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

] (surely not at such a moment!) or as an associate of the police?

Miss de Haviland gave me no time to consider her question. It was, indeed, not a question at all, but more an assertion. Miss de Haviland, I judged, was more inclined to assert than to question.

�We’ll go to the library,’ she said.

She led me out of the drawing-room, along a corridor and in through another door.

It was a big room, full of books. The books did not confine themselves to the bookcases that reached up to the ceiling. They were on chairs and tables and even on the floor.

And yet there was no sense of disarray about them.

The room was cold. There was some smell absent in it that I was conscious of having expected. It smelt of the mustiness of old books and just a little beeswax. In a second or two I realized what I missed. It was the scent of tobacco. Philip Leonides was not a smoker.

He got up from behind his table as we entered—a tall man, aged somewhere around fifty, an extraordinarily handsome man. Everyone had laid so much emphasis on the ugliness of Aristide Leonides, that for some reason I expected his son to be ugly too.

Certainly I was not prepared for this perfection of feature—the straight nose, the flawless line of jaw, the fair hair touched with grey that swept back from a well-shaped forehead.

�This is Charles Hayward, Philip,’ said Edith de Haviland.

�Ah, how do you do?’

I could not tell if he had ever heard of me. The hand he gave me was cold. His face was quite incurious.

It made me rather nervous. He stood there, patient and uninterested.

�Where are those awful policemen?’ demanded Miss de Haviland. �Have they been in here?’

�I believe Chief Inspector’—(he glanced down at a card on the desk)—�er—Taverner is coming to talk to me presently.’

�Where is he now?’

�I’ve no idea, Aunt Edith. Upstairs, I suppose.’

�With Brenda?’

�I really don’t know.’

Looking at Philip Leonides, it seemed quite impossible that a murder could have been committed anywhere in his vicinity.

�Is Magda up yet?’

I don’t know. She’s not usually up before eleven.’

�That sounds like her,’ said Edith de Haviland.

What sounded like Mrs Philip Leonides was a high voice talking very rapidly and approaching fast. The door behind me burst open and a woman came in. I don’t know how she managed to give the impression of its being three women rather than one who entered.