Crooked House - Agatha Christie [12]
“Darling, I can’t stand it—I simply can’t stand it—just think of the notices—it isn’t in the papers yet, but of course it will be—and I simply can’t make up my mind what I ought to wear at the inquest—very, very subdued—not black though, perhaps dark purple—and I simply haven’t got a coupon left—I’ve lost the address of that dreadful man who sells them to me—you know, the garage somewhere near Shaftesbury Avenue—and if I went up there in the car the police would follow me, and they might ask the most awkward questions, mightn’t they? I mean, what could one say? How calm you are, Philip! How can you be so calm? Don’t you realize we can leave this awful house now? Freedom—freedom! Oh, how unkind—the poor old Sweetie—of course we’d never have left him while he was alive. He really did dote on us, didn’t he—in spite of all the trouble that woman upstairs tried to make between us. I’m quite sure that if we had gone away and left him to her, he’d have cut us right out of everything. Horrible creature! After all, poor old Sweetie Pie was just on ninety—all the family feeling in the world couldn’t have stood up against a dreadful woman who was on the spot. You know, Philip, I really believe that this would be a wonderful opportunity to put on the Edith Thompson play. This murder would give us a lot of advance publicity. Bildenstein said he could get the Thespian—that dreary play in verse about miners is coming off any minute—it’s a wonderful part—wonderful. I know they say I must always play comedy because of my nose—but you know there’s quite a lot of comedy to be got out of Edith Thompson—I don’t think the author realized that—comedy always heightens the suspense. I know just how I’d play it—commonplace, silly, make-believe up to the last minute and then—”
She cast out an arm—the cigarette fell out of the holder on to the polished mahogany of Philip’s desk and began to burn it. Impassively he reached for it and dropped it into the wastepaper basket.
“And then,” whispered Magda Leonides, her eyes suddenly widening, her face stiffening, “just terror….”
The stark fear stayed on her face for about twenty seconds, then her face relaxed, crumpled, a bewildered child was about to burst into tears.
Suddenly all emotion was wiped away as though by a sponge and, turning to me, she asked in a businesslike tone:
“Don’t you think that would be the way to play Edith Thompson?”
I said I thought that would be exactly the way to play Edith Thompson. At the moment I could only remember very vaguely who Edith Thompson was, but I was anxious to start off well with Sophia’s mother.
“Rather like Brenda, really, wasn’t she?” said Magda. “D’you know, I never thought of that. It’s very interesting. Shall I point that out to the inspector?”
The man behind the desk frowned very slightly.
“There’s really no need, Magda,” he said, “for you to see him at all. I can tell him anything he wants to know.”
“Not see him?” Her voice went up. “But of course I must see him! Darling, darling, you’re so terribly unimaginative! You don’t realize the importance of details. He’ll want to know exactly how and when everything happened, all the little things one noticed and wondered about at the time—”
“Mother,” said Sophia, coming through the open door, “you’re not to tell the inspector a lot of lies.”
“Sophia—darling….”
“I know, precious, that you’ve got it all set and that you’re ready to give a most beautiful performance. But you’ve got it wrong. Quite wrong.”
“Nonsense. You don’t know—”
“I do know. You’ve got to play it quite differently, darling. Subdued—saying very little—holding it all back—on your guard—protecting the family.”
Magda Leonides’ face showed the naïve perplexity of a child.
“Darling,” she said, “do you really think—”
“Yes, I do. Throw it away. That’s the idea.”
Sophia added, as a little pleased smile began to show on her mother’s face:
“I’ve made