Crooked House - Agatha Christie [33]
Yes, there was certainly a motive there all right.
My father looked at his watch.
“I’ve asked him to come here,” he said. “He’ll be here any minute now.”
“Roger?”
“Yes.”
“Will you walk into my parlour, said the spider to the fly?” I murmured.
Taverner looked at me in a shocked way.
“We shall give him all the proper cautions,” he said severely.
The stage was set, the shorthand writer established. Presently the buzzer sounded, and a few minutes later Roger Leonides entered the room.
He came in eagerly—and rather clumsily—he stumbled over a chair. I was reminded as before of a large friendly dog. At the same time I decided quite definitely that it was not he who had carried out the actual process of transferring eserine to an insulin bottle. He would have broken it, spilled it, or muffed the operation in some way or the other. No, Clemency’s, I decided, had been the actual hand, though Roger had been privy to the deed.
Words rushed from him.
“You wanted to see me? You’ve found out something? Hallo, Charles. I didn’t see you. Nice of you to come along. But please tell me, Sir Arthur—”
Such a nice fellow—really such a nice fellow. But lots of murderers had been nice fellows—so their astonished friends had said afterwards. Feeling rather like Judas, I smiled a greeting.
My father was deliberate, coldly official. The glib phrases were uttered. Statement … taken down … no compulsion … solicitor….
Roger Leonides brushed them all aside with the same characteristic eager impatience.
I saw the faint sardonic smile on Chief-Inspector Taverner’s face, and read from it the thought in his mind.
“Always sure of themselves, these chaps. They can’t make a mistake. They’re far too clever!”
I sat down unobtrusively in a corner and listened.
“I have asked you to come here, Mr. Leonides,” my father said, “not to give you fresh information, but to ask for some information from you—information that you have previously withheld.”
Roger Leonides looked bewildered.
“Withheld? But I’ve told you everything—absolutely everything!”
“I think not. You had a conversation with the deceased on the afternoon of his death?”
“Yes, yes, I had tea with him. I told you so.”
“You told us that, yes, but you did not tell us about your conversation.”
“We—just—talked.”
“What about?”
“Daily happenings, the house, Sophia—”
“What about Associated Catering? Was that mentioned?”
I think I had hoped up to then that Josephine had been inventing the whole story; but if so, that hope was quickly quenched.
Roger’s face changed. It changed in a moment from eagerness to something that was recognizably close to despair.
“Oh, my God,” he said. He dropped into a chair and buried his face in his hands.
Taverner smiled like a contented cat.
“You admit, Mr. Leonides, that you have not been frank with us?”
“How did you get to know about that? I thought nobody knew—I don’t see how anybody could know.”
“We have means of finding out these things, Mr. Leonides.” There was a majestic pause. “I think you will see now that you had better tell us the truth.”
“Yes, yes, of course. I’ll tell you. What do you want to know?”
“Is it true that Associated Catering is on the verge of collapse?”
“Yes. It can’t be staved off now. The crash is bound to come. If only my father could have died without ever knowing. I feel so ashamed—so disgraced—”
“There is a possibility of criminal prosecution?”
Roger sat up sharply.
“No, indeed. It will be bankruptcy—but an honourable bankruptcy. Creditors will be paid twenty shillings in the pound if I throw in my personal assets, which I shall do. No, the disgrace I feel is to have failed my