Chapter 16 Chapter Sixteen

Dad said: "Let them talk to you." As I was shaving the next day, I thought about how far I had gone. Edith Haviland had already talked to me--she had achieved a special purpose in talking to me.Clemency has spoken to me. (Or did I talk to her?) In a way, Magda talked to me—that is, I was one of the listeners to one of her broadcasts.Sophia has of course talked to me.Even Lanny has talked to me.Have I heard what they have to say, have I become a little wiser?Are there any words with special meaning?Furthermore, were there any signs of the perverted ego that my father highlighted?I can't see what is there.

The only person who said he didn't want to talk to me about anything in any way was Philip.In a way, isn't that a little abnormal?He must have known by now that I wanted to marry his daughter, yet he continued to act as if I wasn't in the room at all, and he must have resented my presence.Edith Haviland has apologized on his behalf, saying it was just a "face".She seemed concerned about Philip, why? I thought about Sophia's father.He is a repressive type in every way.He used to be a jealous, unhappy kid.He was forced to retreat into his inner world.He hides in the world of books -- into history.Beneath his learned indifference and reserved exterior, there may be a lot of passionate feelings hidden deep.The inappropriate motive of financial gain after his father's death is not convincing enough--I don't think at all that Philip Leonides would kill his father because he himself didn't have as much money as he wanted.But there may have been some deep psychological reasons for wanting his father dead.Philip moved back to his father's house, and later, as a result of the air raids, Roger came - Philip had to watch Roger being favored by his father day after day... These things from childhood to adulthood Could it be possible, with the little things that came to his tormented mind, that the only relief might be the death of his father?And what if his father's death would fall on his brother?Roger was short of money - on the brink of bankruptcy.Was it not possible that Philip, not knowing Roger's last interview with his father and the latter's assistance, could have been convinced that such motives were sufficient to immediately cast Roger under suspicion?Was Philip's mental state unbalanced enough to cause him to commit murder?

I scratched my chin and cursed. What on earth should I do?Blame Sophia's father for the murder?Now it's great!That's not why Sophia asked me to come. Or—is it?There was something, there was always something hidden behind Sophia's plea.If there had been any lingering suspicion in her mind that her father was a murderer, she would never have consented to marry me—in case her suspicions might be true.And since she is Sophia, clear-sighted and fearless, she wants to know the truth, for uncertainty will forever stand between us. In fact, hadn't she said to me, "Prove that this dreadful thing I've imagined is not true--but, if it is true, then prove it to me--that I may know the best Bad consequences, face it at the same time!"

Did Edith Haviland know or suspect Philip was guilty?What did she mean when she said "it's the side of idolatry"? Also, what was the meaning of that strange look she gave me when I asked Clemency who she suspected, and she replied, "Lawrence and Brenda are the obvious suspects, aren't they?" The whole family hoped it was Brenda and Lawrence, hoped that maybe Brenda and Lawrence did it, but didn't really believe it was Brenda and Lawrence... Or, maybe Lawrence, not Brenda... This would be a much better answer. My scratched jaw was no longer bleeding, and I let go of my pressing hand and went downstairs to breakfast, determined to interview Lawrence Brown as soon as possible.

It wasn't until I drank my second cup of coffee that I suddenly felt that the atmosphere of this freak house also infected me.I'm also trying to find out, not the real answer, but the one that works best for me. After breakfast I went out, across the hall and up the stairs.Sophia had already told me that I would find Lawrence teaching Eustace and Josephine in the classroom. I hesitated outside Brenda's front door.Should I knock and ring the door, or just walk in?I decided to think of the house as part of the Leonides family rather than Brenda's personal quarters. I opened the door and walked over.Everything seemed quiet, as if no one was there.The door to the large living room on my left was closed.To my right two doors were open, a bedroom and the eserin and insulin room adjoining Aristide Leonides' bedroom.The police have now checked.I opened the door and walked in quietly.I realized then how easy it would be for anyone in the house (or indeed anyone from outside!) to sneak up to this bathroom without being noticed.

I stood in the bathroom and looked around.It's luxuriously paved with gleaming tiles and has a bathtub.On one side are all kinds of electrical appliances: under an electric kettle, there is an electric heater—a small electric pan, a toaster—everything that a servant serving an old man might need. On the wall is a white The enamel closet, I opened it, and there are various medical supplies, two glasses for taking medicine, eyewash, eye drops, and some bottles and jars with labels, aspirin, boric acid powder, iodine Wine, stretch bandages, etc.On another shelf, insulin, two hypodermic injections, and a bottle of alcohol were stacked.On the third shelf is a bottle of pills marked on the dosage -- take one or two pills a night, as directed by your doctor.On this shelf, no doubt, were bottles of eye drops.Everything is clear and orderly, so that anyone can get what he wants, and what he wants to use as an instrument of murder is also at his fingertips.

I can move the hands and feet of those bottles and cans at will.Then sneak out and go downstairs, no one will know I've been there.certainly.None of this is new, but it made me realize how difficult the job of the police is. Nothing can be found out except from the murderer. "Make them panic," Taverner said to me. "Keep them in peace. Make them think we're looking for something, make us the center of their attention. If we do that, sooner or later the killer will want to show himself a little bit smarter and stop standing by—then —and we got him." So far, the killer has not responded to this dose of "prescription".

I walked out of the bathroom and still saw no one.I go down the corridor, I pass the dining room on the left, and Brenda's bedroom and bathroom on the right.A maid was walking around Brenda's room.The restaurant door was closed, and in a room past the restaurant I heard Edith Haviland calling the fishmonger.A spiral staircase leads upstairs, and I step on it.Edith's bedroom and sitting room are here, I know, and two other bathrooms and Laurence Brown's room.Beyond that was a short staircase leading down to a large room built over the top of the servants' quarters which had been used as a schoolroom.

I paused outside the door and heard Brown's voice rising slightly from within. I imagined Josephine's snooping habit must be irresistible, and I stuck to the door rather shamelessly and listened. The lessons in it are history lessons, going up to the period when the French Revolutionary Executive Cabinet was in effect. As I listened, my eyes widened in astonishment.I was rather surprised to find Lawrence Brown an amazing teacher. I don't know why I'm so surprised.After all, Aristide Leonides had always been a man of good choice.In spite of all the timidity and cowardice in Lawrence's exterior, he possessed the highest talent for exciting the enthusiasm and imagination of his pupils.The dramatic character of Themido, the banishment of Robespieres, the majesty of Barras, the cunning of Faucher--Napoleon, the half-starved young lieutenant of artillery--all were vivid in his narrative.

Suddenly Lawrence stopped and asked Eustace and Josephine a question, asking them to play one character and then another.Although he couldn't get much out of Josephine, who sounded as though she had a cold, Eustace's answers sounded less like his usual moody self.He showed his brains and intelligence, and a shrewd sense of history, no doubt inherited from his father. Then I heard the chair being pushed away and scraping across the floor.I stepped back up the steps, pretending it was obvious I was going down the steps when the door opened. Eustace and Josephine came out. "Hi," I said.

Eustace looked surprised to see me. "Do you want anything?" he asked politely. Josephine showed no interest in my presence and slipped past me. "I just wanted to see the classroom." My reasoning was a little weak. "You saw it the other day, didn't you? It's really just a kid's place. It used to be a baby room, and there were a lot of toys in it." He pushed the door open for me and I walked in. Laurence Brown stood at the table.He raised his head to look at me, blushed for a while, murmured something to answer my early voice, and hurried out. "You frightened him," said Eustace. "He was easily intimidated." "Do you like him, Eustace?" "Oh! He's all right. An idiot, of course." "Not a bad teacher, though?" "No, actually, he's quite interesting and he knows a lot. He makes you see things from a different perspective. I never knew Henry VIII could write poetry - to Anne Borian, of course - very elegant poem." We talked for a while, about topics such as "old sailors," the fourteenth-century poet Chaucer, the political significance of the Crusades, medieval ways of life, and facts that surprised Eustace -- Oliver Cromwell The celebration of Christmas Day is prohibited.I sensed that beneath Eustace's grumpy, disdainful exterior, there was a good, inquisitive mind. I quickly began to understand the source of his bad temper.His illness was not just a horrible nightmare, but a setback and regression, just when he was living life with gusto. "I'm in eleventh grade next term--and I'm grown up. It's too much to be home with a kid as disabled as Josephine. She's only twelve." "Yes, but your classes are different, right?" "No, of course she doesn't have to take advanced math—or Latin. You don't want to share a tutor with a girl, though." I said Josephine was a pretty smart girl for her age, trying to soothe his wounded masculinity. "You think so? I think she's pretty nasty. She's crazy about detective stuff--snooping around, jotting down in a little black notebook, and pretending she's found a lot. She's just a dumb brat. said Eustace proudly. "Anyway," he went on, "girls can't be detectives, I told her so. I think Mamma's quite right, and the sooner Josephine can pack up and go to Switzerland the better." "Don't you miss her?" "Miss a brat her age?" said Eustace haughtily. "Of course not. My goodness, this house is suffocating! Ma's always going to London, threatening and luring some docile playwrights to write for her, and making noise and fuss all the time." and Dad shut up in his books all day, sometimes you talk to him and he doesn't listen. I don't know why I have such peculiar parents. Then there's Uncle Roger - always kind Makes you creepy. Aunt Clemency is okay, she doesn't bother you, but I sometimes think she's a bit mentally ill. Aunt Edith isn't too bad, but she's old. Ever since Sophia came back , things are a little more cheerful--though she can be rather harsh at times. But it's a queer family, don't you think? There's a second-grandmother young enough to be your aunt or big sister. My Meaning, it's overwhelming you!" I sort of understand how he feels.I was reminded (very vaguely) of my own oversensitivity at Eustace's age.Reminds me of my fear of showing anything out of the ordinary, or about my abnormal close relatives. "Where's your grandpa?" I said. "Do you like him?" A strange expression crossed Eustace's face. "Grandpa," he said, "is a total sociopath!" "How to say?" "He doesn't think about anything but profit. Lawrence said that's completely wrong. And he's a true individualist, the kind of person who should die early, don't you think?" "Well," I said cruelly, "he's dead." "A good death, really," said Eustace. "I'm not heartless, but you really can't enjoy life at that age!" "Hasn't he enjoyed life?" "He can't enjoy it. At any rate, it's time for him to go. He—" Eustace broke off as Laurence Brown returned to the classroom. Lawrence started looking through some books, but I think he was looking at me out of the corner of his eye. He glanced at his watch and said: "Be here on time at eleven, Eustace. We've wasted too much time the last few days." "Okay, sir." Eustace wandered to the door and went out whistling. Lawrence Brown gave me another sharp look, moistened his lips once or twice, and I believe he came back to the classroom chiefly to talk to me. Later, after aimlessly flipping through the books, pretending to have lost what he was looking for, he said: "Uh-how are they doing?" "them?" "police." His nose wriggled.A mouse that fell into a trap, I thought, a mouse that fell into a trap. "They don't think of me as a confidant," I said. "Oh, I thought your father was the deputy director." "He is," I said. "But of course he won't divulge official secrets." I said it deliberately. "Then you don't know how-what-if..." His voice drawled and broke. "They don't arrest people, do they?" "Not so far as I know. But, as I said, I have no way of knowing." Make them restless, Inspector Taverner had said, make them panic.Lawrence Brown was rightly flustered. He began to speak nervously and quickly. "You don't know what it's like...to be nervous...not to know how to—I mean, they just come and go—asking questions...questions that don't seem to have anything to do with the case... " He interrupted and I waited.He wanted to talk—well, let him talk. "Were you there that day when Inspector Taverner made that horrendous hint? About Mrs Leonides and myself . It's not true. Just because she's - years younger than her husband. It's a horrible idea of ​​people - a terrible idea... I feel - I can't help but feel that it's all a conspiracy." "Conspiracy? That's interesting." It was fun, though not quite the fun he thought it would be. "The family, you know; Mr. Leonides' family, never sympathized with me, they were always cold, and I always felt they despised me." His hands began to shake. "Just because they've always been rich--powerful, they look down on me. What am I to them? Just a governess, just a poor conscientious anti-war. My anti-war is my own. Conscience is really based on conscience!" I did not say anything. "Okay," he said suddenly. "What if I'm—scared? Afraid I'm going to make a mess. Afraid that when I have to pull the trigger—I might not be able to. How can you be sure it's a Nazi you're going to shoot? It could be some Noble boy—some country kid—has no political sense, just enlists. I'm convinced that war is wrong, you understand? I'm convinced it's wrong." I remain silent.I believe my silence is better than all words can achieve.Laurence Brown was arguing with himself, and in doing so he was revealing a great deal. "Everyone is always laughing at me." His voice trembled. "I seem to have a knack for making myself look ridiculous. It's not that I'm really lacking in courage—but I'm always doing the wrong thing. I'm running into a burning house to save a woman they say is trapped inside. But I got lost as soon as I got in, the smoke knocked me unconscious, and it took the firemen a lot of work to find me. I heard them say, 'Why isn't this idiot left for us?' No matter how hard I tried It's no use, everyone is against me. Whoever killed Mr Leonides deliberately arranged for me to be suspected. Someone killed him to ruin me." "Where's Mrs Leonides?" I asked. He blushed, and he became less of a mouse and more of a man. "Mrs. Leonides is an angel," he said, "an angel. Her loveliness, and her kindness to her old husband, are marvelous. It's absurd to think of her with the poisoning--absurd! And that stupid inspector couldn't see it!" "He's biased," I said, "influenced by his files of old men being poisoned by young wives." "Insufferable fool," said Laurence Brown angrily. He walked to the bookshelf in the corner and started flipping through the books at will.I didn't think I could get anything more out of him and I walked out slowly. As I made my way down the aisle, a door opened to my left and Josephine almost fell on top of me.She appeared as suddenly as a devil in a Christmas fairy tale. Her face and hands were dirty, and a large spider's web was stuck to one ear. "Where have you been, Josephine?" I peered into the half-open door.A few steps lead up to a loft-like rectangular space, in which some large sinks can be vaguely seen. "In the sink room." "Why in the sink room?" Josephine replied somewhat solemnly: "Investigation." "What the hell is there to investigate in those sinks?" For this question, Josephine only answered. "I have to wash." "makes sense." Josephine disappeared through the nearest bathroom door.She turned around and said: "I think it's time for a second murder, don't you think?" "What do you mean—the second murder?" "In the books there's always a second murder at this point, someone who knows something gets killed before he can tell you what he knows. "You read too many detective stories, Josephine, and real life isn't like that. Besides, if anyone in this room knows something, it doesn't look like they'll talk about what they know." Josephine's answer was a little blurred by the sound of water. "Sometimes it's something they don't know they know." I blinked, trying to make sense of the sentence.Then, leaving Josephine there to rinse, I went downstairs. Just as I was walking towards the landing, Brenda came out of the living room quickly. She came up to me and put her hand on my arm.Look up at my face. "How?" she asked. She inquired for news in the same way as Lawrence, but the way of asking was different, and her simple three words were much more effective. I shake my head. "Nothing." I said. She heaved a long sigh. "I was terrified," she said. "Charlie, I'm scared..." Her fears are real and communicated to me right in that confined space, and I want to reassure her and want to help her.Again I had that strong feeling that she was very alone in a hostile precarious situation. She might cry out, "Who's on my side?" And what would the answer be?Lawrence Brown?And what is Lawrence Brown after all?Lack of the kind of strength you can rely on in times of difficulty.A powerless ship.I thought of the sight of the two of them floating in the garden the night before. I want to help her, I want to help her badly, but I don't have much to say or do.And there was an embarrassing sense of guilt deep in my heart, as if Sophia was looking at me with her contemptuous eyes.I remembered Sophia's words: "So she hooked you." And Sophia didn't understand, didn't want to understand, Brenda's position.Alone, suspected of murder, with no one on her side. "The court of inquiry opens tomorrow," Brenda said. "Will—what will happen?" I can reassure her. "Nothing," I said. "You needn't worry. There will be a delay for the police to investigate. Although, it may cause a lot of news in the press. So far, there has been no indication in the papers that this is not a natural death. The Leonides family is very influential. But the investigation As soon as the court is adjourned—oh, the show begins." (What a strange statement! Good show! Why did I have to choose this word!) "Are they—are they scary?" "If I were you, I wouldn't give any interviews. You know, Brenda, you should get a lawyer—" She gasped in great panic. "No—no—it's not what you think. It's just to find someone to protect your rights and provide you with some advice. What should be said and should be done, and what should not be said and should not be done." "You know," I added, "you're very lonely." Her grip on my arm tightened. "Yes," she said. "I do understand. You've helped, Charlie, you've helped..." I went downstairs with a warm, contented feeling...and then I saw Sophia standing by the door downstairs.Her voice was cold and a little dry. "You've been gone a long time," she said. "They're calling for you from London. Your father wants you to come." "To Scotland Yard?" "yes." "I don't know what they are looking for me for, they didn't say?" Sophia shook her head.Her eyes were anxious.I put my arms around her. "Don't worry, honey," I said, "I'll be back soon."