Crooked House - Agatha Christie [31]
“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.
“That child,” said Sophia, “is a bit of a problem.”
Eleven
I
I came into the AC’s room at the Yard to find Taverner finishing the recital of what had apparently been a tale of woe.
“And there you are,” he was saying. “I’ve turned the lot of them inside out—and what do I get—nothing at all! No motives. None of them hard up. And all that we’ve got against the wife and her young man is that he made sheep’s eyes at her when she poured him out his coffee!”
“Come, come, Taverner,” I said. “I can do a little better than that for you.”
“You can, can you? Well, Mr. Charles, what did you get?”
I sat down, lit a cigarette, leaned back and let them have it.
“Roger Leonides and his wife were planning a getaway abroad next Tuesday. Roger and his father had a stormy interview on the day of the old man’s death. Old Leonides had found out something was wrong, and Roger was admitting culpability.”
Taverner went purple in the face.
“Where the hell did you get all that from?” he demanded. “If you got it from the servants—”
“I didn’t get it from the servants. I got it,” I said, “from a private inquiry agent.”
“What do you mean?”
“And I must say that, in accordance with the canons of the best detective stories, he, or rather she—or perhaps I’d better say it—has licked the police hollow!
“I also think,” I went on, “that my private detective has a few more things up his, her or its sleeve.”
Taverner opened his mouth and shut it again. He wanted to ask so many questions at once that he found it hard to begin.
“Roger!” he said. “So Roger’s a wrong ’un, is he?”
I felt a slight reluctance as I unburdened myself. I had liked Roger Leonides. Remembering his comfortable, friendly room, and the man’s own friendly charm, I disliked setting the hounds of justice on his track. It was possible, of course, that all Josephine’s information would be unreliable, but I did not really think so.
“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 confidently suggested, “embezzling” the funds of Associated Catering and if the old man had found it out, it might have been vital to silence old Leonides and to leave England before the truth came out. Possibly Roger had rendered himself liable to criminal prosecution.
It was agreed that inquiries should be made without delay into the affairs of Associated Catering.
“It will be an almighty crash, if that goes,” my father remarked. “It’s a huge concern. There are millions involved.”
“If it’s really in Queer Street, it gives us what we want,” said Taverner. “Father summons Roger. Roger breaks down and confesses. Brenda Leonides was out at a cinema. Roger has only got to leave his father’s room, walk into the bathroom, empty out an insulin phial and replace it with the strong solution of eserine and there you are. Or his wife may have done it. She went over to the other wing after she came home that day—says she went to fetch a pipe Roger had left there. But she could have gone over to switch the stuff before Brenda came home and gave him his injection. She’d be quite cool and capable about it.”
I nodded. “Yes, I fancy her as the actual doer of the deed. She’s cool enough for anything! And I don’t really think that Roger Leonides would think of poison as a means—that trick with the insulin has something feminine about it.”
“Plenty of men poisoners,” said my father drily.
“Oh, I know, sir,” said Taverner. “Don’t I know!” he added with feeling.
“All the same I shouldn’t have said Roger was the type.”
“Pritchard,” the Old Man reminded him,