Crooked House - Agatha Christie [41]
Nannie nodded her head in a satisfied way.
“Why on earth should Communists want to murder poor grandfather?”
“Well, everyone says that they’re at the bottom of everything that goes on. But if it wasn’t the Communists, mark my word, it was the Catholics. The Scarlet Woman of Babylon, that’s what they are.”
With the air of one saying the last word, Nannie disappeared again into the scullery.
Sophia and I laughed.
“A good old Black Protestant,” I said.
“Yes, isn’t she? Come on, Charles, come into the drawing room. There’s a kind of family conclave going on. It was scheduled for this evening—but it’s started prematurely.”
“I’d better not butt in, Sophia.”
“If you’re ever going to marry into the family, you’d better see just what it’s like when it has the gloves off.”
“What’s it all about?”
“Roger’s affairs. You seem to have been mixed up in them already. But you’re crazy to think that Roger would ever have killed grandfather. Why, Roger adored him.”
“I didn’t really think Roger had. I thought Clemency might have.”
“Only because I put it into your head. But you’re wrong there too. I don’t think Clemency will mind a bit if Roger loses all his money. I think she’ll actually be rather pleased. She’s got a queer kind of passion for not having things. Come on.”
When Sophia and I entered the drawing room, the voices that were speaking stopped abruptly. Everybody looked at us.
They were all there. Philip sitting in a big crimson brocaded armchair between the windows, his beautiful face set in a cold, stern mask. He looked like a judge about to pronounce sentence. Roger was astride a big pouffe by the fireplace. He had ruffled up his hair between his fingers until it stood up all over his head. His left trouser leg was rucked up and his tie askew. He looked flushed and argumentative. Clemency sat beyond him, her slight form seemed too slender for the big stuffed chair. She was looking away from the others and seemed to be studying the wall panels with a dispassionate gaze. Edith sat in a grandfather chair, bolt upright. She was knitting with incredible energy, her lips pressed tightly together. The most beautiful thing in the room to look at was Magda and Eustace. They looked like a portrait by Gainsborough. They sat together on the sofa—the dark, handsome boy with a sullen expression on his face, and beside him, one arm thrust out along the back of the sofa, sat Magda, the Duchess of Three Gables in a picture gown of taffetas with one small foot in a brocaded slipper thrust out in front of her.
Philip frowned.
“Sophia,” he said, “I’m sorry, but we are discussing family matters which are of a private nature.”
Miss de Haviland’s needles clicked. I prepared to apologize and retreat. Sophia forestalled me. Her voice was clear and determined.
“Charles and I,” she said, “hope to get married. I want Charles to be here.”
“And why on earth not?” cried Roger, springing up from his pouffe with explosive energy. “I keep telling you, Philip, there’s nothing private about this! The whole world is going to know tomorrow or the day after. Anyway, my dear boy,” he came and put a friendly hand on my shoulder, “you know all about it. You were there this morning.”
“Do tell me,” cried Magda, leaning forward. “What is it like at Scotland Yard? One always wonders. A table? A desk? Chairs? What kind of curtains? No flowers, I suppose? A dictaphone?”
“Put a sock in it, Mother,” said Sophia. “And anyway, you told Vavasour Jones to cut that Scotland Yard scene. You said it was an anticlimax.”
“It makes it too like a detective play,” said Magda. “Edith Thompson is definitely a psychological drama—or psychological thriller—which do you think sounds best?”
“You were there this morning?” Philip asked me sharply. “Why? Oh, of course—your father—”
He frowned. I realized more clearly than ever that my presence was unwelcome, but Sophia’s hand was clenched on my arm.
Clemency moved a chair forward.
“Do sit