Chapter 24

 

We were back again in the nightmare.

 

That is what I thought as Taverner and I drove out of London. It was a repetition of our former journey.

 

At intervals, Taverner swore.

 

As for me, I repeated from time to time, stupidly, unprofitably:

 

"So it wasn't Brenda and Laurence. It wasn't Brenda and Laurence."

 

Had I ever really thought it was? I had been so glad to think it. So glad to escape from other, more sinister, possibilities...

 

They had fallen in love with each other. They had written silly sentimental romantic letters to each other. They had indulged in hopes that Brenda' s old husband might soon die peacefully and happily - but I wondered really if they had even acutely desired his death. I had a feeling that the despairs and longings of an unhappy love affair suited them as well or better than commonplace married life together. I didn't think Brenda was really passionate. She was too anaemic, too apathetic. It was romance she craved for. And I thought Laurence, too, was the type to enjoy frustration and vague future dreams of bliss rather than the concrete satisfactions of the flesh.

 

They had been caught in a trap and, terrified, they had not had the wit to find their way out. Laurence with incredible stupidity, had not even destroyed Brenda' s letters. Presumably Brenda had destroyed his, since they had not been found. And it was not Laurence who had balanced the marble door stop on the wash house door.

 

It was someone else whose face was still hidden behind a mask.

 

We drove up to the door. Taverner got out and I followed him. There was a plain clothes man in the hall whom I didn't know. He saluted Taverner and Taverner drew him aside.

 

My attention was taken by a pile of luggage in the hall. It was labelled and ready for departure. As I looked at it Clemency came down the stairs and through the open door at the bottom. She was dressed in her same red dress with a tweed coat over it and a red felt hat.

 

"You're in time to say goodbye, Charles," she said.

 

"You're leaving?"

 

"We go to London tonight. Our plane goes early tomorrow morning."

 

She was quiet and smiling, but I thought her eyes were watchful.

 

"But surely you can't go now?"

 

"Why not?" Her voice was hard.

 

"With this death -"

 

"Nannie's death has nothing to do with us."

 

"Perhaps not. But all the same -"

 

"Why do you say 'perhaps not'? It has nothing to do with us. Roger and I have been upstairs, finishing packing up. We did not come down at all during the time that the cocoa was left on the hall table."

 

"Can you prove that?"

 

"I can answer for Roger. And Roger can answer for me."

 

"No more than that... You're man and wife, remember."

 

Her anger flamed out.

 

"You're impossible, Charles! Roger and I are going away - to lead our own life. Why on earth should we want to poison a nice stupid old woman who had never done us any harm?"

 

"It mightn't have been her you meant to poison."

 

"Still less are we likely to poison a child."

 

"It depends rather on the child, doesn't it?"

 

"What do you mean?"

 

"Josephine isn't quite the ordinary child. She knows a good deal about people. She -"

 

I broke off. Josephine had emerged from the door leading to the drawing room. She was eating the inevitable apple, and over its round rosiness her eyes sparkled with a kind of ghoulish enjoyment.

 

"Nannie's been poisoned," she said. "Just like grandfather. It's awfully exciting, isn't it?"

 

"Aren't you at all upset about it?" I demanded severely. "You were fond of her, weren't you?"

 

"Not particularly. She was always scolding me about something or other. She fussed."

 

"Are you fond of anybody, Josephine?" asked Clemency.

 

Josephine turned her ghoulish eyes towards Clemency.

 

"I love Aunt Edith," she said. "I love Aunt Edith very much. And I could love Eustace, only he's always such a beast to me and won't be interested in finding out who did all this."

 

"You'd better stop finding things out, Josephine," I said. "It isn't very safe."

 

"I don't need to find out any more," said Josephine. "I know."

 

There was a moment's silence. Josephine's eyes, solemn and unwinking, were fixed on Clemency. A sound like a long sigh, reached my ears. I swung sharply round. Edith de Haviland stood half way down the staircase - but I did not think it was she who had sighed. The sound had come from behind the door through which Josephine had just come.

 

I stepped sharply across to it and yanked it open. There was no one to be seen. Nevertheless I was seriously disturbed. Someone had stood just within that door and had heard those words of Josephine's. I went back and took Josephine by the arm. She was eating her apple and staring stolidly at Clemency. Behind the solemnity there was, I thought, a certain malignant satisfaction.

 

"Come on, Josephine," I said. "We're going to have a little talk."

 

I think Josephine might have protested, but I was not standing any nonsense. I ran her along forcibly into her own part of the house. There was a small unused morning room where we could be reasonably sure of being undisturbed. I took her in there, closed the door firmly, and made her sit on a chair. I took another chair and drew it forward so that I faced her.

 

"Now, Josephine," I said, "we're going to have a show down. What exactly do you know?"

 

"Lots of things."

 

"That I have no doubt about. That noddle of yours is probably crammed to overflowing with relevant and irrelevant information. But you know perfectly what I mean. Don't you?"

 

"Of course I do. I'm not stupid."

 

I didn't know whether the disparagement was for me or the police, but I paid no attention to it and went on:

 

"You know who put something in your cocoa?"

 

Josephine nodded.

 

"You know who poisoned your grandfather?"

 

Josephine nodded again.

 

"And who knocked you on the head?"

 

Again Josephine nodded.

 

"Then you're going to come across with what you know. You're going to tell me all about it - now."

 

"Shan't."

 

"You've got to. Every bit of information you've got or ferret out has got to be given to the police."

 

"I won't tell the police anything. They're stupid. They thought Brenda had done it - or Laurence. I wasn't stupid like that. I knew jolly well they hadn't done it. I've had an idea who it was all along, and then I made a kind of test - and now I know I'm right."

 

She finished on a triumphant note.

 

I prayed to Heaven for patience and started again.

 

"Listen, Josephine, I daresay you're extremely clever -" Josephine looked gratified. "But it won't be much good to you to be clever if you're not alive to enjoy the fact. Don't you see, you little fool, that as long as you keep your secrets in this silly way you're in imminent danger?"

 

Josephine nodded approvingly.

 

"Of course I am."

 

"Already you've had two very narrow escapes. One attempt nearly did for you. The other has cost somebody else their life. Don't you see if you go on strutting about the house and proclaiming at the top of your voice you know who the killer is, there will be more attempts made - and that either you'll die or somebody else will?"

 

"In some books person after person is killed," Josephine informed me with gusto. "You end by spotting the murderer because he or she is practically the only person left."

 

"This isn't a detective story. This is Three Gables, Swinly Dean, and you're a silly little girl who's read more than is good for her. I'll make you tell me what you know if I have to shake you till your teeth rattle."

 

"I could always tell you something that wasn't true."

 

"You could, but you won't. What are you waiting for, anyway?"

 

"You don't understand," said Josephine. "Perhaps I may never tell. You see, I might be - fond of the person."

 

She paused as though to let this sink in.

 

"And if I do tell," she went on, "I shall do it properly. I shall have everybody sitting round, and then I'll go over it all - with the clues, and then I shall say, quite suddenly:

 

"And it was you..."

 

She thrust out a dramatic forefinger just as Edith de Haviland entered the room.

 

"Put that core in the waste paper basket, Josephine," said Edith. "Have you got a handkerchief? Your fingers are sticky. I'm taking you out in the car." Her eyes met mine with significance as she said: "She'll be safer out of here for the next hour or so." As Josephine looked mutinous, Edith added: "We'll go into Longbridge and have an ice cream soda."

 

Josephine's eyes brightened and she said: "Two."

 

"Perhaps," said Edith. "Now go and get your hat and coat on and your dark blue scarf. It's cold out today. Charles, you had better go with her while she gets them. Don't leave her. I have just a couple of notes to write."

 

She sat down at the desk, and I escorted Josephine out of the room. Even without Edith's warning, I would have stuck to Josephine like a leech.

 

I was convinced that there was danger to the child very near at hand.

 

As I finished superintending Josephine's toilet, Sophia came into the room. She seemed astonished to see me.

 

"Why, Charles, have you turned nursemaid? I didn't know you were here."

 

"I'm going in to Longbridge with Aunt Edith," said Josephine importantly. "We're going to have ice-creams."

 

"Brrrr, on a day like this?"

 

"Ice cream sodas are always lovely," said Josephine. "When you're cold inside, it makes you feel hotter outside."

 

Sophia frowned. She looked worried, and I was shocked by her pallor and the circles under her eyes.

 

We went back to the morning room.

 

Edith was just blotting a couple of envelopes. She got up briskly.

 

"We'll start now," she said. "I told Evans to bring round the Ford."

 

She swept out to the hall. We followed her.

 

My eye was again caught by the suitcases and their blue labels. For some reason they aroused in me a vague disquietude.

 

"It's quite a nice day," said Edith de Haviland, pulling on her gloves and glancing up at the sky. The Ford 10 was waiting in front of the house. "Cold - but bracing. A real English autumn day. How beautiful trees look with their bare branches against the sky - and just a golden leaf or two still hanging..."

 

She was silent a moment or two, then she turned and kissed Sophia.

 

"Goodbye, dear," she said. "Don't worry too much. Certain things have to be faced and endured."

 

Then she said, "Come, Josephine," and got into the car. Josephine climbed in beside her.

 

They both waved as the car drove off. "I suppose she's right, and it's better to keep Josephine out of this for a while. But we've got to make that child tell what she knows, Sophia."

 

"She probably doesn't know anything. She's just showing off. Josephine likes to make herself look important, you know."

 

"It's more than that. Do they know what poison it was in the cocoa?"

 

"They think it's digitalin. Aunt Edith takes digitalin for her heart. She has a whole bottle full of little tablets up in her room. Now the bottle's empty."

 

"She ought to keep things like that locked up."

 

"She did. I suppose it wouldn't be difficult for someone to find out where she hid the key."

 

"Someone? Who?" I looked again at the pile of luggage. I said suddenly and loudly:

 

"They can't go away. They mustn't be allowed to."

 

Sophia looked surprised.

 

"Roger and Clemency? Charles, you don't think -"

 

"Well, what do you think?"

 

Sophia stretched out her hands in a helpless gesture.

 

"I don't know, Charles," she whispered. "I only know that I'm back - back in the nightmare -"

 

"I know. Those were the very words I used to myself as I drove down with Taverner."

 

"Because this is just what a nightmare is. Walking about among people you know, looking in their faces - and suddenly the faces change - and it's not someone you know any longer - it's a stranger - a cruel stranger..."

 

She cried:

 

"Come outside, Charles - come outside. It's safer outside... I'm afraid to stay in this house..."

 

 

Chapter 25

 

 

We stayed in the garden a long time. By a kind of tacit consent, we did not discuss the horror that was weighing upon us.

 

Instead Sophia talked affectionately of the dead woman, of things they had done, and games they had played as children with Nannie - and tales that the old woman used to tell them about Roger and their father and the other brothers and sisters.

 

"They were her real children, you see. She only came back to us to help during the war when Josephine was a baby and Eustace was a funny little boy."

 

There was a certain balm for Sophia in these memories and I encouraged her to talk.

 

I wondered what Taverner was doing. Questioning the household, I suppose. A car drove away with the police photographer and two other men, and presently an ambulance drove up.

 

Sophia shivered a little. Presently the ambulance left and we knew that Nannie's body had been taken away in preparation for an autopsy.

 

And still we sat or walked in the garden and talked - our words becoming more and more of a cloak for our real thoughts.

 

Finally, with a shiver, Sophia said:

 

"It must be very late - it's almost dark. We've got to go in. Aunt Edith and Josephine haven't come back... Surely they ought to be back by now?"

 

A vague uneasiness woke in me. What had happened? Was Edith deliberately keeping the child away from the Crooked House?

 

We went in. Sophia drew all the curtains.

 

The fire was lit and the big drawing room looked harmonious with an unreal air of bygone luxury. Great bowls of bronze chrysanthemums stood on the tables.

 

Sophia rang and a maid who I recognised as having been formerly upstairs brought in tea. She had red eyes and sniffed continuously. Also I noticed that she had a frightened way of glancing quickly over her shoulder.

 

Magda joined us, but Philip's tea was sent in to him in the library. Magda's rôle was a stiff frozen image of grief. She spoke little or not at all. She said once:

 

"Where are Edith and Josephine? They're out very late."

 

But she said it in a preoccupied kind of way.

 

But I myself was becoming increasingly uneasy. I asked if Taverner were still in the house and Magda replied that she thought so. I went in search of him. I told him that I was worried about Miss de Haviland and the child.

 

He went immediately to the telephone and gave certain instructions.

 

"I'll let you know when I have news," he said.

 

I thanked him and went back to the drawing room. Sophia was there with Eustace.

 

Magda had gone.

 

"He'll let us know if he hears anything," I said to Sophia.

 

She said in a low voice:

 

"Something's happened, Charles, something must have happened."

 

"My dear Sophia, it's not really late yet."

 

"What are you bothering about?" said Eustace. "They've probably gone to the cinema."

 

He lounged out of the room. I said to Sophia: "She may have taken Josephine to a hotel - or up to London. I think she fully realised that the child was in danger - perhaps she realised it better than we did."

 

Sophia replied with a sombre look that I could not quite fathom.

 

"She kissed me goodbye..."

 

I did not see quite what she meant by that disconnected remark, or what it was supposed to show. I asked if Magda was worried.

 

"Mother? No, she's all right. She's no sense of time. She's reading a new play of Vavasour Jones called 'The Woman Disposes'. It's a funny play about murder - a female Bluebeard - cribbed from 'Arsenic and Old Lace' if you ask me, but it's got a good woman's part, a woman who's got a mania for being a widow."