Chapter 21

My one feeling of regret at this time was that Josephine was out of it all. She would have enjoyed it all so much.

Her recovery was rapid and she was expected to be back any day now, but nevertheless she missed another event of importance.

I was in the rock garden one morning with Sophia and Brenda when a car drew up to the front door. Taverner and Sergeant Lamb got out of it. They went up the steps and into the house.

Brenda stood still, staring at the car.

‘It’s those men,’ she said. ‘They’ve come back, and I thought they’d given up—I thought it was all over.’

I saw her shiver.

She had joined us about ten minutes before. Wrapped in her chinchilla coat, she had said: ‘If I don’t get some air and exercise, I shall go mad. If I go outside the gate there’s always a reporter waiting to pounce on me. It’s like being besieged. Will it go on for ever?’

Sophia said that she supposed the reporters would soon get tired of it.

‘You can go out in the car,’ she added.

‘I tell you I want to get some exercise.’

Then she said abruptly:

‘You’re giving Laurence the sack, Sophia. Why?’

Sophia answered quietly:

‘We’re making other arrangements for Eustace. And Josephine is going to Switzerland.’

‘Well, you’ve upset Laurence very much. He feels you don’t trust him.’

Sophia did not reply and it was at that moment that Taverner’s car had arrived.

Standing there, shivering in the moist autumn air, Brenda muttered: ‘What do they want? Why have they come?’

I thought I knew why they had come. I said nothing to Sophia of the letters I had found by the cistern, but I knew that they had gone to the Director of Public Prosecutions.

Taverner came out of the house again. He walked across the drive and the lawn towards us. Brenda shivered more violently.

‘What does he want?’ she repeated nervously. ‘What does he want?’

Then Taverner was with us. He spoke curtly in his official voice, using the official phrases.

‘I have a warrant here for your arrest—you are charged with administering eserine to Aristide Leonides on September 19th last. I must warn you that anything you say may be used in evidence at your trial.’

And then Brenda went to pieces. She screamed. She clung to me. She cried out, ‘No, no, no, it isn’t true! Charles, tell them it isn’t true! I didn’t do it. I didn’t know anything about it. It’s all a plot. Don’t let them take me away. It isn’t true, I tell you… It isn’t true… I haven’t done anything…’

It was horrible—unbelievably horrible. I tried to soothe her, I unfastened her fingers from my arm. I told her that I would arrange for a lawyer for her—that she was to keep calm—that a lawyer would arrange everything—

Taverner took her gently under the elbow.

‘Come along, Mrs Leonides,’ he said. ‘You don’t want a hat, do you? No? Then we’ll go off right away.’

She pulled back, staring at him with enormous cat’s eyes.

‘Laurence,’ she said. ‘What have you done to Laurence?’

‘Mr Laurence Brown is also under arrest,’ said Taverner. She wilted then. Her body seemed to collapse and shrink. The tears poured down her face.

She went away quietly with Taverner across the lawn to the car. I saw Laurence Brown and Sergeant Lamb come out of the house. They all got into the car. The car drove away.

I drew a deep breath and turned to Sophia. She was very pale and there was a look of distress on her face.

‘It’s horrible, Charles,’ she said. ‘It’s quite horrible.’

‘I know.’

‘You must get her a really first-class solicitor—the best there is. She—she must have all the help possible.’

‘One doesn’t realize,’ I said, ‘what these things are like. I’ve never seen anyone arrested before.’

‘I know. One has no idea.’

We were both silent. I was thinking of the desperate terror on Brenda’s face. It had seemed familiar to me and suddenly I realized why. It was the same expression that I had seen on Magda Leonides’ face the first day I had come to the crooked house when she had been talking about the Edith Thompson play.

‘And then,’ she had said, ‘sheer terror, don’t you think so?’

Sheer terror—that was what had been on Brenda’s face. Brenda was not a fighter. I wondered that she had ever had the nerve to do murder. But possibly she had not. Possibly it had been Laurence Brown, with his persecution mania, his unstable personality, who had put the contents of one little bottle into another little bottle—a simple easy act—to free the woman he loved.

‘So it’s over,’ said Sophia.

She sighed deeply, then asked:

‘But why arrest them now? I thought there wasn’t enough evidence.’

‘A certain amount of evidence has come to light. Letters.’

‘You mean love letters between them?’

‘Yes.’

‘What fools people are to keep these things!’

Yes, indeed. Fools. The kind of folly which never seemed to profit by the experience of others. You couldn’t open a daily newspaper without coming across some instance of that folly—the passion to keep the written word, the written assurance of love.

‘It’s quite beastly, Sophia,’ I said. ‘But it’s no good minding about it. After all, it’s what we’ve been hoping all along, isn’t it? It’s what you said that first night at Mario’s. You said it would be all right if the right person had killed your grandfather. Brenda was the right person, wasn’t she? Brenda or Laurence?’

‘Don’t, Charles, you make me feel awful.’

‘But we must be sensible. We can marry now, Sophia. You can’t hold me off any longer. The Leonides family are out of it.’

She stared at me. I had never realized before the vivid blue of her eyes.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I suppose we’re out of it now. We are out of it, aren’t we. You’re sure?’

‘My dear girl, none of you ever really had a sha dow of motive.’

Her face went suddenly white.

‘Except me, Charles. I had a motive.’

‘Yes, of course—’ I was taken aback. ‘But not really. You didn’t know, you see, about the will.’

‘But I did, Charles,’ she whispered.

‘What?’ I stared at her. I felt suddenly cold.

‘I knew all the time that grandfather had left his money to me.’

‘But how?’

‘He told me. About a fortnight before he was killed. He said to me quite suddenly: “Eve left all my money to you, Sophia. You must look after the family when I’ve gone.”’

I stared.

‘You never told me.’

‘No. You see, when they all explained about the will and his signing it, I thought perhaps he had made a mistake—that he was just imagining that he had left it to me. Or that if he had made a will leaving it to me, then it had got lost and would never turn up. I didn’t want it to turn up—I was afraid.’

‘Afraid? Why?’

‘I suppose—because of murder.’

I remembered the look of terror on Brenda’s face—the wild unreasoning panic. I remembered the sheer panic that Magda had conjured up at will when she considered playing the part of a murderess. There would be no panic in Sophia’s mind, but she was a realist, and she could see clearly enough that Leonides’ will made her a suspect. I understood better now (or thought I did) her refusal to become engaged to me and her insistence that I should find out the truth. Nothing but the truth, she had said, was any good to her. I remembered the passion, the earnestness with which she had said it.

We had turned to walk towards the house and suddenly, at a certain spot, I remembered something else she had said.

She had said that she supposed she could murder someone, but if so, she had added, it must be for something really worthwhile.

Chapter 22

Round a turn of the rock garden Roger and Clemency came walking briskly towards us. Roger’s flapping tweeds suited him better than his City clothes. He looked eager and excited. Clemency was frowning.

‘Hallo, you two,’ said Roger. ‘At last! I thought they were never going to arrest that foul woman. What they’ve been waiting for, I don’t know. Well, they’ve pinched her now, and her miserable boyfriend—and I hope they hang them both.’

Clemency’s frown increased. She said:

‘Don’t be so uncivilized, Roger.’

‘Uncivilized? Bosh! Deliberate cold-blooded poisoning of a helpless trusting old man—and when I’m glad the murderers are caught and will pay the penalty you say I’m uncivilized! I tell you I’d willingly strangle that woman myself.’

He added:

‘She was with you, wasn’t she, when the police came for her? How did she take it?’

‘It was horrible,’ said Sophia in a low voice. ‘She was scared out of her wits.’

‘Serve her right.’

‘Don’t be vindictive,’ said Clemency.

‘Oh, I know, dearest, but you can’t understand. It wasn’t your father. I loved my father. Don’t you understand? I loved him!’

‘I should understand by now,’ said Clemency.

Roger said to her, half-jokingly:

‘You’ve no imagination, Clemency. Suppose it had been I who had been poisoned—?’

I saw the quick droop of her lids, her half-clenched hands. She said sharply: ‘Don’t say things like that even in fun.’

‘Never mind, darling, we’ll soon be away from all this.’

We moved towards the house. Roger and Sophia walked ahead and Clemency and I brought up the rear. She said:

‘I suppose now—they’ll let us go?’

‘Are you so anxious to get off?’ I asked.

‘It’s wearing me out.’

I looked at her in surprise. She met my glance with a faint desperate smile and a nod of the head.

‘Haven’t you seen, Charles, that I’m fighting all the time? Fighting for my happiness. For Roger’s. I’ve been so afraid the family would persuade him to stop in England. That we’d go on tangled up in the midst of them, stifled with family ties. I was afraid Sophia would offer him an income and that he’d stay in England because it would mean greater comfort and amenities for me. The trouble with Roger is that he will not listen. He gets ideas in his head—and they’re never the right ideas. He doesn’t know anything. And he’s enough of a Leonides to think that happiness for a woman is bound up with comfort and money. But I will fight for my happiness—I will. I will get Roger away and give him the life that suits him where he won’t feel a failure. I want him to myself—away from them all—right away—’

She had spoken in a low hurried voice with a kind of desperation that startled me. I had not realized how much on edge she was. I had not realized, either, quite how desperate and possessive was her feeling for Roger.

It brought back to my mind that odd quotation of Edith de Haviland’s. She had quoted the line ‘this side idolatry’ with a peculiar intonation. I wondered if she had been thinking of Clemency.

Roger, I thought, had loved his father better than he would ever love anyone else, better even than his wife, devoted though he was to her. I realized for the first time how urgent was Clemency’s desire to get her husband to herself. Love for Roger, I saw, made up her entire existence. He was her child, as well as her husband and her lover.

A car drove up to the front door.

‘Hallo,’ I said. ‘Here’s Josephine back.’

Josephine and Magda got out of the car. Josephine had a bandage round her head but otherwise looked remarkably well.

She said at once:

‘I want to see my goldfish,’ and started towards us and the pond.

‘Darling,’ cried Magda, ‘you’d better come in first and he down a little, and perhaps have a little nourishing soup.’

‘Don’t fuss, Mother,’ said Josephine. ‘I’m quite all right, and I hate nourishing soup.’

Magda looked irresolute. I knew that Josephine had really been ht to depart from the hospital for some days, and that it was only a hint from Taverner that had kept her there. He was taking no chances on Josephine’s safety until his suspects were safe under lock and key.

I said to Magda:

‘I dare say fresh air will do her good. I’ll go and keep an eye on her.’

I caught Josephine up before she got to the pond.

‘All sorts of things have been happening while you’ve been away,’ I said.

Josephine did not reply. She peered with her shortsighted eyes into the pond.

‘I don’t see Ferdinand,’ she said.

‘Which is Ferdinand?’

‘The one with four tails.’

‘That kind is rather amusing. I like that bright gold one.’

‘It’s quite a common one.’

‘I don’t much care for that moth-eaten white one.’

Josephine cast me a scornful glance.

‘That’s a shebunkin. They cost a lot—far more than goldfish.’

‘Don’t you want to hear what’s been happening, Josephine?’

‘I expect I know about it.’

‘Did you know that another will has been found and that your grandfather left all his money to Sophia?’

Josephine nodded in a bored kind of way.

‘Mother told me. Anyway, I knew it already.’

‘Do you mean you heard it in hospital?’

‘No, I mean I knew that grandfather had left his money to Sophia. I heard him tell her so.’

‘Were you listening again?’

‘Yes. I like listening.’

‘It’s a disgraceful thing to do, and remember this, listeners hear no good of themselves.’

Josephine gave me a peculiar glance.

‘I heard what he said about me to her, if that’s what you mean.’

She added:

‘Nannie gets wild if she catches me listening at doors. She says it’s not the sort of thing a little lady does.’

‘She’s quite right.’

‘Pooh,’ said Josephine. ‘Nobody’s a lady nowadays. They said so on the Brains Trust. They said it was ob-so-lete.’ She pronounced the word carefully.

I changed the subject.

‘You’ve got home a bit late for the big event,’ I said. ‘Chief Inspector Taverner has arrested Brenda and Laurence.’

I expected that Josephine, in her character of young detective, would be thrilled by this information, but she merely repeated in her maddening bored fashion:

‘Yes, I know.’

‘You can’t know. It’s only just happened.’

‘The car passed us on the road. Inspector Taver ner and the detective with the suede shoes were inside with Brenda and Laurence, so of course I knew they must have been arrested. I hope he gave them the proper caution. You have to, you know.’

I assured her that Taverner had acted strictly according to etiquette.

‘I had to tell him about the letters,’ I said apologetically. ‘I found them behind the cistern. I’d have let you tell him only you were knocked out.’

Josephine’s hand went gingerly to her head.

‘I ought to have been killed,’ she said with complacency. ‘I told you it was about time for the second murder. The cistern was a rotten place to hide those letters. I guessed at once when I saw Laurence coming out of there one day. I mean he’s not a useful kind of man who does things with ball taps, or pipes or fuses, so I knew he must have been hiding something.’

‘But I thought—’ I broke off as Edith de Haviland’s voice called authoritatively:

‘Josephine, Josephine, come here at once.’

Josephine sighed.

‘More fuss,’ she said. ‘But I’d better go. You have to, if it’s Aunt Edith.’

She ran across the lawn. I followed more slowly.

After a brief interchange of words Josephine went into the house. I joined Edith de Haviland on the terrace.

This morning she looked fully her age. I was startled by the lines of weariness and suffering on her face. She looked exhausted and defeated. She saw the concern in my face and tried to smile.

‘That child seems none the worse for her adventure,’ she said. ‘We must look after her better in future. Still—I suppose now it won’t be necessary?’

She sighed and said:

I’m glad it’s over. But what an exhibition! If you are arrested for murder, you might at least have some dignity. Pve no patience with people like Brenda who go to pieces and squeal. No guts, these people. Laurence Brown looked like a cornered rabbit.’

An obscure instinct of pity rose in me.

‘Poor devils,’ I said.

‘Yes—poor devils. She’ll have the sense to look after herself, I suppose? I mean the right lawyers—all that sort of thing.’

It was queer, I thought, the dislike they all had for Brenda, and their scrupulous care for her to have all the advantages for defence.

Edith de Haviland went on:

‘How long will it be? How long will the whole thing take?’

I said I didn’t know exactly. They would be charged at the police court and presumably sent for trial. Three or four months, I estimated—and if convicted, there would be the appeal.

‘Do you think they will be convicted?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know. I don’t know exactly how much evidence the police have. There are letters.’

‘Love letters? They were lovers then?’

‘They were in love with each other.’

Her face grew grimmer.

‘I’m not happy about this, Charles. I don’t like Brenda. In the past, I’ve disliked her very much. I’ve said sharp things about her. But now—I do feel that I want her to have every chance—every possible chance. Aristide would have wished that. I feel it’s up to me to see that—that Brenda gets a square deal.’

‘And Laurence?’

‘Oh, Laurence!’ she shrugged her shoulders impatiently. ‘Men must look after themselves. But Aristide would never forgive us if—’ She left the sentence unfinished.

Then she said:

‘It must be almost lunch time. We’d better go in.’

I explained that I was going up to London.

‘In your car?’

‘Yes.’

‘H’m. I wonder if you’d take me with you. I gather we’re allowed off the lead now.’

‘Of course I will, but I believe Magda and Sophia are going up after lunch. You’ll be more comfortable with them than in my two-seater.’

‘I don’t want to go with them. Take me with you, and don’t say much about it.’

I was surprised, but I did as she asked. We did not speak much on the way to town. I asked her where I should put her down.

‘Harley Street.’

I felt some faint apprehension, but I didn’t like to say anything. She continued:

‘No, it’s too early. Drop me at Debenhams. I can have some lunch there and go to Harley Street afterwards.’

I hope—’ I began and stopped.

‘That’s why I didn’t want to go up with Magda. She dramatizes things. Lots of fuss.’

‘I’m very sorry,’ I said.

‘You needn’t be. I’ve had a good life. A very good life.’ She gave a sudden grin. ‘And it’s not over yet.’