Crooked House / Скрюченный домишко. Книга для чтения на английском языке

She likes living soft. And there’s a young man in the house. Tutor to the grandchildren. Not been in the war—got a bad heart or something. They’re as thick as thieves[33 - thick as thieves – закадычные друзья].’

I looked at him thoughtfully. It was, certainly, an old and familiar pattern. The mixture as before. And the second Mrs Leonides was, my father had emphasized, very respectable. In the name of respectability many murders had been committed.

�What was it?’ I asked. �Arsenic?’

�No.

�That’s a little unusual, isn’t it? Surely easy to trace the purchaser.’

�Not this thing. It was his own stuff, you see. Eyedrops.’

�Leonides suffered from[34 - to suffer from – страдать от] diabetes,’ said my father. �He had regular injections of insulin. Insulin is given out in small bottles with a rubber cap. A hypodermic needle[35 - hypodermic needle – игла для подкожных инъекций] is pressed down through the rubber cap and the injection drawn up.

I guessed the next bit.

�And it wasn’t insulin in the bottle, but eserine?’

�Exactly.’

�And who gave him the injection?’ I asked.

�His wife.’

I understood now what Sophia meant by the �right person’.

I asked: �Does the family get on well with[36 - to get on well with – ладить с] the se cond Mrs Leonides?’

�No.

It all seemed clearer and clearer. Nevertheless, Inspector Taverner was clearly not happy about it.

�What don’t you like about it?’ I asked him.

�If she did it, Mr Charles, it would have been so easy for her to substitute a bona fide[37 - bona fide (зд.)– правильный (флакон)] bottle of insulin afterwards. In fact, if she is guilty, I can’t imagine why on earth[38 - why on earth – почему же] she didn’t do just that.

�Yes, it does seem indicated. Plenty of insulin about?’

�Oh yes, full bottles and empty ones. And if she’d done that, ten to one the doctor wouldn’t have spotted it. Very little is known of the post-mortem appea rances in human poisoning by eserine. But as it was he checked up on the insulin (in case it was the wrong strength or something like that) and so, of course, he soon spotted that it wasn’t insulin.