Crooked House - Agatha Christie [65]
A car drove up to the front door.
“Hallo,” I said. “Here’s Josephine back.”
Josephine and Magda got out of the car. Josephine had a bandage round her head but otherwise looked remarkably well.
She said at once:
“I want to see my goldfish,” and started towards us and the pond.
“Darling,” cried Magda, “you’d better come in first and lie down a little, and perhaps have a little nourishing soup.”
“Don’t fuss, Mother,” said Josephine. “I’m quite all right, and I hate nourishing soup.”
Magda looked irresolute. I knew that Josephine had really been fit to depart from the hospital for some days, and that it was only a hint from Taverner that had kept her there. He was taking no chances on Josephine’s safety until his suspects were safe under lock and key.
I said to Magda:
“I dare say fresh air will do her good. I’ll go and keep an eye on her.”
I caught Josephine up before she got to the pond.
“All sorts of things have been happening while you’ve been away,” I said.
Josephine did not reply. She peered with her shortsighted eyes into the pond.
“I don’t see Ferdinand,” she said.
“Which is Ferdinand?”
“The one with four tails.”
“That kind is rather amusing. I like that bright gold one.”
“It’s quite a common one.”
“I don’t much care for that moth-eaten white one.”
Josephine cast me a scornful glance.
“That’s a shebunkin. They cost a lot—far more than goldfish.”
“Don’t you want to hear what’s been happening, Josephine?”
“I expect I know about it.”
“Did you know that another will has been found and that your grandfather left all his money to Sophia?”
Josephine nodded in a bored kind of way.
“Mother told me. Anyway, I knew it already.”
“Do you mean you heard it in hospital?”
“No, I mean I knew that grandfather had left his money to Sophia. I heard him tell her so.”
“Were you listening again?”
“Yes. I like listening.”
“It’s a disgraceful thing to do, and remember this, listeners hear no good of themselves.”
Josephine gave me a peculiar glance.
“I heard what he said about me to her, if that’s what you mean.”
She added:
“Nannie gets wild if she catches me listening at doors. She says it’s not the sort of thing a little lady does.”
“She’s quite right.”
“Pooh,” said Josephine. “Nobody’s a lady nowadays. They said so on the Brains Trust. They said it was ob-so-lete.” She pronounced the word carefully.
I changed the subject.
“You’ve got home a bit late for the big event,” I said. “Chief-Inspector Taverner has arrested Brenda and Laurence.”
I expected that Josephine, in her character of young detective, would be thrilled by this information, but she merely repeated in her maddening bored fashion:
“Yes, I know.”
“You can’t know. It’s only just happened.”
“The car passed us on the road. Inspector Taverner and the detective with the suede shoes were inside with Brenda and Laurence, so of course I knew they must have been arrested. I hope he gave them the proper caution. You have to, you know.”
I assured her that Taverner had acted strictly according to etiquette.
“I had to tell him about the letters,” I said apologetically. “I found them behind the cistern. I’d have let you tell him only you were knocked out.”
Josephine’s hand went gingerly to her head.
“I ought to have been killed,” she said with complacency. “I told you it was about time for the second murder. The cistern was a rotten place to hide those letters. I guessed at once when I saw Laurence coming out of there one day. I mean he’s not a useful kind of man who does things with ball taps, or pipes or fuses, so I knew he must have been hiding something.”
“But I thought—” I broke off as Edith de Haviland’s voice called authoritatively:
“Josephine, Josephine, come here at once.”
Josephine sighed.
“More fuss,” she said. “But I’d better go. You have to, if it’s Aunt Edith.”
She ran across the lawn. I followed more slowly.
After a brief interchange of words Josephine went into the house. I joined Edith de Haviland on the terrace.
This morning she looked fully