family were asked ? oh, quite politely, to
stay put." ^
"Quite so. She shinned down a pipe from
the bathroom window."
The Old Man's lips twitched for a moment
into a smile.
"She seems," he said, "to be a young
lady of some resource."
"But your police force is fully efficient,"
I said. "A nice Army type tracked her to ,
Mario's. I shall figure in the reports you
get. Five foot eleven, brown hair, brown
eyes, dark blue pinstripe suit etc."
The Old Man looked at me hard.
"Is this ? serious?" he asked.
"Yes," I said. "It's serious, dad."
There was a moment's silence.
"Do you mind?" I asked.
"I shouldn't have minded ? a week ago.
They're a well established family ? the girl
will have money ? and I know you. You i
don't lose your head easily. As it is ?"
"Yes, dad?"
"It may be all right, if ?"
"If what?"
"If the right person did it."
It was the second time that night I had
heard that phrase. I began to be interested.
"Just who is the right person?"
He threw a sharp glance at me.
"How much do you know about it all?"
"Nothing."
"Nothing?" He looked surprised. "Didn't j
the girl tell you?"
"No . . . She said she'd rather I saw it
all ? from an outside point of view."
"Now I wonder why that was?"
"Isn't it rather obvious?"
"No, Charles. I don't think it is."
He walked up and down frowning. He
had lit a cigar and the cigar had gone out.
That showed me just how disturbed the old
boy was.
"How much do you know about the
family?" he shot at me.
"Damnall! I know there was the old man
and a lot of sons and grandchildren and inlaws.
I haven't got the ramifications clear."
I paused and then said, "You'd better put
me in the picture, dad."
"Yes." He sat down. "Very well then ?
I'll begin at the beginning ? with Aristide
Leonides. He arrived in England when he
was twenty four."
"A Greek from Smyrna."
"You do know that much?"
"Yes, but it's about all I do know."
The door opened and Glover came in to
say that Chief Inspector Taverner was here.
"He's in charge of the case," said my
father. "We'd better have him in. He's
been checking up on the family. Knows
more about them than I do."
? I asked if the local police had called in
the Yard.
, "It's in our jurisdiction. Swinly Dean is
Greater London."
I nodded as Chief Inspector Taverner
came into the room. I knew Taverner from
many years back. He greeted me warmly
and congratulated me on my safe return.
"I'm putting Charles in the picture," said
the Old Man. "Correct me if I go wrong,
Taverner. Leonides came to London in
1884. He started up a little restaurant in
Soho. It paid. He started up another. Soon
he owned seven or eight of them. They all
paid hand over fist."
"Never made any mistakes in anything
he handled," said Chief Inspector Taverner.
"He'd got a natural flair," said my father.
"In the end he was behind most of the well
known restaurants in London. Then he
went into the catering business in a big
way."
"He was behind a lot of other businesses
as well," said Taverner. "Second hand
clothes trade, cheap jewellery stores, lots of
things. Of course," he added thoughtfully.
"He was always a twister."
"You mean he was a crook?" I asked.
Taverner shook his head.
"No, I don't mean that. Crooked, yes ?
but not a crook. Never anything outside
the law. But he was the sort of chap that
thought up all the ways you can get round
the law. He's cleaned up a packet that way
even in this last war, and old as he was.
Nothing he did was ever illegal ? but as
soon as he'd got on to it, you had to have
a law about it, if you know what I mean.
But by that time he'd gone on to the next
thing." .
"He doesn't sound a very attractive
character," I said.
"Funnily enough, he was attractive. He'd
got personality, you know. You could feel
it. Nothing much to look at. Just a gnome
? ugly little fellow ? but magnetic ?
women always fell for him."
"He made a rather astonishing marriage,"
said my father. "Married the daughter of a
country squire ? an M.F.H."
I raised my eyebrows. "Money?"
The Old Man shook his head.
"No, it was a love match. She met
him over some catering arrangements for a
friend's wedding ? and she fell for him.
Her parents cut up rough, but she was
determined to have him. I tell you, the man
had charm ? there was something exotic
and dynamic about him that appealed to
her. She was bored stiff with her own
kind."
"And the marriage was happy?"
"It was very happy, oddly enough. Of
course their respective friends didn't mix
(those were the days before money swept
aside all class distinctions) but that didn't
seem to worry them. They did without
friends. He built a rather preposterous
house at Swinly Dean and they lived there
and had eight children."
"This is indeed a family chronicle."
"Old Leonides was rather clever to choose
Swinly Dean. It was only beginning to be
fashionable then. The second and third golf
courses hadn't been made. There was a
mixture there of Old Inhabitants who were
passionately fond of their gardens and who
liked Mrs. Leonides, and rich City men
who wanted to be in with Leonides, so they
could take their choice of acquaintances.
They were perfectly happy, I believe, until
she died of pneumonia in 1905."
^ "Leaving him with eight children?"
"One died in infancy. Two of the sons
were killed in the last war. One daughter
married and went to Australia and died
there. An unmarried daughter was killed in
a motor accident. Another died a year or
two ago. There are two still living -- the
eldest son, Roger, who is married but has
no children, and Philip who married a well
known actress and has three children. Your
Sophia, Eustace and Josephine."
"And they are all living at -- what is it?
-- Three Gables?"
"Yes. The Roger Leonides were bombed
out early in the war. Philip and his family
I have lived there since 1938. And there's an
elderly aunt. Miss de Haviland, sister of
the first Mrs. Leonides. She always loathed
her brother-in-law apparently, but when
her sister died she considered it her duty
I to accept her brother-in-law's invitation to
live with him and bring up the children."
"She's very hot on duty," said Inspector
Taverner. "But she's not the kind that
changes her mind about people. She always
disapproved of Leonides and his methods --"
"Well," I said, "it seems a pretty good
house full. Who do you think killed him?"
Taverner shook his head.
"Early days," he said, "early days to say
that."
| "Come on, Taverner," I said. "I bet
you think you know who did it. We're not
in court, man."
"No," said Taverner gloomily. "And we
never may be."
"You mean he may not have been murdered?"
"Oh, he was murdered all right. Poisoned.
But you know what these poisoning cases
are like. It's very tricky getting the evidence.
Very tricky. All the possibilities may point
one way --" &
"That's what I'm trying to get at. You've
got it all taped out in your mind, haven't
you?"
"It's a case of very strong probability.
It's one of those obvious things. The perfect
set-up. But I don't know, I'm sure. It's
tricky."
I looked appealingly at the Old Man.
He said slowly:
"In murder cases, as you know, Charles, the obvious is usually the right solution.
Old Leonides married again, ten years ago."
"When he was seventy five?"
"Yes, he married a young woman of
twenty four." t
I whistled.
"What sort of a young woman."
"A young woman out of a tea shop. A
perfectly respectable young woman ? good
looking in an anaemic 5 apathetic sort of
way."
"And she's the strong probability?"
"I ask you, sir," said Taverner. "She's
only thirty four now ? and that's a
dangerous age. She likes living soft. And
there's a young man in the house. Tutor to
the grandchildren. Not been in the war ?
got a bad heart or something. They're as
thick as thieves."^
| I looked at him thoughtfully. It was,
certainly, an old and familiar pattern. The
mixture as before. And the second Mrs.
| Leonides was, my father had emphasized,
very respectable. In the name of respectabi|
lity many murders have been committed.
"What was it?" I asked. "Arsenic?"
"No. We haven't got the analyst's report
yet ? but the doctor thinks it's eserine."
"That's a little unusual, isn't it? Surely
easy to trace purchaser."
"Not this thing. It was his own stuff,
you see. Eyedrops."
"Leonides suffered from diabetes," said
my father. "He had regular injections of
11 insulin. Insulin is given out in small bottles
with a rubber cap. A hypodermic needle is
| pressed down through the rubber cap and
the injection drawn up."
I guessed the next bit.
"And it wasn't insulin in the bottle, but I
eserine?"
"Exactly."
"And who gave him the injection?" I
asked.
"His wife."
I understood now what Sophia had meant
by the "right person."
I asked: "Does the family get on well
with the second Mrs. Leonides?"
"No. I gather they are hardly on speaking
terms." m t^
It all seemed clearer and clearer. Nevertheless
5 Inspector Taverner was clearly not
happy about it. |
"What don't you like about it?" I asked
him.
"If she did it, Mr. Charles, it would have
been so easy for her to substitute a bona ride bottle of insulin afterwards. In fact, if
she is guilty, I can't imagine why on earth
she didn't do just that."
"Yes, it does seem indicated. Plenty of
insulin about?"
"Oh yes, full bottles and empty ones.
And if she'd done that, ten to one the
doctor wouldn't have spotted it. Very little |
is known of the post mortem appearances
in human poisoning by eserine. But as it
was he checked up on the insulin (in case
it was the wrong strength or something like
that) and so, of course, he soon spotted
that it wasn't insulin."
"So it seems," I said thoughtfully, "that
Mrs. Leonides was either very stupid ? or
possibly very clever."
"You mean ?"
"That she may be gambling on your
coming to the conclusion that nobody could
have been as stupid as she appears to have
been. What are the alternatives? Any other
? suspects?"
The Old Man said quietly:
"Practically anyone in the house could
have done it. There was always a good store
of insulin ? at least a fortnight's supply.
One of the phials could have been tampered
with, and replaced in the knowledge that it
would be used in due course."
"And anybody, more or less, had access
to them?"
"They weren't locked away. They were
kept on a special shelf in the medicine
cupboard in the bathroom of his part of the
house. Everybody in the house came and
went freely."
"Any strong motive?" My father sighed. < "My dear Charles, Aristide Leonides was
enormously rich! He had made over a good
deal of his money to his family, it is true, but it may be that somebody wanted more."
"But the one that wanted it most would
be the present widow. Has her young man
any money?"
"No. Poor as a Church mouse." o
Something clicked in my brain. I remembered
Sophia's quotation. I suddenly remembered
the whole verse of the nursery
rhyme:
There was a crooked man and he went
fc a crooked mile 5:1
He found a crooked sixpence beside
a crooked stile
He had a crooked cat which caught
a crooked mouse
And they all lived together in a little
crooked house.
I said to Taverner:
"How does she strike you -- Mrs.
Leonides? What do you think of her?"
He replied slowly:
"It's hard to say -- very hard to say.
She's not easy. Very quiet ? so you don't
know what she's thinking. But she likes
living soft ? that I'll swear I'm right about.
Puts me in mind, you know, of a cat, a big
purring lazy cat . . . Not that I've anything
against cats. Cats are all right ..."
He sighed.
"What we want," he said, "is evidence."
||ft1'" '
K Yes, I thought, we all wanted evidence
that Mrs. Leonides had poisoned her
husband. Sophia wanted it, and I wanted
it, and Chief Inspector Taverner wanted it.
I Then everything in the garden would be
lovely!
But Sophia wasn't sure, and I wasn't
sure, and I didn't think Chief In
spector
Taverner was sure either. . . .
ife
^
Four
On the following day I went down to Three
Gables with Taverner.
My position was a curious one. It was, to say the least of it, quite unorthodox. But
the Old Man has never been highly orthodox.
I had a certain standing. I had worked
with the Special Branch at the Yard during
the early days of the war.
This, of course, was entirely different --
but my earlier performances had given me, so to speak, a certain official standing.
My father said:
"If we're ever going to solve this case, we've got to get some inside dope. We've
got to know all about the people in that
house. We've got to know them from the
inside -- not the outside. You're the man
who can get that for us."
I didn't like it. I threw my cigarette end
into the grate as I said:
"T?-
I'm a police spy? Is that it? I'm to get
the inside dope from Sophia whom I love
and who both loves and trusts me, or so I
believe."
The Old Man became quite irritable. He
said sharply:
"For Heaven's Sake don't take the commonplace
view. To begin with, you don't
believe, do you, that your young woman
murdered her grandfather?"
I "Of course not. The idea's absolutely
absurd."
"Very well -- we don't think so either.
She's been away for some years, she has
always been on perfectly amicable terms
with him. She has a very generous income
| and he would have been, I should say, delighted to hear of her engagement to you
and would probably have made a handsome
marriage settlement on her. We don't
suspect her. Why should we? But you can
make quite sure of one thing. If this thing
isn't cleared up, that girl won't marry you.
From what you've told me I'm fairly sure
of that. And mark this, it's the kind of
crime that may never be cleared up. We
may be reasonably sure that the wife and
her young man were in cahoots over it --
but proving it will be another matter.
There's not even a case to put up to the
D.P.P. so far. And unless we get definite
evidence against her, there'll always be a
nasty doubt. You see that, don't you?"
Yes, I saw that.
The Old Man then said quietly: j
"Why not put it to her?"
"You mean ? ask Sophia if I ?" I
stopped.
The Old Man was nodding his head
vigorously. r
"Yes, yes . . . I'm not asking you to
worm your way in without telling the girl
what you're up to. See what she has to say
about it." . -E
And so it came about that the following
day I drove down with Chief Inspector |
Taverner and Detective Sergeant Lamb to
Swinly Dean.
A little way beyond the golf course, we
turned in at a gateway where I imagined
that before the war there had been an
imposing pair of gates. Patriotism or ruthless
requisitioning had swept these away. We
drove up a long curving drive flanked with
rhododendrons and came out on a gravelled
sweep in front of the house.
It was incredible! I wondered why it had
been called Three Gables. Eleven Gables J
would have been more apposite! The curious
thing was that it had a strange air of being
distorted -- and I thought I knew why. It
was the type, really, of a cottage, it was a
cottage swollen out of all proportion. It was
like looking at a country cottage through a
gigantic magnifying glass. The slantwise
beams, the half-timbering, the gables -- it
was a little crooked house that had grown
like a mushroom in the night!
Yet I got the idea. It was a Greek
| restauranteer's idea of something English.
It was meant to be an Englishman's home
-- built the size of a castle! I wondered
what the first Mrs. Leonides had thought
of it. She had not, I fancied, been consulted
| or shown the plans. It was, most probably, her exotic husband's little surprise. I wondered
if she had shuddered or smiled.
Apparently she had lived there quite
happily.
"Bit overwhelming, isn't it?" said Inspector
Taverner. "Of course, the old
gentleman built on to it a good deal --
making it into three separate houses, so to
speak, with kitchens and everything. It's
all tip top inside, fitted up like a luxury
hotel."
Sophia came out of the front door. She
was hatless and wore a green shirt and a
tweed skirt.
She stopped dead when she saw me.
"You?" she exclaimed.
I said:
"Sophia, I've got to talk to you. Where
can we go?"
For a moment I thought she was going
to demur, then she turned and said: "This
way."
We walked down across the lawn. There
was a fine view across Swinly Dean's No 1
course ? away to a clump of pine trees on
a hill, and beyond it, to the dimness of
hazy countryside.
Sophia led me to a rockgarden, now
somewhat neglected, where there was a
rustic wooden seat of great discomfort, and
we sat down.
"Well?" she said.
Her voice was not encouraging.
I said my piece ? all of it.
She listened very attentively. Her face
gave little indication of what she was
thinking, but when I came at last to a full
stop, she sighed. It was a deep sigh.
"Your father," she said, "is a very clever
man."
"The Old Man has his points. I think
it's a rotten idea myself -- but --"
She interrupted me.