Read Crooked House Page 8

notices were simply frightful. When she

  read them, she burst into tears and cried

  all day and she threw her breakfast tray at

  Gladys, and Gladys gave notice. It was

  rather fun."

  "I perceive that you like drama, Josephine,"

  I said.

  "They did a post mortem on grandfather,"

  said Josephine. "To find out what

  he had died of. A P.M., they call it, but I

  think that's rather confusing, don't you? Because

  P.M. stands for Prime Minister too.

  And for afternoon," she added, thoughtfully.

  "Are you sorry your grandfather is dead?"

  I asked.

  "Not particularly. I didn't like him much.

  He stopped me learning to be a ballet

  dancer."

  "Did you want to learn ballet dancing?"

  "Yes, and mother was willing for me to

  learn, and father didn't mind, but grandfather

  said I'd be no good."

  She slipped off the arm of the chair, kicked off her shoes and endeavoured to get onto what are called technically, I

  believe, her points.

  "You have to have the proper shoes, of

  course," she explained, "and even then you

  get frightful abscesses sometimes on the

  ends of your toes." She resumed her shoes

  and inquired casually: .

  "Do you like this house?"

  "I'm not quite sure," I said.

  "I suppose it will be sold now. Unless

  Brenda goes on living in it. And I suppose

  Uncle Roger and Aunt Clemency won't be

  going away now."

  "Were they going away?" I asked with a

  faint stirring of interest.

  "Yes. They were going on Tuesday.

  Abroad, somewhere. They were going by

  air. Aunt Clemency bought one of those a new featherweight cases."

  "I hadn't heard they were going abroad,"

  I said. I r.i

  "No," said Josephine. "Nobody knew.

  It was a secret. They weren't going to tell

  anyone until after they'd gone. They were

  going to leave a note behind for grandfather."

  |

  She added:

  "Not pinned to the pincushion. That's

  only in very old-fashioned books and wives m^ do it when they leave their husbands. But !],

  it would be silly now because nobody has

  pincushions any more."

  "Of course they don't. Josephine, do you

  know why your Uncle Roger was -- going

  away?"

  She shot me a cunning sideways glance. "I think I do. It was something to do

  with Uncle Roger's office in London. I

  rather think -- but I'm not sure -- that

  he'd embezzled something." ^ "What makes you think that?"

  Josephine came nearer and breathed heavily

  in my face.

  "The day that grandfather was poisoned

  Uncle Roger was shut up in his room with

  him ever so long. They were talking and

  talking. And Uncle Roger was saying that

  he'd never been any good, and that he'd let

  grandfather down -- and that it wasn't the

  money so much -- it was the feeling he'd

  been unworthy of trust. He was in an awful

  state."

  I looked at Josephine with mixed feelings.

  "Josephine," I said, "hasn't anybody ever

  told you that it's not nice to listen at

  doors?"

  Josephine nodded her head vigorously.

  "Of course they have. But if you want to

  find things out, you have to listen at doors.

  I bet Chief Inspector Taverner does, don't

  you?"

  I considered the point. Josephine went

  on vehemently:

  "And anyway if he doesn't, the other one

  does, the one with the suede shoes. And

  they look in people's desks and read all

  their letters, and find out all their secrets.

  Only they're stupid! They don't know

  where to look!"

  Josephine spoke with cold superiority. I

  was stupid enough to let the inference

  escape me. The unpleasant child went on:

  "Eustace and I know lots of things --

  but I know more than Eustace does. And I

  shan't tell him. He says women can't ever

  be great detectives. But I say they can. I'm

  going to write down everything in a notebook

  and then, when the police are completely

  baffled, I shall come forward and

  say,
  "Do you read a lot of detective stories,

  Josephine?"

  "Masses."

  "I suppose you think you know who

  killed your grandfather?"

  "Well, I think so -- but I shall have to

  find a few more clues." She paused and

  added, "Chief Inspector Taverner thinks

  that Brenda did it, doesn't he? Or Brenda

  and Laurence together because they're in

  love with each other."

  "You shouldn't say things like that,

  Josephine."

  "Why not? They are in love with each

  other."

  "You can't possibly judge."

  sfe "Yes, I can. They write to each other.

  Love letters."

  "Josephine! How do you know that?"

  "Because I've read them. Awfully soppy

  letters. But Laurence is soppy. He was too

  frightened to fight in the war. He went into

  basements, and stoked boilers. When the

  flying bombs went over here, he used to

  turn green ? really green. It made Eustace

  and me laugh a lot."

  What I would have said next, I do not

  know, for at that moment a car drew up

  outside. In a flash Josephine was at the

  window, her snub nose pressed to the pane.

  "Who is it?" I asked.

  "It's Mr. Gaitskill, grandfather's lawyer.

  I expect he's come about the will."

  Breathing excitedly, she hurried from the

  room, doubtless to resume her sleuthing

  activities.

  Magda Leonides came in the room and

  to my surprise came across to me and took

  my hands in hers.

  "My dear," she said, "thank goodness

  you're still here. One needs a man so

  badly."

  She dropped my hands, crossed to a i

  highbacked chair, altered its position a

  little, glanced at herself in a mirror, then

  picking up a small Battersea enamel box

  from a table she stood pensively opening

  and shutting it.

  It was an attractive pose.

  Sophia put her head in at the door and

  said in an admonitory whisper, "Gaitskill!"

  "I

  know," said Magda.

  A few moments later, Sophia entered the ;

  room accompanied by a small elderly man,

  and Magda put down her enamel box and

  came forward to meet him.

  "Good morning, Mrs. Philip. I'm on my

  way upstairs. It seems there's some misunderstanding

  about the will. Your husband

  wrote to me with the impression that the

  will was in my keeping. I understood from

  Mr. Leonides himself that it was at his

  vault. You don't know anything about it, I

  suppose?"

  "About poor Sweetie's will?" Magda

  A

  op
ened astonished eyes. "No, of course

  not. Don't tell me that wicked woman

  upstairs has destroyed it?"

  "Now, Mrs. Philip," he shook an admonitory

  finger at her. "No wild surmises.

  It's just a question of where your father-inlaw

  kept it."

  "But he sent it to you -- surely he did

  -- after signing it. He actually told us he

  had." o

  "The police, I understand, have been

  through Mr. Leonides's private papers,"

  said Mr. Gaitskill. "I'll just have a word

  with Chief Inspector Taverner."

  He left the room. g

  "Darling," cried Magda. "She has destroyed

  it. I know I'm right."

  "Nonsense, mother, she wouldn't do a

  stupid thing like that."

  "It wouldn't be stupid at all. If there's

  no will she'll get everything."

  "Sh -- here's Gaitskill back again."

  The lawyer re-entered the room. Chief

  Inspector Taverner was with him and behind

  Taverner came Philip.

  "I understood from Mr. Leonides,"

  Gaitskill was saying, "that he had placed

  his will with the Bank for safe keeping."

  Taverner shook his head.

  "I've been in communication with the

  Bank. They have no private papers belonging

  to Mr. Leonides beyond certain securities

  which they held for him."

  Philip said:

  "I wonder if Roger -- or Aunt Edith --

  Perhaps, Sophia, you'd ask them to come

  down here."

  But Roger Leonides, summoned with the

  others to the conclave, could give no

  assistance.

  "But it's nonsense -- absolute nonsense," he declared. "Father signed the will and

  said distinctly that he was posting it to Mr.

  Gaitskill on the following day."

  "If my memory serves me," said Mr.

  Gaitskill, leaning back and half-closing his

  eyes, "it was on November 24th of last year

  that I forwarded a draft drawn up according

  to Mr. Leonides's instructions. He approved

  the draft, returned it to me, and in due

  course I sent him the will for signature.

  After a lapse of a week, I ventured to

  remind him that I had not yet received the

  will duly signed and attested, and asking

  him if there was anything he wished altered.

  He replied that he was perfectly satisfied

  and added that after signing the will he had

  sent it to his Bank."

  "That's quite right," said Roger eagerly. "It was about the end of November last

  year -- you remember, Philip? -- Father

  had us all up one evening and read the will

  to us."

  Taverner turned towards Philip Leonides.

  "That agrees with your recollection, Mr.

  Leonides?"

  "Yes," said Philip.

  "It was rather like the Voysey Inheritance,"

  said Magda. She sighed pleasurably.

  "I always think there's something so dramatic

  about a will." s %

  "Miss Sophia?"

  "Yes," said Sophia. "I remember perfectly."

  "And the provisions of that wiU?" asked

  Taverner.

  Mr. Gaitskill was about to reply in his

  precise fashion, but Roger Leonides got

  ahead of him.

  "It was a perfectly simple will. Electra

  and Joyce had died and their shaire of the

  settlements had returned to father. Joyce's

  son, William, had been killed in action in

  Burma, and the money he left went to his

  father. Philip and I and the children were Ae only relatives left. Father 'explained Aat. He left fifty thousand pounds free of

  duty to Aunt Edith, a hundred thousand

  pounds free of duty to Brenda, this house

  to Brenda or else a suitable house in London

  to be purchased for her, whichever she

  preferred. The residue to be divided into

  three portions, one to myself, one to Philip, i the third to be divided between Sophia, Eustace and Josephine, the portions of the

  last two to be held in trust until they should

  come of age. I think that's right, isn't it, Mr. Gaitskill?"

  "Those are -- roughly stated -- the provisions

  of the document I drew up," agreed

  Mr. Gaitskill, displaying some slight acerbity

  at not having been allowed to speak

  for himself.

  "Father read it out to us," said Roger. |

  "He asked if there was any comment we

  might like to make. Of course there was

  none."

  "Brenda made a comment," said Miss de

  Haviland. Rfe

  "Yes," said Magda with zest. "She said

  she couldn't bear her darling old Aristide

  to talk about death. It 'gave her the creeps', |

  she said. And after he was dead she didn't

  want any of the horrid money!"

  "That," said Miss de Haviland, "was a conventional protest, typical of her class."

  It was a cruel and biting little remark. I

  realised suddenly how much Edith de

  Haviland disliked Brenda.

  "A very fair and reasonable disposal of

  his estate," said Mr. Gaitskill.

  "And after reading it what happened?"

  asked Inspector Taverner.

  "After reading it," said Roger, "he signed

  it."

  Taverner leaned forward.

  "Just how and when did he sign it?"

  Roger looked round at his wife in an

  appealing way. Clemency spoke in answer

  to that look. The rest of the family seemed

  content for her to do so. %

  "You want to know exactly what took

  place?"

  "If you please, Mrs. Roger."

  "My father-in-law laid the will down on

  his desk and requested one of us ? Roger,

  I think ? to ring the bell. Roger did so.

  When Johnson came in answer to the bell,

  my father-in-law requested him to fetch

  Janet Woolmer, the parlourmaid. When

  they were both there, he signed the will

  and requested them to sign their own names

  beneath his signature."

  "The correct procedure," said Mr. Gaitskill.

  "A will must be signed by the testator

  in the presence of two witnesses who must

  affix their own signatures at the same time

  and place."

  "And after that?" asked Taverner.

  "My father-in-law thanked them, and

  they went out. My father-in-law picked up

  the will 5 put it in a long envelope and

  mentioned that he would send it to Mr.

  Gaitskill on the following day."

  "You all agree," said Inspector Taverner,

  looking round, "that this is an accurate

  account of what happened?"

  There were murmurs of agreement.

  "The will was on the desk, you said.

  How near were any of you to that desk?"

  "Not very near. Five or six yards,

  perhaps, would be the nearest."

  "When Mr. Leonides read you the will

  was he himself sitting at the desk?"

  "Yes." .

  "Did he get up, or leave the desk, after

  reading the will and before signing it?"

  "No."

  "Could the servants read the document

 
when they signed their names?"

  "No," said Clemency. "My father-in-law

  placed a sheet of paper across the upper

  part of the document."

  "Quite properly," said Philip. "The ^

  contents of the will were no business of the

  servants."

  "I see," said Taverner. "At least ? I

  don't see."

  With a brisk movement he produced a

  long envelope and leaned forward to hand

  it to the lawyer.

  "Have a look at that," he said. "And tell

  me what it is."

  Mr. Gaitskill drew a folded document

  out of the envelope. He looked at it with

  lively astonishment, turning it round and

  round in his hands.

  "This," he said, "is somewhat surprising.

  I do not understand it at all. Where was

  this, if I may ask?"

  "In the safe, amongst Mr. Leonides's

  other papers."

  "But what is it?" demanded Roger.

  "What's all the fuss about?"

  "This is the will I prepared for your

  father's signature, Roger ? but ? I can't

  understand it after what you have all said

  ?- it is not signed."

  "What? Well, I suppose it is just a draft."

  "No," said the lawyer. "Mr. Leonides

  returned me the original draft. I then drew

  up the will ? this will," he tapped it with

  his finger, "and sent it to him for signature.

  According to your evidence he signed the

  will in front of you all ? and the two

  witnesses also appended their signatures ?

  and yet this will is unsigned."

  "But that's impossible," exclaimed Philip

  Leonides, speaking with more animation

  than I had yet heard from him.

  Taverner asked: "How good was your

  father's eyesight?"

  "He suffered from glaucoma. He used

  strong glasses 5 of course 5 for reading."

  "He had those glasses on that evening?"

  "Certainly. He didn't take his glasses off

  until after he had signed. I think I am

  right?" , b

  "Quite right," said Clemency.

  "And nobody ? you are all sure of that

  ? went near the desk before the signing of

  the will?"

  "I wonder now," said Magda, screwing

  up her eyes. "If one could only visualise it

  all again."

  "Nobody went near the desk," said

  Sophia. "And grandfather sat at it all the

  time."

  "The desk was in the position it is now?

  It was not near a door, or a window, or any

  drapery?"

  55

  "It was where it is now.

  "I am trying to see how a substitution of

  some kind could have been effected," said

  Taverner. "Some kind of substitution there

  must have been. Mr. Leonides was under

  the impression that he was signing the

  document he had just read aloud."

  "Couldn't the signatures have been

  erased?" Roger demanded.

  "No, Mr. Leonides. Not without leaving

  signs of erasion. There is one other possibility.

  That this is not the document sent

  to Mr. Leonides by Gaitskill and which he

  signed in your presence."

  "On the contrary," said Mr. Gaitskill. "I

  could swear to this being the original

  document. There is a small flaw in the

  paper -- at the top left hand corner -- it

  resembles, by a stretch of fancy, an aeroplane.

  I noticed it at the time."

  The family looked blankly at one another.

  "A most curious set of circumstances," said Mr. Gaitskill. "Quite without precedent

  *

  in my experience."

  "The whole thing's impossible," said

  Roger. "We were all there. It simply

  couldn't have happened."

  Miss de Haviland gave a dry cough. "Never any good wasting breath saying

  something that has happened couldn't have

  happened," she remarked. "What's tie

  position now? That's what I'd like to

  know?"

  Gaitskill immediately became the cautious

  lawyer.

  "The position will have to be examined

  very carefully," he said. "The document, of course, revokes all former wills and

  testaments. There are a large number of

  witnesses who saw Mr. Leonides sign wtiat

  he certainly believed to be this will in

  perfectly good faith. Hum. Very interesting.

  Quite a little legal problem."

  Taverner glanced at his watch.

  "I'm afraid," he said, "I've been keeping

  you from your lunch."

  "Won't you stay and lunch with us. Chief

  Inspector?" asked Philip, a?

  "Thank you, Mr. Leonides, but I am

  meeting Dr. Cray in Swinly Dean."

  Philip turned to the lawyer.

  "You'll lunch with us, Gaitskill?"

  "Thank you, Philip."

  Everybody stood up. I edged unobtrusively

  towards Sophia.

  "Do I go or stay?" I murmured. It sounded ridiculously like the title of a

  Victorian song.

  "Go, I think," said Sophia.

  I slipped quietly out of the room in

  pursuit ofTaverner. Josephine was swinging

  to and fro on a baize door leading to the

  back quarters. She appeared to be highly

  amused about something.

  "The police are stupid," she observed.

  Sophia came out of the drawing room.

  "What have you been doing, Josephine?"

  "Helping Nannie."

  "I believe you've been listening outside

  the door."

  Josephine made a face at her and retreated.

  3;

  "That child," said Sophia, "is a bit of a

  problem."

  "So the kid told you?" said Taverner.

  "She seems to be wise to everything that

  goes on in that house."

  "Children usually are," said my father

  drily.

  This information, if true, altered the

  whole position. If Roger had been, as

  Josephine had confidently suggested, "embezzling"