was rather like the exit of a bumble-bee[68] and left a noticeable silence behind it.
Mrs Roger Leonides was standing up by the window. I was intrigued at once by her personality and by the atmosphere of the room in which we stood.
The walls were painted white—really white, not an ivory or a pale cream which is what one usually means when one says ‘white’ in house decoration. They had no pictures on them except one over the mantelpiece, a geometrical fantasia in triangles of dark grey and battleship blue. There was hardly any furniture—only mere utilitarian necessities, three or four chairs, a glass-topped table, one small bookshelf. There were no ornaments. There was light and space and air. It was as different from the big brocaded and flowered drawing-room on the floor below as chalk from cheese. And Mrs Roger Leonides was as different from Mrs Philip Leonides as one woman could be from another. Whilst one felt that Magda Leonides could be, and often was, at least half a dozen different women, Clemency Leonides, I was sure, could never be anyone but herself. She was a woman of very sharp and definite personality.
She was about fifty, I suppose; her hair was grey, cut very short in what was almost an Eton crop[69] but which grew so beautifully on her small well-shaped head that it had none of the ugliness I have always associated with that particular cut. She had an intelligent, sensitive face, with light-grey eyes of a peculiar and searching intensity. She had on a simple dark-red woollen frock that fitted her slenderness perfectly.
She was, I felt at once, rather an alarming woman… I think, because I judged that the standards by which she lived might not be those of an ordinary woman. I understood at once why Sophia had used the word ruthlessness in connection with her. The room was cold and I shivered a little.
Clemency Leonides said in a quiet, well-bred voice:
‘Do sit down, Chief Inspector. Is there any further news?’
‘Death was due to eserine, Mrs Leonides.’
She said thoughtfully:
‘So that makes it murder. It couldn’t have been an accident of any kind, could it?’
‘No, Mrs Leonides.’
‘Please be very gentle with my husband, Chief Inspector. This will affect him very much. He worshipped his father and he feels things very acutely. He is an emotional person.’
‘You were on good terms with your father-in-law, Mrs Leonides?’
‘Yes, on quite good terms.’ She added quietly: ‘I did not like him very much.’
‘Why was that?’
‘I disliked his objectives in life—and his methods of attaining them.’
‘And Mrs Brenda Leonides?’
‘Brenda? I never saw very much of her.’
‘Do you think it possible that there was anything between her and Mr Laurence Brown?’
‘You mean—some kind of a love affair? I shouldn’t think so. But I really wouldn’t know anything about it.’
Her voice sounded completely uninterested.
Roger Leonides came back with a rush, and the same bumble-bee effect.
‘I got held up,’ he said. ‘Telephone. Well, Inspector? Well? Have you got news? What caused my father’s death?’
‘Death was due to eserine poisoning.’
‘It was? My God! Then it was that woman! She couldn’t wait! He took her more or less out of the gutter and this is his reward. She murdered him in cold blood! God, it makes my blood boil to think of it.’
‘Have you any particular reason for thinking that?’ Taverner asked.
Roger was pacing up and down[70], tugging at his hair with both hands.
‘Reason? Why, who else could it be? I’ve never trusted her—never liked her! We’ve none of us liked her. Philip and I were both appalled when Dad came home one day and told us what he had done! At his age! It was madness— madness. My father was an amazing man, Inspector. In intellect he was as young and fresh as a man of forty. Everything I have in the world I owe to him. He did everything for me—never failed me. It was I who failed him—when I think of it—’
He dropped heavily on to a chair. His wife came quietly to his side.
‘Now, Roger, that’s enough. Don’t work yourself up.’
‘I know, dearest—I know,’ he took her hand. ‘But how can I keep calm—how can I help feeling—’
‘But we must all keep calm, Roger. Chief Inspector Taverner wants our help.’
‘That is right, Mrs Leonides.’
Roger cried:
‘Do you know what I’d like to do? I’d like to strangle that woman with my own hands. Grudging that dear old man a few extra years of life. If I had her here—’ He sprang up[71]. He was shaking with rage. He held out convulsive hands. ‘Yes, I’d wring her neck, wring her neck…’
‘Roger!’ said Clemency sharply.
He looked at her, abashed.
‘Sorry, dearest.’ He turned to us. ‘I do apologize. My feelings get the better of me. I—excuse me—’
He went out of the room again. Clemency Leonides said with a very faint smile:
‘Really, you know, he wouldn’t hurt a fly.’
Taverner accepted her remark politely.
Then he started on his so-called routine questions.
Clemency Leonides replied concisely and accurately.
Roger Leonides had been in London on the day of his father’s death at Box House, the headquarters of the Associated Catering. He had returned early in the afternoon and had spent some time with his father as was his custom. She herself had been, as usual, at the Lambert Institute in Gower Street where she worked. She had returned to the house just before six o’clock.
‘Did you see your father-in-law?’
‘No. The last time I saw him was on the day before. We had coffee with him after dinner.’
‘But you did not see him on the day of his death?’
‘No. I actually went over to his part of the house because Roger thought he had left his pipe there—a very precious pipe, but as it happened he had left it on the hall table there, so I did not need to disturb the old man. He often dozed off[72] about six.’
‘When did you hear of his illness?’
‘Brenda came rushing over. That was just a mi nute or two after half-past six.’
These questions,
Bumble-bee – шмель
Eton crop – дамская стрижка «под мальчика»
to pace up and down – расхаживать взад-вперед
to spring up – вскочить
to doze off – вздремнуть
