Crooked House - Agatha Christie [47]
Was it only the concern for Josephine’s welfare which had occasioned Magda’s sudden decision? I wondered. Josephine was remarkably well-informed about all sorts of things that had happened prior to the murder and which had been certainly no business of hers. A healthy school life with plenty of games would probably do her a world of good. But I did rather wonder at the suddenness and urgency of Magda’s decision—Switzerland was a long way off.
Sixteen
The Old Man had said:
“Let them talk to you.”
As I shaved the following morning, I considered just how far that had taken me.
Edith de Haviland had talked to me—she had sought me out for that especial purpose. Clemency had talked to me (or had I talked to her?). Magda had talked to me in a sense—that is, I had formed part of the audience to one of her broadcasts. Sophia naturally had talked to me. Even Nannie had talked to me. Was I any the wiser for what I had learned from them all? Was there any significant word or phrase? More, was there any evidence of that abnormal vanity on which my father had laid stress? I couldn’t see that there was.
The only person who had shown absolutely no desire to talk to me in any way, or on any subject, was Philip. Was not that, in a way, rather abnormal? He must know by now that I wanted to marry his daughter. Yet he continued to act as though I was not in the house at all. Presumably he resented my presence there. Edith de Haviland had apologized for him. She had said it was just “manner.” She had shown herself concerned about Philip. Why?
I considered Sophia’s father. He was in every sense a repressed individual. He had been an unhappy jealous child. He had been forced back into himself. He had taken refuge in the world of books—in the historical past. That studied coldness and reserve of his might conceal a good deal of passionate feeling. The inadequate motive of financial gain by his father’s death was unconvincing—I did not think for a moment that Philip Leonides would kill his father because he himself had not quite as much money as he would like to have. But there might be some deep psychological reason for his desiring his father’s death. Philip had come back to his father’s house to live, and later, as a result of the Blitz, Roger had come—and Philip had been obliged to see day by day that Roger was his father’s favourite … Might things have come to such a pass in his tortured mind that the only relief possible was his father’s death? And supposing that death should incriminate his elder brother? Roger was short of money—on the verge of a crash. Knowing nothing of that last interview between Roger and his father and the latter’s offer of assistance, might not Philip have believed that the motive would seem so powerful that Roger would be at once suspected? Was Philip’s mental balance sufficiently disturbed to lead him to do murder?
I cut my chin with the razor and swore.
What the hell was I trying to do? Fasten murder on Sophia’s father? That was a nice thing to try and do! That wasn’t what Sophia had wanted me to come down here for.
Or—was it? There was something, had been something all along, behind Sophia’s appeal. If there was any lingering suspicion in her mind that her father was the killer, then she would never consent to marry me—in case that suspicion might be true. And since she was Sophia, clear-eyed and brave, she wanted the truth, since uncertainty would be an eternal and perpetual barrier between us. Hadn’t she been in effect saying to me, “Prove that this dreadful thing I am imagining is not true—but if it is true, then prove its truth to me—so that I can know the worst and face it!”
Did Edith de Haviland know, or suspect, that Philip was guilty. What had she meant by “this side idolatry?”
And what had Clemency meant by that peculiar look she had thrown at me when I had asked her who she suspected and she had answered: “Laurence