Chapter 8

A parlourmaid opened the door of the opposite wing to us. She looked scared but slightly contemptuous when she saw Taverner.

‘You want to see the mistress?’

‘Yes, please.’

She showed us into a big drawing-room and went out.

Its proportions were the same as the drawing-room on the ground floor below. There were coloured cretonnes, very gay in colour, and striped silk curtains. Over the mantelpiece was a portrait that held my gaze riveted—not only because of the master hand that had painted it, but also because of the arresting face of the subject.

It was the portrait of a little old man with dark, piercing eyes. He wore a black velvet skull cap and his head was sunk down in his shoulders, but the vitality and power of the man radiated forth from the canvas. The twinkling eyes seemed to hold mine.

‘That’s him,’ said Chief Inspector Taverner ungrammatically. ‘Painted by Augustus John. Got a personality, hasn’t he?’

‘Yes,’ I said, and felt the monosyllable was inade quate.

I understood now just what Edith de Haviland had meant when she said the house seemed so empty without him. This was the Original Crooked Little Man who had built the Crooked Little House—and without him the Crooked Little House had lost its meaning.

‘That’s his first wife over there, painted by Sargent,’ said Taverner.

I examined the picture on the wall between the windows. It had a certain cruelty like many of Sargent’s portraits. The length of the face was exaggerated, I thought—so was the faint suggestion of horsiness—the indisputable correctness. It was a portrait of a typical English Lady—in Country (not Smart) Society. Handsome, but rather lifeless. A most unlikely wife for the grinning, powerful little despot over the mantelpiece.

The door opened and Sergeant Lamb stepped in.

I’ve done what I could with the servants, sir,’ he said. ‘Didn’t get anything.’

Taverner sighed.

Sergeant Lamb took out his notebook and retreated to the far end of the room, where he seated himself unobtrusively.

The door opened again and Aristide Leonides’ second wife came into the room.

She wore black—very expensive black and a good deal of it. It swathed her up to the neck and down to the wrists. She moved easily and indolently, and black certainly suited her. Her face was mildly pretty, and she had rather nice brown hair arranged in somewhat too elaborate a style. Her face was well powdered and she had on lipstick and rouge, but she had clearly been crying. She was wearing a string of very large pearls and she had a big emerald ring on one hand and an enormous ruby on the other.

There was one other thing I noticed about her. She looked frightened.

‘Good morning, Mrs Leonides,’ said Taverner easi ly. ‘I’m sorry to have to trouble you again.’

She said in a flat voice:

‘I suppose it can’t be helped.’

‘You understand, don’t you, Mrs Leonides, that if you wish your solicitor to be present, that is perfectly in order?’

I wondered if she did understand the significance of those words. Apparently not. She merely said rather sulkily:

‘I don’t like Mr Gaitskill. I don’t want him.’

‘You could have your own solicitor, Mrs Leonides.’

‘Must I? I don’t like solicitors. They confuse me.’

‘It’s entirely for you to decide,’ said Taverner, producing an automatic smile. ‘Shall we go on, then?’

Sergeant Lamb licked his pencil. Brenda Leonides sat down on a sofa facing Taverner.

‘Have you found out anything?’ she asked.

I noticed her fingers nervously twisting and untwisting a pleat of the chiffon of her dress.

‘We can state definitely now that your husband died as a result of eserine poisoning.’

‘You mean those eyedrops killed him?’

‘It seems quite certain that when you gave Mr Leonides that last injection, it was eserine that you injected and not insulin.’

‘But I didn’t know that. I didn’t have anything to do with it. Really I didn’t, Inspector.’

‘Then somebody must have deliberately replaced the insulin by the eyedrops.’

‘What a wicked thing to do!’

‘Yes, Mrs Leonides.’

‘Do you think—someone did it on purpose? Or by accident? It couldn’t have been a—a joke, could it?’

Taverner said smoothly:

‘We don’t think it was a joke, Mrs Leonides.’

‘It must have been one of the servants.’

Taverner did not answer.

‘It must. I don’t see who else could have done it.’

‘Are you sure? Think, Mrs Leonides. Haven’t you any ideas at all? There’s been no ill-feeling anywhere? No quarrel? No grudge?’

She still stared at him with large defiant eyes.

‘I’ve no idea at all,’ she said.

‘You had been at the cinema that afternoon, you said?’

‘Yes—I came in at half-past six—it was time for the insulin—I—I—gave him the injection just the same as usual and then he—he went all queer. I was terrified—I rushed over to Roger—I’ve told you all this before. Have I got to go over it again and again?’ Her voice rose hysterically.

‘I’m sorry, Mrs Leonides. Now can I speak to Mr Brown?’

‘To Laurence? Why? He doesn’t know anything about it.’

‘I’d like to speak to him all the same.’

She stared at him suspiciously.

‘Eustace is doing Latin with him in the schoolroom. Do you want him to come here?’

‘No—we’ll go to him.’

Taverner went quickly out of the room. The sergeant and I followed.

‘You’ve put the wind up her, sir,’ said Sergeant Lamb.

Taverner grunted. He led the way up a short flight of steps and along a passage into a big room looking over the garden. There a fair-haired young man of about thirty and a handsome, dark boy of sixteen were sitting at a table.

They looked up at our entrance. Sophia’s brother Eustace looked at me, Laurence Brown fixed an agonized gaze on Chief Inspector Taverner.

I have never seen a man look so completely paralysed with fright. He stood up, then sat down again. He said, and his voice was almost a squeak:

‘Oh—er—good morning, Inspector.’

‘Good morning.’ Taverner was curt. ‘Can I have a word with you?’

‘Yes, of course. Only too pleased. At least—’

Eustace got up.

‘Do you want me to go away, Chief Inspector?’ His voice was pleasant with a faintly arrogant note.

‘We—we can continue our studies later,’ said the tutor.

Eustace strolled negligently towards the door. He walked rather stiffly. Just as he went through the door he caught my eye, drew a forefinger across the front of his throat and grinned. Then he shut the door behind him.

‘Well, Mr Brown,’ said Taverner. ‘The analysis is quite definite. It was eserine that caused Mr Leonides’ death.’

I—you mean—Mr Leonides was really poisoned? I have been hoping—’

‘He was poisoned,’ said Taverner curtly. ‘Someone substituted eserine eyedrops for insulin.’

‘I can’t believe it… It’s incredible.’

‘The question is, who had a motive?’

‘Nobody. Nobody at all!’ The young man’s voice rose excitedly.

‘You wouldn’t like to have your solicitor present, would you?’ inquired Taverner.

‘I haven’t got a solicitor. I don’t want one. I have nothing to hide—nothing…’

‘And you quite understand that what you say is about to be taken down?’

‘I’m innocent—I assure you, I’m innocent.’

‘I have not suggested anything else.’ Taverner paused. ‘Mrs Leonides was a good deal younger than her husband, was she not?’

‘I—I suppose so—I mean, well, yes.’

‘She must have felt lonely sometimes?’

Laurence Brown did not answer. He passed his tongue over his dry lips.

‘To have a companion of more or less her own age living here must have been agreeable to her?’

‘I—no, not at all—I mean—I don’t know.’

‘It seems to me quite natural that an attachment should have sprung up between you.’

The young man protested vehemently.

‘It didn’t! It wasn’t! Nothing of the kind! I know what you’re thinking, but it wasn’t so! Mrs Leonides was very kind to me always and I had the greatest—the greatest respect for her—but nothing more—nothing more, I do assure you. It’s monstrous to suggest things of that kind! Monstrous! I wouldn’t kill anybody—or tamper with bottles—or anything like that. I’m very sensitive and highly strung. I—the very idea of killing is a nightmare to me— they quite understood that at the tribunal—I have religious objections to killing. I did hospital work instead—stoking boilers—terribly heavy work—I couldn’t go on with it—but they let me take up educational work. I have done my best here with Eustace and with Josephine—a very intelligent child, but difficult. And everybody has been most kind to me—Mr Leonides and Mrs Leonides and Miss de Haviland. And now this awful thing happens… And you suspect me—me—of murder!’

Inspector Taverner looked at him with a slow, appraising interest.

‘I haven’t said so,’ he remarked.

‘But you think so! I know you think so! They all think so! They look at me. I—I can’t go on talking to you. I’m not well.’

He hurried out of the room. Taverner turned his head slowly to look at me.

‘Well, what do you think of him?’

‘He’s scared stiff.’

‘Yes, I know, but is he a murderer?’

‘If you ask me,’ said Sergeant Lamb, ‘he’d never have had the nerve.’

‘He’d never have bashed anyone on the head, or shot off a pistol,’ agreed the Chief Inspector. ‘But in this particular crime what is there to do? Just monkey about with a couple of bottles… Just help a very old man out of the world in a comparatively painless manner.’

‘Practically euthanasia,’ said the sergeant.

‘And then, perhaps, after a decent interval, marriage with a woman who inherits a hundred thousand pounds free of legacy duty, who already has about the same amount settled upon her, and who has in addition pearls and rubies and emeralds the size of what’s-its-name eggs!’

‘Ah, well—’ Taverner sighed. ‘It’s all theory and conjecture! I managed to scare him all right, but that doesn’t prove anything. He’s just as likely to be scared if he’s innocent. And anyway, I rather doubt if he was the one actually to do it. More likely to have been the woman—only why on earth didn’t she throw away the insulin bottle, or rinse it out?’ He turned to the sergeant. ‘No evidence from the servants about any goings on?’

‘The parlourmaid says they’re sweet on each other.’

‘What grounds?’

‘The way he looks at her when she pours out his coffee.’

‘Fat lot of good that would be in a court of law! Definitely no carryings on?’

‘Not that anybody’s seen.’

‘I bet they would have seen, too, if there had been anything to see. You know I’m beginning to believe there really is nothing between them.’ He looked at me. ‘Go back and talk to her. I’d like your impression of her.’

I went, half-reluctantly, yet I was interested.