Crooked House - Agatha Christie [70]
“You’re in time to say goodbye, Charles,” she said.
“You’re leaving?”
“We go to London tonight. Our plane goes early tomorrow morning.”
She was quiet and smiling, but I thought her eyes were watchful.
“But surely you can’t go now?”
“Why not?” Her voice was hard.
“With this death—”
“Nannie’s death has nothing to do with us.”
“Perhaps not. But all the same—”
“Why do you say ‘perhaps not’? It has nothing to do with us. Roger and I have been upstairs, finishing packing up. We did not come down at all during the time that the cocoa was left on the hall table.”
“Can you prove that?”
“I can answer for Roger. And Roger can answer for me.”
“No more than that … You’re man and wife, remember.”
Her anger flamed out.
“You’re impossible, Charles! Roger and I are going away—to lead our own life. Why on earth should we want to poison a nice stupid old woman who had never done us any harm?”
“It mightn’t have been her you meant to poison.”
“Still less are we likely to poison a child.”
“It depends rather on the child, doesn’t it?”
“What do you mean?”
“Josephine isn’t quite the ordinary child. She knows a good deal about people. She—”
I broke off. Josephine had emerged from the door leading to the drawing room. She was eating the inevitable apple, and over its round rosiness her eyes sparkled with a kind of ghoulish enjoyment.
“Nannie’s been poisoned,” she said. “Just like grandfather. It’s awfully exciting, isn’t it?”
“Aren’t you at all upset about it?” I demanded severely. “You were fond of her, weren’t you?”
“Not particularly. She was always scolding me about something or other. She fussed.”
“Are you fond of anybody, Josephine?” asked Clemency.
Josephine turned her ghoulish eyes towards Clemency.
“I love Aunt Edith,” she said. “I love Aunt Edith very much. And I could love Eustace, only he’s always such a beast to me and won’t be interested in finding out who did all this.”
“You’d better stop finding things out, Josephine,” I said. “It isn’t very safe.”
“I don’t need to find out any more,” said Josephine. “I know.”
There was a moment’s silence. Josephine’s eyes, solemn and unwinking, were fixed on Clemency. A sound like a long sigh reached my ears. I swung sharply round. Edith de Haviland stood halfway down the staircase—but I did not think it was she who had sighed. The sound had come from behind the door through which Josephine had just come.
I stepped sharply across to it and yanked it open. There was no one to be seen.
Nevertheless I was seriously disturbed. Someone had stood just within that door and had heard those words of Josephine’s. I went back and took Josephine by the arm. She was eating her apple and staring stolidly at Clemency. Behind the solemnity there was, I thought, a certain malignant satisfaction.
“Come on, Josephine,” I said. “We’re going to have a little talk.”
I think Josephine might have protested, but I was not standing any nonsense. I ran her along forcibly into her own part of the house. There was a small unused morning room where we could be reasonably sure of being undisturbed. I took her in there, closed the door firmly, and made her sit on a chair. I took another chair and drew it forward so that I faced her. “Now, Josephine,” I said, “we’re going to have a showdown. What exactly do you know?”
“Lots of things.”
“That I have no doubt about. That noddle of yours is probably crammed to overflowing with relevant and irrelevant information. But you know perfectly what I mean. Don’t you?”
“Of course I do. I’m not stupid.”
I didn’t know whether the disparagement was for me or the police, but I paid no attention to it and went on:
“You know who put something in your cocoa?”
Josephine nodded.
“You know who poisoned your grandfather?”
Josephine nodded again.
“And who knocked you on the head?”
Again Josephine nodded.
“Then you’re going to come across with what you know. You’re going to tell me all about it—now.”
“Shan’t.”
“You’ve got