"You want to know exactly what took place?"
"If you please, Mrs Roger."
"My father-in-law laid the will down on his desk and requested one of us - Roger, I think - to ring the bell. Roger did so. When Johnson came in answer to the bell, my father-in-law requested him to fetch Janet Woolmer, the parlourmaid. When they were both there, he signed the will and requested them to sign their own names beneath his signature."
"The correct procedure," said Mr Gaitskill. "A will must be signed by the testator in the presence of two witnesses who must affix their own signatures at the same time and place."
"And after that?" asked Taverner.
"My father-in-law thanked them, and they went out. My father-in-law picked up the will, put it in a long envelope and mentioned that he would send it to Mr Gaitskill on the following day."
"You all agree," said Inspector Taverner, looking round, "that this is an accurate account of what happened?"
There were murmurs of agreement.
"The will was on the desk, you said. How near were any of you to that desk?"
"Not very near. Five or six yards, perhaps, would be the nearest."
"When Mr Leonides read you the will was he himself sitting at the desk?"
"Yes."
"Did he get up, or leave the desk, after reading the will and before signing it?"
"No."
"Could the servants read the document when they signed their names?"
"No," said Clemency. "My father-in-law placed a sheet of paper across the upper part of the document."
"Quite properly," said Philip. "The contents of the will were no business of the servants."
"I see," said Taverner. "At least - I don't see."
With a brisk movement he produced a long envelope and leaned forward to hand it to the lawyer.
"Have a look at that," he said. "And tell me what it is."
Mr Gaitskill drew a folded document out of the envelope. He looked at it with lively astonishment, turning it round and round in his hands.
"This," he said, "is somewhat surprising. I do not understand it at all. Where was this, if I may ask?"
"In the safe, amongst Mr Leonides's other papers."
"But what is it?" demanded Roger. "What's all the fuss about?"
"This is the will I prepared for your father's signature, Roger - but - I can't understand it after what you have all said - it is not signed."
"What? Well, I suppose it is just a draft."
"No," said the lawyer. "Mr Leonides returned me the original draft. I then drew up the will - this will," he tapped it with his finger, "and sent it to him for signature.
According to your evidence he signed the will in front of you all - and the two witnesses also appended their signatures - and yet this will is unsigned."
"But that's impossible," exclaimed Philip Leonides, speaking with more animation than I had yet heard from him.
Taverner asked: "How good was your father's eyesight?"
"He suffered from glaucoma. He used strong glasses, of course, for reading."
"He had those glasses on that evening?"
"Certainly. He didn't take his glasses off until after he had signed. I think I am right?"
"Quite right," said Clemency.
"And nobody - you are all sure of that - went near the desk before the signing of the will?"
"I wonder now," said Magda, screwing up her eyes. "If one could only visualise it all again."
"Nobody went near the desk," said Sophia. "And grandfather sat at it all the time."
"The desk was in the position it is now? It was not near a door, or a window, or any drapery?"
"It was where it is now."
"I am trying to see how a substitution of some kind could have been effected," said Taverner. "Some kind of substitution there must have been. Mr Leonides was under the impression that he was signing the document he had just read aloud."
"Couldn't the signatures have been erased?" Roger demanded.
"No, Mr Leonides. Not without leaving signs of erasion. There is one other possibility. That this is not the document sent to Mr Leonides by Gaitskill and which he signed in your presence."
"On the contrary," said Mr Gaitskill. "I could swear to this being the original document. There is a small flaw in the paper - at the top left hand corner - it resembles, by a stretch of fancy, an aeroplane. I noticed it at the time."
The family looked blankly at one another.
"A most curious set of circumstances," said Mr Gaitskill. "Quite without precedent in my experience."
"The whole thing's impossible," said Roger. "We were all there. It simply couldn't have happened."
Miss de Haviland gave a dry cough. "Never any good wasting breath saying something that has happened couldn't have happened," she remarked. "What's the position now? That's what I'd like to know?"
Gaitskill immediately became the cautious lawyer.
"The position will have to be examined very carefully," he said. "The document, of course, revokes all former wills and testaments. There are a large number of witnesses who saw Mr Leonides sign what he certainly believed to be this will in perfectly good faith. Hum. Very interesting. Quite a little legal problem."
Taverner glanced at his watch.
"I'm afraid," he said, "I've been keeping you from your lunch."
"Won't you stay and lunch with us. Chief Inspector?" asked Philip.
"Thank you, Mr Leonides, but I am meeting Dr Cray in Swinly Dean."
Philip turned to the lawyer.
"You'll lunch with us, Gaitskill?"
"Thank you, Philip."
Everybody stood up. I edged unobtrusively towards Sophia.
"Do I go or stay?" I murmured. It sounded ridiculously like the title of a Victorian song.
"Go, I think," said Sophia.
I slipped quietly out of the room in pursuit of Taverner. Josephine was swinging to and fro on a baize door leading to the back quarters. She appeared to be highly amused about something.
"The police are stupid," she observed.
Sophia came out of the drawing room.
"What have you been doing, Josephine?"
"Helping Nannie."
"I believe you've been listening outside the door."
Josephine made a face at her and retreated.
"That child," said Sophia, "is a bit of a problem."
Chapter 11
When I entered the room, Taverner was just saying:
"And here we are. I talked to them all, and what did I get?... Absolutely nothing! No motive. None of them needs money. And the only thing we got against the woman and the guy is that they exchanged glances when the coffee was poured."
"Come on, Taverner," I said. "I think I got a little more."
"Did you, indeed? Very well, Mr Charles, what did you get?"
I sat down, lighted a cigarette, and observed the audience.
"Roger Leonides and his wife were planning to go abroad on next Tuesday. Roger and his father had a tense interview on the day the old man died. The old Leonides had found out something wrong and Roger was pleading guilty."
Taverner's face went purple.
"How the hell did you get hold of this?" he asked. "If it was from the servants..."
"Not from the servants. I got it -" I paused - "from a private agent."
"What do you mean?"
"I must admit that according to the rules of detective fiction he, or she, left the police far behind," I went on. "And I also think that my private investigator still has some tricks up the sleeve."
"Roger!" said Taverner. "So Roger - is a scoundrel?"
I felt quite reluctant to tell all this, because I had liked Roger Leonides. And it was also possible that Josephine's informations weren't trustworthy.
"So the kid told you?" said Taverner.
"She seems to be wise to everything that goes on in that house."
"Children usually are," said my father drily.
This information, if true, altered the whole position. If Roger had been, as Josephine had confidently suggested, 'embezzling' the funds of Associated Catering and if the old man had found it out, it might have been vital to silence old Leonides and to leave England before the truth came out. Possibly Roger had rendered himself liable to criminal prosecution.
It was agreed that inquiries should be made without delay into the affairs of Associated Catering.
"It will be an almighty crash, if that goes," my father remarked. "It's a huge concern. There are millions involved."
"If it's really in Queer Street, it gives us what we want," said Taverner. "Father summons Roger. Roger breaks down and confesses. Brenda Leonides was out at a cinema. Roger has only got to leave his father's room, walk into the bathroom, empty out an insulin phial and replace it with the strong solution of eserine and there you are. Or his wife may have done it. She went over to the other wing after she came home that day - says she went over to fetch a pipe Roger had left there. But she could have gone over to switch the stuff before Brenda came home and gave him his injection. She'd be quite cool and capable about it."
I nodded. "Yes, I fancy her as the actual doer of the deed. She's cool enough for anything! And I don't think that Roger Leonides would think of poison as a means - that trick with the insulin has something feminine about it."
"Plenty of men poisoners," said my father drily.
"Oh, I know, sir," said Taverner. "Don't I know!" he added with feeling.
"All the same I shouldn't have said Roger was the type."
"Pritchard," the Old Man reminded him, "was a good mixer."
"Let's say they were in it together."
"With the accent on Lady Macbeth," said my father, as Taverner departed. "Is that how she strikes you, Charles?"
I visualised the slight graceful figure standing by the window in that austere room.
"Not quite," I said. "Lady Macbeth was essentially a greedy woman. I don't think Clemency Leonides is. I don't think she wants or cares for possessions."
"But she might care, desperately, about her husband's safety?"
"That, yes. And she could certainly be - well, ruthless."
"Different kinds of ruthlessness..."
That was what Sophia had said.
I looked up to see the Old Man watching me.
"What's on your mind, Charles?"
But I didn't tell him then.
I was summoned on the following day and found Taverner and my father together. Taverner was looking pleased with himself and slightly excited.
"Associated Catering is on the rocks," said my father.
"Due to crash at any minute," said Taverner.
"I saw there had been a sharp fall in the shares last night," I said. "But they seem to have recovered this morning."
"We've had to go about it very cautiously," said Taverner. "No direct inquiries. Nothing to cause a panic - or to put the wind up our absconding gentleman. But we've got certain private sources of information and the information there is fairly definite. Associated Catering is on the verge of a crash. It can't possibly meet its commitments. The truth seems to be that it's been grossly mismanaged for years."
"By Roger Leonides?"
"Yes. He's had supreme power, you know."
"And he's helped himself to money -"
"No," said Taverner. "We don't think he has. To put it bluntly, he may be a murderer, but we don't think he's a swindler. Quite frankly he's just been - a fool. He doesn't seem to have had any kind of judgement. He's launched out where he should have held in - he's hesitated and retreated where he ought to have launched out. He's delegated power to the last sort of people he ought to have delegated it to. He's a trustful sort of chap, and he's trusted the wrong people. At every time, and on every occasion, he's done the wrong thing."
"There are people like that," said my father. "And they're not really stupid either. They're bad judges of men, that's all. And they're enthusiastic at the wrong time."
"A man like that oughtn't to be in business at all," said Taverner.
"He probably wouldn't be," said my father, "except for the accident of being Aristide Leonides's son."
"That show was absolutely booming when the old man handed it over to him. It ought to have been a gold mine! You'd think he could have just sat back and let the show run itself."
"No," my father shook his head. "No show runs itself. There are always decisions to be made - a man sacked here - a man appointed there - small questions of policy. And with Roger Leonides the answer seems to have been always wrong."
"That's right," said Taverner. "He's a loyal sort of chap, for one thing. He kept on the most frightful duds - just because he had an affection for them - or because they'd been there a long time. And then he sometimes had wild impractical ideas and insisted on trying them out in spite of the enormous outlay involved."
"But nothing criminal?" my father insisted.
"No, nothing criminal."
"Then why murder?" I asked.
"He may have been a fool and not a knave," said Taverner. "But the result was the same - or nearly the same. The only thing that could save Associated Catering from the smash was a really colossal sum of money by next -" (he consulted a notebook) "by next Wednesday at the latest."
"Such a sum as he would inherit, or thought he would have inherited, under his father's will?"
"Exactly."
"But he wouldn't be able to have got that sum in cash."
"No. But he'd have got credit. It's the same thing."
The Old Man nodded.
