Crooked House - Agatha Christie [26]
I had slept very little the night before. I had been up early to accompany Taverner. Now, in the warm, flower-scented atmosphere of Magda Leonides’ drawing room, my body relaxed in the cushioned embrace of the big chair and my eyelids dropped….
Thinking of Brenda, of Sophia, of an old man’s picture, my thoughts slid together into a pleasant haze.
I slept….
Ten
I returned to consciousness so gradually that I didn’t at first realize that I had been asleep.
The scent of the flowers was in my nose. In front of me a round white blob appeared to float in space. It was some few seconds before I realized that it was a human face I was looking at—a face suspended in the air about a foot or two away from me. As my faculties returned, my vision became more precise. The face still had its goblin suggestion—it was round with a bulging brow, combed-back hair and small, rather beady, black eyes. But it was definitely attached to a body—a small skinny body. It was regarding me very earnestly.
“Hallo,” it said.
“Hallo,” I replied, blinking.
“I’m Josephine.”
I had already deduced that. Sophia’s sister, Josephine, was, I judged, about eleven or twelve years of age. She was a fantastically ugly child with a very distinct likeness to her grandfather. It seemed to me possible that she also had his brains.
“You’re Sophia’s young man,” said Josephine.
I acknowledged the correctness of this remark.
“But you came down here with Chief-Inspector Taverner. Why did you come with Chief-Inspector Taverner?”
“He’s a friend of mine.”
“Is he? I don’t like him. I shan’t tell him things.”
“What sort of things?”
“The things I know. I know a lot of things. I like knowing things.”
She sat down on the arm of the chair and continued her searching scrutiny of my face. I began to feel quite uncomfortable.
“Grandfather’s been murdered. Did you know?”
“Yes,” I said. “I knew.”
“He was poisoned. With es-er-ine.” She pronounced the word very carefully. “It’s interesting, isn’t it?”
“I suppose it is.”
“Eustace and I are very interested. We like detective stories. I’ve always wanted to be a detective. I’m being one now. I’m collecting clues.”
She was, I felt, rather a ghoulish child.
She returned to the charge.
“The man who came with Chief-Inspector Taverner is a detective too, isn’t he? In books it says you can always know plain-clothes detectives by their boots. But this detective was wearing suede shoes.”
“The old order changeth,” I said.
Josephine interpreted this remark according to her own ideas.
“Yes,” she said, “there will be a lot of changes here now, I expect. We shall go and live in a house in London on the Embankment. Mother has wanted to for a long time. She’ll be very pleased. I don’t expect father will mind if his books go, too. He couldn’t afford it before. He lost an awful lot of money over Jezebel.”
“Jezebel?” I queried.
“Yes, didn’t you see it?”
“Oh, it was a play? No, I didn’t. I’ve been abroad.”
“It didn’t run very long. Actually it was the most awful flop. I don’t think mother’s really the type to play Jezebel, do you?”
I balanced my impressions of Magda. Neither in the peach-coloured négligé nor in the tailored suit had she conveyed any suggestion of Jezebel, but I was willing to believe that there were other Magdas that I had not yet seen.
“Perhaps not,” I said cautiously.
“Grandfather always said it would be a flop. He said he wouldn’t put up any money for one of those historical religious plays. He said it would never be a box-office success. But mother was frightfully keen. I didn’t like it much myself. It wasn’t really a bit like the story in the Bible. I mean, Jezebel wasn’t wicked like she is in the Bible. She was all patriotic and really quite nice. That made it dull. Still, the end was all right. They threw her out of the window. Only no dogs came and ate her. I think that was a pity, don’t you? I like the part about the dogs eating her best. Mother says you can’t have dogs on the stage but I don’t see why. You could have performing dogs.” She quoted with