and playing with her clothes. Philip sits in the library browsing over books. The nurse woman is in the kitchen peeling potatoes and stringing beans. In a family that knows each others habits it would be easy enough. And Ill tell you this. Anyone in the house could have done our little jobcould have set the trap for the child and wrecked her room. But it was someone in a hurry, someone who hadnt the time to search quietly.
Anyone in the house, you say?
Yes, Ive checked up. Everyone has some time or other unaccounted for. Philip, Magda, the nurse, your girl. The same upstairs. Brenda spent most of the morning alone. Taurence and Eustace had a half hour breakfrom ten-thirty to elevenyou were with them part of that timebut not all of it. Miss de Haviland was in the garden alone. Roger was in his study.
Only Clemency was in London at her job.
No, even she isnt out of it. She stayed at home today with a headacheshe was alone in her room having that headache. Any of themany blinking one of them! And I dont know which! Ive no idea. If I knew what they were looking for in here
His eyes went round the wrecked room
And if I knew whether theyd found it
Something stirred in my braina memory
Taverner clinched it by asking me:
What was the kid doing when you last saw her?
Wait, I said.
I dashed out[126] of the room and up the stairs. I passed through the left-hand door and went up to the top floor. I pushed open the door of the cistern room, mounted the two steps and bending my head, since the ceiling was low and sloping, I looked round me.
Josephine had said when I asked her what she was doing there that she was detecting.
I didnt see what there could be to detect in a cobwebby attic full of water tanks. But such an attic would make a good hiding-place. I considered it probable that Josephine had been hiding something there, something that she knew quite well she had no business to have. If so, it oughtnt to take long to find it.