Chapter 18 Chapter Eighteen

Taverner and I quickly drove the police car to Svenli. I thought of Josephine emerging from the sink room and saying it was "almost about time for the second murder" in a mannered way.The poor child had no idea that she herself might be the victim of a "second murder." I fully accept my father's implicit accusations against me.Of course I should have noticed Josephine earlier.Although neither Taverner nor I had a clue as to who poisoned old Leonides, it was likely that Josephine had.What I thought of as childish babbling and "showing off" is probably not the same thing.Josephine, by virtue of her favorite game of snooping, may know information of value she does not know herself.

I thought of the sound of branches snapping in the garden. I had a slight sense of the danger at the time, and I took immediate action. Later, it seemed that my suspicion was dramatic and unreal.On the contrary, I should have known earlier that this was a murder, and whoever the murderer was, he was risking the hang, and would therefore have no hesitation in repeating the same trick if his safety could be guaranteed. Perhaps Magda knew, out of some vague maternal instinct, that Josephine was in danger, and this might have triggered her sudden urgency to send the child to Switzerland. When we arrived, Sophia came out to greet us, and she said that Josephine had been taken by ambulance to the City General Hospital.Dr. Gray will notify them as soon as the X-ray results are available.

"How did it happen?" Taverner asked. Sophia led the way around to the back of the house, through a door, and into an abandoned yard.In one corner of the yard, a door was ajar. "That's the room used as the laundry room," Sophia explained. "A cat hole was punched at the bottom of the door, and Josephine often stood on the cat hole to swing around." I think back to when I was a kid and hung on to doors to swing. The laundry room was small and dark, with some wooden boxes, some old rubber hose, a few discarded garden tools and some worn-out furniture.A marble lion-shaped doorstop stands at the door.

"That's the doorstop from the gate," Sophia explained. "It must have been laid flat on the top edge of the door." Taverner reached for the upper edge of the door.It was a low door, the upper edge was only about a foot from his head. "A stupid trick," he said. He swings the door experimentally, then he leans over the marble doorstop, but doesn't touch it. "Has anyone touched it?" "No," said Sophia. "I won't let anyone touch it." "Yes, who found her?" "Me. She didn't come in for lunch at one o'clock, and Laney was calling her, and she had gone through the kitchen into the stables about fifteen minutes before that. Lanny said, 'She must've been hitting the ball again or in that fan swinging on the door.' I said I'd go find her."

Sophia paused. "You said, she has the habit of playing like this? Does anyone know this?" Sophia shrugged. "Pretty much everyone in the room knows that, I think." "Who else uses this laundry room? The gardener?" Sophia shook her head. "Almost no one ever went in." "And you can't see the yard from the house." Taverner thought about it. "Anyone could sneak in through the house, or go out the front door, and come around here and cast this trap. But it's not a very strong trap..." He stopped and looked at the door, which shook slightly.

"Unreliable. Hit or miss, and more likely to miss. But she's unlucky. For her, it's a hit." Sophia trembled. He looked carefully at the door.There are various dents on it. "Looks like somebody tried it first... to see how the doorstop would come off... the sound wouldn't carry into the house." "We didn't hear a sound. We didn't know something was wrong until I came over and found her lying face down — sprawled." Sophia's voice cracked. "There's blood in her hair." "That's her scarf?" Tai Wenqin pointed to a woolen scarf with checkered stripes on the ground and said.

"yes." He wrapped the marble doorstop carefully with the scarf. "Probably fingerprints," he said, but that didn't sound like much hope from him. "But I think the striker—be careful." He said to me, "What are you looking at?" I'm looking at a wooden kitchen chair with a broken back and some dirt on the seat cushion among a pile of junk. "Strange," said Taverner. "Someone stood on that chair with muddy feet. Why?" He shook his head. "What time did you find her, Miss Leonides?" "It must have been five past one."

"And Lanny saw her come out about twenty minutes before that. Any idea who was the last person in the laundry room before that?" "I don't know. Maybe it was Josephine herself. Josephine was knocking on that door this morning after breakfast, I know." Taverner nodded. "So someone set up a trap after that and between fifteen and one. You say you used that marble as a doorstop? Do you know when it disappeared?" Sophia shook her head. "The gate has not been opened all day, it's too cold today." "Do you know the whereabouts of everyone this morning?"

"I went for a walk. Eustace and Josephine had lessons until half-past twelve, with a break at half-past ten. Father, I think, was in the study all morning." "What about Ling Tang?" "She had just come out of her bedroom when I came back from my walk--it was about a quarter past twelve, and she went to bed late. We went back into the house and I followed Sophia to the study.Philip sat in his usual chair, looking pale and haggard.Magda curled up in his lap, sobbing.Sophia asked: "They haven't called from the hospital yet?" Philip shook his head. Magda whimpered and said:

"Why didn't they let me go with her? My child—my ridiculous, ugly child. I used to say she was an ugly duckling traded for a goblin, and it made her so angry. How could I be so cruel? And now she's dying I know she's going to die." "Be quiet, my dear," said Philip. "Quiet Please." I felt like I had no place in this family of anxious, grieving scenes.I backed out quietly and found Lanny sitting in the kitchen weeping. "It's my karma, Mr. Charlie, for all the mean things I've been thinking. Nemesis, karma." I didn't try to find out what she meant.

"There's evil in this house. That's it. I don't want to think about it or believe it, but seeing is believing. Someone killed the master, and the same person must want to kill Josephine." "Why did they want to kill Josephine?" Lanny moved a corner of the handkerchief from her eyes.He gave me a shrewd look. "You know quite well what she was like, Mr. Charlie. She liked to know things, and she liked that from a very young age. She used to hide under the table, overhear the maids, and threaten them, Shows that she's important herself. You know, she doesn't get noticed by the mistress. She's not as good-looking as the other two, she's always been a mediocre little thing, and the mistress says she's an ugly bastard stolen by a goblin, I blame the hostess for saying this because I believe it upsets the kids. It's funny how she gets her back by finding out some things about other people and letting them know that she knows those things. But when It's not safe to do that when there's a poisoner in the house!" is not safe.This reminded me of something, and I asked Lanny, "Do you know where she keeps a little black notebook—the little notebook she keeps jotting down things in?" "I know what you mean, Mr. Charlie. She looks very sinister like that. I keep seeing her lick her pencils, then take notes, then lick her pencils. I say, 'Don't do that', 'You'll get lead poisoning' .and she said, 'Oh, no, I won't,' 'because there's not really lead in the pencil, it's carbon.' I don't see how that could be, because if you call something a pencil, of course it's Because it has lead in it." "You'd think so," I agreed. "But in fact she's right." (Josephine is always right!) "Where's the notebook? Do you know where she keeps it?" "I have no idea, sir. She's always been mysterious." "She wasn't found with that notebook?" "Oh, no, Mr. Charlie, no notebook." Was taken away?Or did she hide it in her own room?I thought of looking for it.I wasn't quite sure which room belonged to Josephine, I was standing in the hallway hesitating when Taverner called me: "Come in here," he said. "I'm in the kid's room. Have you ever seen anything like this?" I stepped over the threshold and stood still. The small room looked as if it had been blown by a storm. All the drawers had been pulled out, things were scattered all over the floor, the mattress and bedding had been pulled off, the carpet had been thrown into a pile, the chairs had been turned upside down, and the walls The paintings were taken down, and the photos were ripped out of the frame. "Christ," I exclaimed. "What kind of idea is this?" "what you think?" "Someone is looking for something." "Exactly." I looked around and whistled. "But who—of course no one can come in here, rummage around without being heard—see?" "Why not? Mrs. Leonides has been in her room all morning doing her nails, calling up her friends, trying on her dresses and playing. Philip is sitting in his study reading. The nurse is in the kitchen." Peel potatoes and peas. It's easy enough in a family that knows each other's habits. And I tell you, anyone in the room could have done it—maybe for the kid Set a trap and turn her room over at the same time, but someone in a hurry, someone who didn't have time to look quietly" "Anyone in this room, you say?" "Yeah, I checked, everyone's been unreliable for a while, Philip, Magda, the nurse, your girl. Same upstairs. Brenda was alone most of the morning Lawrence and Eustace rested for half an hour - half past ten to eleven - and you were with them for a while during that time - but not the whole break. The Haviland team was alone in the garden. Roger is in his study. "Only Clemency works in London." "No, not even her. She's home today with a headache—she's resting alone in her room. Any of them—any of them could be! And I don't know which! I don't know. What if I know what they're coming here for— His eyes swept across the messy room. "And if I knew if they found..." Something is stirring in my head - a memory... Taverner asked exactly what I was thinking: "What was the child doing the last time you saw her?" "Wait a minute," I said. I rushed out the door and up the stairs, I went through a door on the left and went up to the top floor, I pushed open the door to the sink room and climbed two steps, head down because the ceiling was low and sloping.I look around. When I asked Josephine what she was doing there, she said she was "sleuthing." I don't understand what's to scout in an attic full of cobwebs and water tanks, but such an attic would be a great place to hide.I thought maybe Josephine had something hidden there, something she knew pretty well she shouldn't have.If so, it shouldn't be hard to find. It only took me three minutes.I was behind the largest sink, which was hissing strangely inside, and found a packet of letters stuffed in a torn sheet of brown paper. I read the first letter. Oh Lawrence - my love, my heart's love... That poem you read last night was beautiful.I know it's me, even though you're not looking at me.Aristide said, "You read the poem very well." He couldn't guess how you and I felt.My dear, I am convinced that everything will be all right soon.We should be glad that he never knew, that he died happily.He's been nice to me and I don't want him to suffer, but I really don't think there's any fun in being alive past eighty.I don't want to live like that!Soon we will be together forever.How wonderful it would be when I could say to you: My dear dear husband... my dearest, we are made for each other, made for each other.I love you, love you, love you - our love will never end, I - There's more to come, but I don't intend to read on. I went downstairs sullenly, and threw a packet of letters into Taverner's hands. "This," I said, "may be what our unidentified friend is looking for." Taverner read a few paragraphs, whistled, and flicked through the pile of letters. Then he looked at me with the expression of a cat that just had a good meal of cream. "Okay," he said softly. "Mrs. Brenda Leonides is in disgrace now, and Mr. Laurence Brown. It was they who had been...