amateur class rather than the professional.
She's good, mind you, especially in comedy
? but managers don't like her much ?
they say she's too independent, and she's a
trouble maker ? foments rows and enjoys
a bit of mischief making. I don't know how
much of it is true ? but she's not too
popular amongst her fellow artists."
Sophia came out of the drawing room
and said "My mother is in here. Chief
Inspector."
I followed Taverner into the big drawing
room. For a moment I hardly recognised
the woman who sat on the brocaded settee.
The Titian hair was piled high on her
head in an Edwardian coiffure, and she was
dressed in a well cut dark grey coat and
skirt with a delicately pleated pale mauve
shirt fastened at the neck by a small cameo
brooch. For the first time I was aware of
the charm of her delightfully tip tilted nose.
I was faintly reminded of Athene Seyler ?
and it seemed quite impossible to believe
that this was the tempestuous creature in
the peach negligee.
"Inspector Taverner?" she said. "Do
come in and sit down. Will you smoke?
This is a most terrible business. I simply
feel at the moment that I just can't take it
^ "
m.
Her voice was low and emotionless 5 the
voice of a person determined at all costs to
display self control. She went on: "Please
tell me if I can help you in any way."
"Thank you, Mrs. Leonides. Where were
you at the time of the tragedy?"
"I suppose I must have been driving
down from London. I'd lunched that day
at the Ivy with a friend. Then we'd gone
to a dress show. We had a drink with some
other friends at the Berkeley. Then I started
home. When I got here everything was in
commotion. It seemed my father-in-law had
had a sudden seizure. He was -- dead."
Her voice trembled just a little.
"You were fond of your father-in-law?"
"I was devoted --"
Her voice rose. Sophia adjusted, very
slightly, the angle of the Degas picture.
Magda's voice dropped to its former subdued
tone.
"I was very fond of him," she said in a
quiet voice. "We all were. He was -- very
good to us."
"Did you get on well with Mrs. Leonides?"
"We didn't see very much of Brenda."
"Why was that?"
"Well, we hadn't much in common. Poor
dear Brenda. Life must have been hard for
her sometimes."
Again Sophia fiddled with the Degas.
"Indeed? In what way?"
"Oh, I don't know." Magda shook her
head, with a sad little smile.
"Was Mrs. Leonides happy with her
husband?"
"Oh, I think so."
"No quarrels?" |
Again the slight smiling shake of the
head. ?
"I really don't know, Inspector. Their
part of the house is quite separate."
"She and Mr. Laurence Brown were very
friendly, were they not?"
Magda Leonides stiffened. Her eyes ?
opened reproachfully at Taverner.
"I don't think," she said with dignity,
"that you ought to ask me things like that.
Brenda was quite friendly to everyone. She
is really a very amiable sort of person."
"Do you like Mr. Laurence Brown?"
"He's very quiet. Quite nice, but you
hardly know he's there. I haven't really
seen very much of him." r
"Is his teaching satisfactory?"
"I suppose so. I really wouldn't know.
Philip seems quite satisfied."
Taverner essayed some shock tactics.
"I'm sorry to ask you this, but in your
opinion was there anything in the nature of
a love affair between Mr. Brown and Mrs.
Brenda Leonides."
Magda got up. She was very much the
grande dame.
"I have never seen any evidence of
anything of that kind," she said. "I don't
think really. Inspector, that that is a question
you ought to ask me. She was my
father-in-law's wife."
I almost applauded.
The Chief Inspector also rose.
"More a question for the servants?" he
suggested.
Magda did not answer.
"Thank you, Mrs. Leonides," said the
Inspector and went out.
"You did that beautifully, darling," said
Sophia to her mother warmly.
Magda twisted up a curl reflectively
behind her right ear and looked at herself
in the glass.
"Ye-es," she said, "I think it was the
right way to play it."
Sophia looked at me.
"Oughtn't you," she asked, "to go with
the Inspector?"
"Look here, Sophia, what am I supposed
--"
I stopped. I could not very well ask
outright in front of Sophia's mother exactly
what my role was supposed to be. Magda
Leonides had so far evinced no interest in
my presence at all, except as a useful recipient
of an exit line on daughters. I might
be a reporter, her daughter's fiance, or an
obscure hanger on of the police force, or
even an undertaker -- to Magda Leonides
they would one and all come under the
general heading of audience.
Looking down at her feet, Mrs. Leonides
said with dissatisfaction:
"These shoes are wrong. Frivolous."
Obeying Sophia's imperious wave of the
head I hurried after Taverner. I caught up
with him in the outer hall just going through
the door to the stairway.
"Just going up to see the older brother,"
he explained.
I put my problem to him without more
ado.
"Look here, Taverner, who am I supposed
to be?" r
He looked surprised.
"Who are you supposed to be?" ^
"Yes, what am I doing here in this house?
If anyone asks me, what do I say?"
"Oh I see." He considered a moment.
Then he smiled. "Has anybody asked you?"
"Well -- no."
"Then why not leave it at that. Never
explain. That's a very good motto. Especially
in a house upset like this house is.
Everyone is far too full of their own private
worries and fears to be in a questioning
mood. They'll take you for granted so long
as you just seem sure of yourself. It's a
great mistake ever to say anything when
you needn't. H'm, now we go through this
door and up the stairs. Nothing locked. Of
course you realise, I expect, that these
questions I'm asking are all a lot of hooey 1 Doesn't matter a hoot who was in the house
and who wasn't, or where they all were on
that particular day --"
"Then why --" He
went on: "Because it at least gives
me a chance to look at them all, and size
them up,
and hear what they've got to say, and to hope that, quite by chance, somebody
might give me a useful pointer." He was
silent a moment and then murmured: "I
bet Mrs. Magda Leonides could spill a
mouthful if she chose."
"Would it be reliable?" I asked.
"Look here, Sophia, what am I supposed
--"
I stopped. I could not very well ask
outright in front of Sophia's mother exactly
what my role was supposed to be. Magda
Leonides had so far evinced no interest in
my presence at all, except as a useful recipient
of an exit line on daughters. I might
be a reporter, her daughter's fiance, or an
obscure hanger on of the police force, or
even an undertaker -- to Magda Leonides
they would one and all come under the
general heading of audience.
Looking down at her feet, Mrs. Leonides
said with dissatisfaction:
"These shoes are wrong. Frivolous."
Obeying Sophia's imperious wave of the
head I hurried after Taverner. I caught up
with him in the outer hall just going through
the door to the stairway.
"Just going up to see the older brother," he explained.
I put my problem to him without more
ado.
"Look here, Taverner, who am I supposed
to be?" t
He looked surprised.
"Who are you supposed to be?" ^
"Yes, what am I doing here in this house?
If anyone asks me, what do I say?"
"Oh I see." He considered a moment.
Then he smiled. "Has anybody asked you?"
"Well -- no."
"Then why not leave it at that. Never
explain. That's a very good motto. Especially
in a house upset like this house is.
Everyone is far too full of their own private
worries and fears to be in a questioning
mood. They'll take you for granted so long
as you just seem sure of yourself. It's a
great mistake ever to say anything when
you needn't. H'm, now we go through this
door and up the stairs. Nothing locked. Of
course you realise, I expect, that these
questions I'm asking are all a lot of hooey i
Doesn't matter a hoot who was in the house
and who wasn't, or where they all were on
that particular day --"
"Then why--" 5 ^
He went on: "Because it at least gives
me a chance to look at them all, and size
them up, and hear what they've got to say, and to hope that, quite by chance, somebody
might give me a useful pointer." He was
silent a moment and then murmured: "I
bet Mrs. Magda Leonides could spill a
mouthful if she chose."
"Would it be reliable?" I asked.
"Oh, no," said Taverner, "it wouldn't
be reliable. But it might start a possible
line of enquiry. Everybody in the damned
house had means and opportunity. What I
want is a motive."
At the top of the stairs, a door barred off
the right hand corridor. There was a brass
knocker on it and Inspector Taverner duly
knocked.
It was opened with startling suddenness
by a man who must have been standing just
inside. He was a clumsy giant of a man
with powerful shoulders, dark rumpled
hair, and an exceedingly ugly but at the
same time rather pleasant face. His eyes
looked at us and then quickly away in that
furtive embarrassed manner which shy but
honest people often adopt.
"Oh, I say," he said. "Come in. Yes, do.
I was going -- but it doesn't matter. Come
into the sitting room. I'll get Clemency --
oh, you're there, darling. It's Chief Inspector
Taverner. He -- are there any cigarettes?
Just wait a minute. If you don't mind --"
He collided with a screen, said "I beg your
pardon" to it in a flustered manner, and
went out of the room.
It was rather like the exit of a bumble
bee and left a noticeable silence behind it.
Mrs. Roger Leonides was standing up by
the window. I was intrigued at once by her
personality and by the atmosphere of the
room in which we stood.
It was quite definitely her room. I was
sure of that.
The walls were painted white -- really
white, not an ivory or a pale cream which
is what one usually means when one says
"white" in house decoration. They had no
pictures on them except one over the
mantelpiece, a geometrical fantasia in triangles
of dark grey and battleship blue.
There was hardly any furniture -- only
mere utilitarian necessities, three or four
chairs, a glass topped table, one small
bookshelf. There were no ornaments. There
was light and space and air. It was as
different from the big brocaded and flowered
drawing room on the floor below as chalk
from cheese. And Mrs. Roger Leonides was
as different from Mrs. Philip Leonides as
one woman could be from another. Whilst
one felt that Magda Leonides could be, and
often was, at least half a dozen different
women. Clemency Leonides, I was sure, could never be anyone but herself. She was
a woman of very sharp and definite personality.
She was about fifty, I suppose, her hair
was grey, cut very short in what was almost
an Eton crop but which grew so beautifully
on her small well shaped head that it had
none of the ugliness I have always associated
with that particular cut. She had an intelligent, sensitive face, with light grey eyes of
a peculiar and searching intensity. She had
on a simple dark red woollen frock that
fitted her slenderness perfectly.
She was, I felt at once, rather an alarming
woman ... I think because I judged that
the standards by which she lived might
not be those of an ordinary woman. I understood
at once why Sophia had used the
word ruthlessness in connection with her.
The room was cold and I shivered a little.
Clemency Leonides said in a quiet well
bred voice:
"Do sit down, Chief Inspector. Is there
any further news?"
"Death was due to eserine, Mrs. Leonides."
t,She said thoughtfully: i
"So that makes it murder. It couldn't
have been an accident of any kind, could
it?"
"No, Mrs. Leonides."
"Please be very gentle with my husband,
Chief Inspector. This will affect him very
much. He worshipped his father and he
feels things very acutely. He is an emotional
person."
"You were on good terms with your fatherin-law,
Mrs. Leonides?"
"Yes, on quite good terms." She added
quietly, "I did not like him very much."
"Why was that?"
"I disliked his objectives in life -- and
his methods of attaining them."
"And Mrs. Brenda Leonides?"
"Brenda?
I never saw very much of her." """Do you think it is possible that there
was anything between her and Mr. Laurence
Brown?"
"You mean -- some kind of a love affair?
I shouldn't think so. But I really wouldn't
know anything about it."
Her voice sounded completely uninterested.
Roger Leonides came back with a rush, and the same bumble bee effect.
"I got held up," he said. "Telephone.
Well, Inspector? Well? Have you got any
news? What caused my father's death?"
"Death was due to eserine poisoning."
"It was? My God! Then it was that
woman! She couldn't wait! He took her
more or less out of the gutter and this is
his reward. She murdered him in cold
blood! God, it makes my blood boil to think
of it."
"Have you any particular reason for thinking
that?" Taverner asked.
Roger was pacing up and down, tugging
at his hair with both hands.
"Reason? Why, who else could it be?
I've never trusted her -- never liked her!
We've none of us liked her. Philip and I
were both appalled when Dad came home
one day and told us what he had done! At
his age! It was madness -- madness. My
father was an amazing man. Inspector. In
intellect he was as young and fresh as a
man of forty. Everything I have in the
world I owe to him. He did everything for
me -- never failed me. It was I who failed
him -- when I think of it --"
He dropped heavily onto a chair. His
wife came quietly to his side.
"Now, Roger, that's enough. Don't work
yourself up."
"I know, dearest -- I know," he took
her hand. "But how can I keep calm --
how can I help feeling --"
"But we must all keep calm, Roger. Chief
Insoector Taverner wants our help."
K "That is right, Mrs. Leonides."
Roger cried:
"Do you know what I'd like to do? I'd
like to strangle that woman with my own
hands. Grudging that dear old man a few
extra years of life. If I had her here ?" He
sprang up. He was shaking with rage. He
held out convulsive hands. "Yes, I'd wring
her neck, wring her neck . . ."
"Roger!" said Clemency sharply.
He looked at her, abashed.
"Sorry, dearest." He turned to us. "I do
apologise. My feelings get the better of me.
I ? excuse me ?"
He went out of the room again. Clemency
Leonides said with a very faint smile:
"Really, you know, he wouldn't hurt a
fly."
Taverner accepted her remark politely.
Then he started on his socalled routine
questions.
Clemency Leonides replied concisely and
accurately.
Roger Leonides had been in London on
the day of his father's death at Box House,
the headquarters of the Associated Catering.
He had returned early in the afternoon and
had spent some time with his father as was
his custom. She herself had been, as usual
at the Lambert Institute on Gower Street
where she worked. She had returned to the
house just before six o'clock.
"Did you see your father-in-law?" "No. The last time I saw him was on the
day before. We had coffee with him after
dinner."
"But you did not see him on the day of
his death?"
"No. I actually went over to his part of
the house because Roger thought he had
left his pipe there -- a very precious pipe 5
but as it happened he had left it on the hall
table there, so I did not need to disturb the
old man. He often dozed off about six."
"When did you hear of his illness?"
"Brenda came rushing over. That was
just a minute or two after half past six."
These questions, as I knew, were unimportant,
but I was aware how keen was
Inspector Taverner's scrutiny of the woman
who answered them. He asked her a few
questions about the nature of her work in
London. She said that it had to do with the
radiation effects of atomic disintegration.
"You work on the atom bomb, in fact?"
"The work has nothing destructive about
it. The Institute is carrying out experiments | on the therapeutic effects." .
When Taverner got up, he expressed a
wish to look around their part of the house.
She seemed a little surprised 5 but showed
him its extent readily enough. The bedroom
with its twin beds and white coverlets and
its simplified toilet appliances reminded me
again of a hospital or some monastic cell.
The bathroom, too, was severely plain with
no special luxury fitting and no array of
cosmetics. The kitchen was bare, spotlessly
clean, and well equipped with labour saving
devices of a practical kind. Then we came
to a door which Clemency opened saying:
"This is my husband's special room.55
"Come in," said Roger. "Come in."
I drew a faint breath of relief. Something
in the spotless austerity elsewhere had been
getting me down. This was an intensely
personal room. There was a large roll top
desk untidily covered with papers, old pipes
and tobacco ash. There were big shabby
easy chairs. Persian rugs covered the floor.
On the walls were groups, their photography
somewhat faded. School groups, cricket
groups, military groups. Water colour
sketches of deserts and minarets, and of
sailing boats and sea effects and sunsets. It
was, somehow, a pleasant room, the room
of a lovable friendly companionable man.