Crooked House - Agatha Christie [68]
My father answered: “Because they don’t really, in their hearts, believe she is guilty … Yes, that’s sound.”
Then he asked quietly:
“Who could have done it? You’ve talked to them all? Who’s the best bet?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “And it’s driving me frantic. None of them fits your ‘sketch of a murderer’ and yet I feel—I do feel—that one of them is a murderer.”
“Sophia?”
“No. Good God, no!”
“The possibility’s in your mind, Charles—yes, it is, don’t deny it. All the more potently because you won’t acknowledge it. What about the others? Philip?”
“Only for the most fantastic motive.”
“Motives can be fantastic—or they can be absurdly slight. What’s his motive?”
“He is bitterly jealous of Roger—always has been all his life. His father’s preference for Roger drove Philip in upon himself. Roger was about to crash, then the old man heard of it. He promised to put Roger on his feet again. Supposing Philip learnt that. If the old man died that night there would be no assistance for Roger. Roger would be down and out. Oh! I know it’s absurd—”
“Oh no, it isn’t. It’s abnormal, but it happens. It’s human. What about Magda?”
“She’s rather childish. She—she gets things out of proportion. But I would never have thought twice about her being involved if it hadn’t been for the sudden way she wanted to pack Josephine off to Switzerland. I couldn’t help feeling she was afraid of something that Josephine knew or might say—”
“And then Josephine was conked on the head?”
“Well, that couldn’t be her mother!”
“Why not?”
“But Dad, a mother wouldn’t—”
“Charles, Charles, don’t you ever read the police news? Again and again a mother takes a dislike to one of her children. Only one—she may be devoted to the others. There’s some association, some reason, but it’s often hard to get at. But when it exists, it’s an unreasoning aversion, and it’s very strong.”
“She called Josephine a changeling,” I admitted unwillingly.
“Did the child mind?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Who else is there? Roger?”
“Roger didn’t kill his father. I’m quite sure of that.”
“Wash out Roger then. His wife—what’s her name—Clemency?”
“Yes,” I said. “If she killed old Leonides it was for a very odd reason.”
I told him of my conversation with Clemency. I said I thought it possible that in her passion to get Roger away from England she might have deliberately poisoned the old man.
“She persuaded Roger to go without telling his father. Then the old man found out. He was going to back up Associated Catering. All Clemency’s hopes and plans were frustrated. And she really does care desperately for Roger—beyond idolatry.”
“You’re repeating what Edith de Haviland said!”
“Yes. And Edith’s another whom I think—might have done it. But I don’t know why. I can only believe that for what she considered a good and sufficient reason she might take the law into her own hands. She’s that kind of person.”
“And she also was very anxious that Brenda should be adequately defended?”
“Yes. That, I suppose, might be conscience. I don’t think for a moment that if she did do it, she intended them to be accused of the crime.”
“Probably not. But would she knock out the child, Josephine?”
“No,” I said slowly. “I can’t believe that. Which reminds me that there’s something that Josephine said to me that keeps nagging at my mind, and I can’t remember what it is. It’s slipped my memory. But it’s something that doesn’t fit in where it should. If only I could remember—”
“Never mind. It will come back. Anything or anyone else on your mind?”
“Yes,” I said. “Very much so. How much do you know about infantile paralysis. Its aftereffects on character, I mean?”
“Eustace?”
“Yes. The more I think about it, the more it seems to me that Eustace might fit the bill. His dislike and resentment against his grandfather. His queerness and moodiness. He’s not normal.
“He’s the only one of the family who I can see knocking out Josephine quite callously if she knew something about him—and she’s quite likely to know. That child knows everything. She writes it down in a little book—”
I stopped.
“Good Lord,” I