Chapter 23

I had not seen my father for some days. I found him busy with things other than the Leonides case, and I went in search of Taverner.

Taverner was enjoying a short spell of leisure and was willing to come out and have a drink with me. I congratulated him on having cleared up the case and he accepted my congratulation, but his manner remained far from jubilant.

‘Well, that’s over,’ he said. ‘We’ve got a case. Nobody can deny we’ve got a case.’

‘Do you think you’ll get a conviction?’

‘Impossible to say. The evidence is circumstantial—it nearly always is in a murder case—bound to be. A lot depends on the impression they make on the jury.’

‘How far do the letters go?’

‘At first sight, Charles, they’re pretty damning. There are references to their life together when her husband’s dead. Phrases like—“it won’t be long now”. Mind you, defence counsel will try and twist it the other way—the husband was so old that of course they could reasonably expect him to die. There’s no actual mention of poisoning—not down in black and white—but there are some passages that could mean that. It depends what judge we get. If it’s old Carberry he’ll be down on them all through. He’s always very righteous about illicit love. I suppose they’ll have Eagles or Humphrey Kerr for the defence—Humphrey is magnificent in these cases—but he likes a gallant war record or something of that kind to help him do his stuff. A conscientious objector is going to cramp his style. The question is going to be will the jury like them? You can never tell with juries. You know, Charles, those two are not really sympathetic characters. She’s a good-looking woman who married a very old man for his money, and Brown is a neurotic conscientious objector. The crime is so familiar—so according to pattern that you really believe they didn’t do it. Of course, they may decide that he did it and she knew nothing about it—or alternately that she did it, and he didn’t know about it—or they may decide that they were both in it together.’

^‘And what do you yourself think?’ I asked.

He looked at me with a wooden expressionless face.

^‘I don’t think anything. I’ve turned in the facts and they went to the DPP and it was decided that there was a case. That’s all. I’ve done my duty and I’m out of it. So now you know, Charles.’

But I didn’t know. I saw that for some reason Ta verner was unhappy.

It was not until three days later that I unburdened myself to my father. He himself had never mentioned the case to me. There had been a kind of restraint between us—and I thought I knew the reason for it. But I had to break down that barrier.

‘We’ve got to have this out,’ I said. ‘Taverner’s not satisfied that those two did it—and you’re not satisfied either.’

My father shook his head. He said what Taverner had said: ‘It’s out of our hands. There is a case to answer. No question about that.’

‘But you don’t—Taverner doesn’t—think that they’re guilty?’

‘That’s for a jury to decide.’

‘For God’s sake,’ I said, ‘don’t put me off with technical terms. What do you think—both of you—personally?’

‘My personal opinion is no better than yours, Charles.’

‘Yes, it is. You’ve more experience.’

‘Then I’ll be honest with you. I just—don’t know!’

‘They could be guilty?’

‘Oh, yes.’

‘But you don’t feel sure that they are?’

My father shrugged his shoulders.

‘How can one be sure?’

‘Don’t fence with me, Dad. You’ve been sure other times, haven’t you? Dead sure? No doubt in your mind at all?’

‘Sometimes, yes. Not always.’

‘I wish to God you were sure this time.’

‘So do I.’

We were silent. I was thinking of those two figures drifting in from the garden in the dusk. Lonely and haunted and afraid. They had been afraid from the start. Didn’t that show a guilty conscience?

But I answered myself: ‘Not necessarily.’ Both Brenda and Laurence were afraid of life—they had no confidence in themselves, in their ability to avoid danger and defeat, and they could see, only too clearly, the pattern of illicit love leading to murder which might involve them at any moment.

My father spoke, and his voice was grave and kind:

‘Come, Charles,’ he said, ‘let’s face it. You’ve still got it in your mind, haven’t you, that one of the Leonides family is the real culprit?’

‘Not really. I only wonder—’

‘You do think so. You may be wrong, but you do think so.’

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘Why?’

‘Because’—I thought about it, trying to see clearly—to bring my wits to bear—‘because’ (yes, that was it), ‘because they think so themselves.’

‘They think so themselves? That’s interesting. That’s very interesting. Do you mean that they all suspect each other, or that they know, actually, who did do it?’

‘I’m not sure,’ I said. ‘It’s all very nebulous and confused. I think—on the whole—that they try to cover up the knowledge from themselves.’

My father nodded.

‘Not Roger,’ I said. ‘Roger wholeheartedly believes it was Brenda and he wholeheartedly wants her hanged. It’s—it’s a relief to be with Roger, because he’s simple and positive, and hasn’t any reservations in the back of his mind.

‘But the others are apologetic, they’re uneasy—they urge me to be sure that Brenda has the best defence—that every possible advantage is given her—why?’

My father answered: ‘Because they don’t really, in their hearts, believe she is guilty… Yes, that’s sound.’

Then he asked quietly:

‘Who could have done it? You’ve talked to them all? Who’s the best bet?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘And it’s driving me frantic. None of them fits your “sketch of a murderer” and yet I feel—I do feel—that one of them is a murderer.’

‘Sophia?’

‘No. Good God, no!’

‘The possibility’s in your mind, Charles—yes, it is, don’t deny it. All the more potently because you won’t acknowledge it. What about the others? Philip?’

‘Only for the most fantastic motive.’

‘Motives can be fantastic—or they can be absurdly slight. What’s his motive?’

‘He is bitterly jealous of Roger—always has been all his life. His father’s preference for Roger drove Philip in upon himself. Roger was about to crash, then the old man heard of it. He promised to put Roger on his feet again. Supposing Philip learnt that. If the old man died that night there would be no assistance for Roger. Roger would be down and out. Oh! I know it’s absurd—’

‘Oh no, it isn’t. It’s abnormal, but it happens. It’s human. What about Magda?’

‘She’s rather childish. She—she gets things out of proportion. But I would never have thought twice about her being involved if it hadn’t been for the sudden way she wanted to pack Josephine off to Switzerland. I couldn’t help feeling she was afraid of something that Josephine knew or might say—’

‘And then Josephine was conked on the head?’

‘Well, that couldn’t be her mother!’

‘Why not?’

‘But Dad, a mother wouldn’t—’

‘Charles, Charles, don’t you ever read the police news? Again and again a mother takes a dislike to one of her children. Only one—she may be devoted to the others. There’s some association, some reason, but it’s often hard to get at. But when it exists, it’s an unreasoning aversion, and it’s very strong.’

‘She called Josephine a changeling,’ I admitted unwillingly.

‘Did the child mind?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Who else is there? Roger?’

‘Roger didn’t kill his father. I’m quite sure of that.’

‘Wash out Roger then. His wife—what’s her name— Clemency?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘If she killed old Leonides it was for a very odd reason.’

I told him of my conversation with Clemency. I said I thought it possible that in her passion to get Roger away from England she might have deliberately poisoned the old man.

‘She persuaded Roger to go without telling his father. Then the old man found out. He was going to back up Associated Catering. All Clemency’s hopes and plans were frustrated. And she really does care desperately for Roger— beyond idolatry.’

‘You’re repeating what Edith de Haviland said!’

‘Yes. And Edith’s another whom I think—might have done it. But I don’t know why. I can only believe that for what she considered a good and sufficient reason she might take the law into her own hands. She’s that kind of person.’

‘And she also was very anxious that Brenda should be adequately defended?’

‘Yes. That, I suppose, might be conscience. I don’t think for a moment that if she did do it, she intended them to be accused of the crime.’

‘Probably not. But would she knock out the child, Josephine?’

‘No,’ I said slowly. ‘I can’t believe that. Which reminds me that there’s something that Josephine said to me that keeps nagging at my mind, and I can’t remember what it is. It’s slipped my memory. But it’s something that doesn’t fit in where it should. If only I could remember—’

‘Never mind. It will come back. Anything or anyone else on your mind?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Very much so. How much do you know about infantile paralysis. Its after-effects on character, I mean?’

‘Eustace?’

‘Yes. The more I think about it, the more it seems to me that Eustace might fit the bill. His dislike and resentment against his grandfather. His queerness and moodiness. He’s not normal.

‘He’s the only one of the family who I can see knocking out Josephine quite callously if she knew something about him—and she’s quite likely to know. That child knows everything. She writes it down in a little book—’

I stopped.

‘Good Lord,’ I said. ‘What a fool I am.’

‘What’s the matter?’

‘I know now what was wrong. We assumed, Taverner and I, that the wrecking of Josephine’s room, the frantic search, was for those letters. I thought that she’d got hold of them and that she’d hidden them up in the cistern room. But when she was talking to me the other day she made it quite clear that it was Laurence who had hidden them there. She saw him coming out of the cistern room and went snooping around and found the letters. Then, of course, she read them. She would! But she left them where they were.’

‘Well?’

‘Don’t you see? It couldn’t have been the letters someone was looking for in Josephine’s room. It must have been something else.’

‘And that something—’

‘Was the little black book she writes down her “detection” in. That’s what someone was looking for! I think, too, that whoever it was didn’t find it. I think Josephine still has it. But if so—’

I half rose.

‘If so,’ said my father, ‘she still isn’t safe. Is that what you were going to say?’

‘Yes. She won’t be out of danger until she’s actually started for Switzerland. They’re planning to send her there, you know.’

‘Does she want to go?’

I considered.

‘I don’t think she does.’

‘Then she probably hasn’t gone,’ said my father, drily. ‘But I think you’re right about the danger. You’d better go down there.’

‘Eustace?’ I cried desperately. ‘Clemency?’

My father said gently:

‘To my mind the facts point clearly in one direction… I wonder you don’t see it yourself. I…’

Glover opened the door.

‘Beg pardon, Mr Charles, the telephone. Miss Leonides speaking from Swinly Dean. It’s urgent.’

It seemed like a horrible repetition. Had Josephine again fallen a victim. And had the murderer this time made no mistake…?

I hurried to the telephone.

‘Sophia? It’s Charles here.’

Sophia’s voice came with a kind of hard desperation in it. ‘Charles, it isn’t all over. The murderer is still here.’

‘What on earth do you mean? What is wrong? Is it— Josephine?’

‘It’s not Josephine. It’s Nannie.’

‘Nannie?’

‘Yes, there was some cocoa—Josephine’s cocoa, she didn’t drink it. She left it on the table. Nannie thought it was a pity to waste it. So she drank it.’

‘Poor Nannie. Is she very bad?’

Sophia’s voice broke.

‘Oh, Charles, she’s dead.’