And anybody, more or less, had access to them?
They werent 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 has made over a good deal of his mo ney to his family, it is true, but it may be that somebody wanted more.
Any strong motive?
My father sighed.
My dear Charles, Aristide Leonides was enormously rich. He has made over a good deal of his mo ney 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.
Something clicked in my brain. I remembered Sophias quotation. I suddenly remembered the whole verse of the nursery rhyme:
There was a crooked man and he went a crooked mile.
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 youMrs Leonides? What do you think of her?
He replied slowly:
Its hard to sayvery hard to say. Shes not easy. Very quietso you dont know what shes thinking. But she likes living softthat Ill swear Im right about. Puts me in mind, you know, of a cat, a big pur ring lazy cat Not that Ive anything against cats. Cats are all right
He sighed.
What we want, he said, is evidence.
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.
Then everything in the garden would be lovely!
But Sophia wasnt sure, and I wasnt sure, and I didnt think Chief Inspector Taverner was sure either.
Chapter 4
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 differentbut my earlier performances had given me, so to speak, a certain official standing.
My father said:
If were ever going to solve this case, weve got to get some inside dope[40]. Weve got to know all about the people in that house. Weve got to know them from the inside not the outside. Youre the man who can get that for us.
I didnt like that. I threw my cigarette end into the grate as I said:
Im a police spy? Is that it? Im 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 heavens sake dont take the commonplace view. To begin with, you dont believe, do you, that your young woman murdered her grand father?
Of course not. The ideas absolutely absurd.
Very wellwe dont think so either. Shes 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[41] on her. We dont suspect her. Why should we? But you can make quite sure of one thing. If this thing isnt cleared up, that girl wont marry you. From what youve told me Im fairly sure of that. And mark this, its 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[42] over itbut proving it will be another matter. Theres not even a case to put up to the DPP[43] so far. And unless we get definite evidence against her, therell always be a nasty doubt. You see that, dont you?
Yes, I saw that.
The Old Man then said quietly:
Why not put it to her?
You meanask Sophia if I I stopped.
The Old Man was nodding his head vigorously.
Yes, yes. Im not asking you to worm your way in[44] without telling the girl what youre up to. See what she has to say about it.
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 would have been more apposite! The curious thing was that it had a strange air of being distortedand I thought I knew why. It was the type, really, of a cottage, it was a cottage swollen out[45] of all proportion. It was like looking at a country cottage through a gigantic magnifying-glass. The slant-wise beams, the half-timbering, the gablesit was a little that had grown like a mushroom in the night!
Yet I got the idea. It was a Greek restaurateurs idea of something English. It was meant to be an Englishmans homebuilt 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 husbands little surprise. I wondered if she had shuddered or smiled.