Chapter 9

I found Brenda Leonides sitting exactly where I had left her. She looked up sharply as I entered.

‘Where’s Inspector Taverner? Is he coming back?’

‘Not just yet.’

‘Who are you?’

At last I had been asked the question that I had been expecting all the morning.

I answered it with reasonable truth.

‘I’m connected with the police, but I’m also a friend of the family.’

‘The family! Beasts! I hate them all.’

She looked at me, her mouth working. She looked sullen and frightened and angry.

‘They’ve been beastly to me always—always. From the very first. Why shouldn’t I marry their precious father? What did it matter to them? They’d all got loads of money. He gave it to them. They wouldn’t have had the brains to make any for themselves!’

She went on:

‘Why shouldn’t a man marry again—even if he is a bit old? And he wasn’t really old at all—not in himself. I was very fond of him. I was fond of him.’ She looked at me defiantly.

‘I see,’ I said. ‘I see.’

‘I suppose you don’t believe that—but it’s true. I was sick of men. I wanted to have a home—I wanted someone to make a fuss of me and say nice things to me. Aristide said lovely things to me—and he could make you laugh— and he was clever. He thought up all sorts of smart ways to get round all these silly regulations. He was very, very clever. I’m not glad he’s dead. I’m sorry.’

She leaned back on the sofa. She had rather a wide mouth; it curled up sideways in a queer, sleepy smile.

I’ve been happy here. I’ve been safe. I went to all those posh dressmakers—the ones I’d read about. I was as good as anybody. And Aristide gave me lovely things.’ She stretched out a hand, looking at the ruby on it.

Just for a moment I saw the hand and arm like an outstretched cat’s claw, and heard her voice as a purr. She was still smiling to herself.

‘What’s wrong with that?’ she demanded. ‘I was nice to him. I made him happy.’ She leaned forward. ‘Do you know how I met him?’

She went on without waiting for an answer.

‘It was in the Gay Shamrock. He’d ordered scrambled eggs on toast and when I brought them to him I was crying. “Sit down,” he said, “and tell me what’s the matter.” “Oh, I couldn’t,” I said. “I’d get the sack if I did a thing like that.” “No, you won’t,” he said, “I own this place.” I looked at him then. Such an odd little man he was, I thought at first—but he’d got a sort of power. I told him all about it… You’ll have heard about it all from them, I expect— making out I was a regular bad lot—but I wasn’t. I was brought up very carefully. We had a shop—a very high-class shop—art needlework. I was never the sort of girl who had a lot of boy friends or made herself cheap. But Terry was different. He was Irish—and he was going overseas… He never wrote or anything—I suppose I was a fool. So there it was, you see. I was in trouble—just like some dreadful little servant girl…’

Her voice was disdainful in its snobbery.

‘Aristide was wonderful. He said everything would be all right. He said he was lonely. We’d be married at once, he said. It was like a dream. And then I found out he was the great Mr Leonides. He owned masses of shops and restaurants and night clubs. It was quite like a fairy tale, wasn’t it?’

‘One kind of a fairy tale,’ I said dryly.

‘We were married at a little church in the City—and then we went abroad.’

‘And the child?’

She looked at me with eyes that came back from a long distance.

‘There wasn’t a child after all. It was all a mistake.’

She smiled, the curled-up sideways, crooked smile.

‘I vowed to myself that I’d be a really good wife to him, and I was. I ordered all the kinds of food he liked, and wore the colours he fancied and I did all I could to please him. And he was happy. But we never got rid of that family of his. Always coming and sponging and living in his pocket. Old Miss de Haviland—I think she ought to have gone away when he got married. I said so. But Aristide said, “She’s been here so long. It’s her home now.” The truth is he liked to have them all about and underfoot. They were beastly to me, but he never seemed to notice that or to mind about it. Roger hates me—have you seen Roger? He’s always hated me. He’s jealous. And Philip’s so stuck up he never speaks to me. And now they’re trying to pretend I murdered him—and I didn’t—I didntV She leaned towards me. ‘Please believe I didn’t.’

I found her very pathetic. The contemptuous way the Leonides family had spoken of her, their eagerness to believe that she had committed the crime—now, at this moment, it all seemed positively inhuman conduct. She was alone, defenceless, hunted down.

‘And if it’s not me, they think it’s Laurence,’ she went on.

‘What about Laurence?’ I asked.

‘I’m terribly sorry for Laurence. He’s delicate and he couldn’t go and fight. It’s not because he was a coward. It’s because he’s sensitive. I’ve tried to cheer him up and to make him feel happy. He has to teach those horrible children. Eustace is always sneering at him, and Josephine— well, you’ve seen Josephine. You know what she’s like.’

I said I hadn’t met Josephine yet.

‘Sometimes I think that child isn’t right in her head. She has horrible sneaky ways, and she looks queer… She gives me the shivers sometimes.’

I didn’t want to talk about Josephine. I harked back to Laurence Brown.

‘Who is he?’ I asked. ‘Where does he come from?’

I had phrased it clumsily. She flushed.

‘He isn’t anybody particular. He’s just like me… What chance have we got against all of them?’

‘Don’t you think you’re being a little hysterical?’

‘No, I don’t. They want to make out that Laurence did it—or that I did. They’ve got that policeman on their side. What chance have I got?’

‘You mustn’t work yourself up,’ I said.

‘Why shouldn’t it be one of them who killed him? Or someone from outside? Or one of the servants?’

‘There’s a certain lack of motive.’

‘Oh, motive! What motive had I got? Or Laurence?’

I felt rather uncomfortable as I said:

‘They might think, I suppose, that you and—er— Laurence—are in love with each other—that you wanted to marry.’

She sat bolt upright.

‘That’s a wicked thing to suggest! And it’s not true! We’ve never said a word of that kind to each other. I’ve just been sorry for him and tried to cheer him up. We’ve been friends, that’s all. You do believe me, don’t you?’

I did believe her. That is, I believed that she and Laurence were, as she put it, only friends. But I also believed that, possibly unknown to herself, she was actually in love with the young man.

It was with that thought in my mind that I went downstairs in search of Sophia.

As I was about to go into the drawing-room, Sophia poked her head out of a door farther along the passage.

‘Hallo,’ she said. ‘I’m helping Nannie with lunch.’

I would have joined her, but she came out into the passage, shut the door behind her, and taking my arm led me into the drawing-room, which was empty.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘did you see Brenda? What did you think of her?’

‘Frankly,’ I said, ‘I was sorry for her.’

Sophia looked amused.

‘I see,’ she said. ‘So she got you.’

I felt slightly irritated.

‘The point is,’ I said, ‘that I can see her side of it. Apparently you can’t.’

‘Her side of what?’

‘Honestly, Sophia, have any of the family ever been nice to her, or even fairly decent to her, since she came here?’

‘No, we haven’t been nice to her. Why should we be?’

‘Just ordinary Christian kindliness, if nothing else.’

‘What a very high moral tone you’re taking, Charles. Brenda must have done her stuff pretty well.’

‘Really, Sophia, you seem—I don’t know what’s come over you.’

‘I’m just being honest and not pretending. You’ve seen Brenda’s side of it, so you say. Now take a look at my side. I don’t like the type of young woman who makes up a hard-luck story and marries a very rich old man on the strength of it. I’ve a perfect right not to like that type of young woman, and there is no earthly reason why I should pretend I do. And if the facts were written down in cold blood on paper, you wouldn’t like that young woman either.’

‘Was it a made-up story?’ I asked.

‘About the child? I don’t know. Personally, I think so.’

‘And you resent the fact that your grandfather was taken in by it?’

‘Oh, grandfather wasn’t taken in.’ Sophia laughed. ‘Grandfather was never taken in by anybody. He wanted Brenda. He wanted to play Cophetua to her beggar-maid. He knew just what he was doing and it worked out beautifully according to plan. From grandfather’s point of view the marriage was a complete success—like all his other operations.’

‘Was engaging Laurence Brown as tutor another of your grandfather’s successes?’ I asked ironically.

Sophia frowned.

‘Do you know, I’m not sure that it wasn’t. He wanted to keep Brenda happy and amused. He may have thought that jewels and clothes weren’t enough. He may have thought she wanted a mild romance in her life. He may have calculated that someone like Laurence Brown, somebody really tame, if you know what I mean, would just do the trick. A beautiful soulful friendship tinged with melancholy that would stop Brenda from having a real affair with someone outside. I wouldn’t put it past grandfather to have worked out something on those lines. He was rather an old devil, you know.’

‘He must have been,’ I said.

‘He couldn’t, of course, have visualized that it would lead to murder… And that,’ said Sophia, speaking with such vehemence, ‘is really why I don’t, much as I would like to, really believe that she did it. If she’d planned to murder him—or if she and Laurence had planned it together—grandfather would have known about it. I dare say that seems a bit far-fetched to you—’

‘I must confess it does,’ I said.

‘But then you didn’t know grandfather. He certainly wouldn’t have connived at his own murder! So there you are! Up against a blank wall.’

‘She’s frightened, Sophia,’ I said. ‘She’s very frigh tened.’

‘Chief Inspector Taverner and his merry, merry men? Yes, I dare say they are rather alarming. Laurence, I suppose, is in hysterics?’

‘Practically. He made, I thought, a disgusting exhibition of himself. I don’t understand what a woman can see in a man like that.’

‘Don’t you, Charles? Actually Laurence has a lot of sex appeal.’

‘A weakling like that,’ I said incredulously.

‘Why do men always think that a caveman must necessarily be the only type of person attractive to the opposite sex? Laurence has got sex appeal all right—but I wouldn’t expect you to be aware of it.’ She looked at me. ‘Brenda got her hooks into you all right.’

‘Don’t be absurd. She’s not even really good-looking. And she certainly didn’t—’

‘Display allure? No, she just made you sorry for her. She’s not actually beautiful, she’s not in the least clever— but she’s got one very outstanding characteristic. She can make trouble. She’s made trouble, already, between you and me.’

‘Sophia!’ I cried aghast.

Sophia went to the door.

‘Forget it, Charles. I must get on with lunch.’

‘I’ll come and help.’

‘No, you stay here. It will rattle Nannie to have “a gentleman in the kitchen”.’

‘Sophia,’ I called as she went out.

‘Yes, what is it?’

‘Just a servant problem. Why haven’t you got any servants down here and upstairs; something in an apron and a cap opened the door to us?’

‘Grandfather had a cook, housemaid, parlourmaid, and valet-attendant. He liked servants. He paid them the earth, of course, and he got them. Clemency and Roger just have a daily woman who comes in and cleans. They don’t like servants—or rather Clemency doesn’t. If Roger didn’t get a square meal in the City every day, he’d starve. Clemency’s idea of a meal is lettuce, tomatoes, and raw carrot. We sometimes have servants, and then mother throws one of her temperaments and they leave, and we have dailies for a bit and then start again. We’re in the daily period. Nannie is the permanency and copes in emergencies. Now you know.’

Sophia went out. I sank down in one of the large brocaded chairs and gave myself up to speculation.

Upstairs I had seen Brenda’s side of it. Here and now I had been shown Sophia’s side of it. I realized completely the justice of Sophia’s point of view—what might be called the Leonides family’s point of view. They resented a stranger within the gates who had obtained admission by what they regarded as ignoble means. They were entirely within their rights. As Sophia had said: on paper it wouldn’t look well…

But there was the human side of it—the side that I saw and that they didn’t. They were, they always had been, rich and well established. They had no conception of the temptations of the underdog. Brenda Leonides had wanted wealth, and pretty things and safety—and a home. She had claimed that in exchange she had made her old husband happy. I had sympathy with her. Certainly, while I was talking with her, I had had sympathy for her… Had I got as much sympathy now?

Two sides to the question—different angles of vision— which was the true angle… the true angle…

I had slept very little the night before. I had been up early to accompany Taverner. Now, in the warm, flower-scented atmosphere of Magda Leonides’ drawing-room, my body relaxed in the cushioned embrace of the big chair and my eyelids dropped…

Thinking of Brenda, of Sophia, of an old man’s picture, my thoughts slid together into a pleasant haze.

I slept…