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

She is really a very amiable sort of person.’

�Do you like Mr Laurence Brown?’

�He’s very quiet. Quite nice, but you hardly know he’s there. I haven’t really seen very much of him.’

�Is his teaching satisfactory?’

�I suppose so. I really wouldn’t know. Philip seems quite satisfied.’

Taverner essayed some shock tactics.

�I’m sorry to ask you this, but in your opinion was there anything in the nature of a love affair[67 - love affair – интрижка] between Mr Brown and Mrs Brenda Leonides?’

Magda got up.

She was very much the grande dame.

�I have never seen any evidence of anything of that kind,’ she said. �I don’t think really, Inspector, that that is a question you ought to ask me. She was my father-in-law’s wife.’

I almost applauded.

The Chief Inspector also rose.

�More a question for the servants?’ he suggested.

Magda did not answer.

Thank you, Mrs Leonides,’ said the Inspector and went out.

�You did that beautifully, darling,’ said Sophia to her mother warmly.

Magda twisted up a curl reflectively behind her right ear and looked at herself in the glass.

�Ye-es,’ she said, �I think it was the right way to play it.’

Sophia looked at me.

�Oughtn’t you,’ she asked, �to go with the Inspector?’

�Look here, Sophia, what am I supposed—’

I stopped. I could not very well ask outright in front of Sophia’s mother exactly what my role was supposed to be. Magda Leonides had so far evinced no interest in my presence at all, except as a useful recipient of an exit line on daughters.

I might be a reporter, her daughter’s fiancé, or an obscure hanger-on of the police force, or even an undertaker—to Magda Leonides they would one and all come under the general heading of audience.

Looking down at her feet, Mrs Leonides said with dissatisfaction:

�These shoes are wrong. Frivolous.’

Obeying Sophia’s imperious wave of the head, I hurried after Taverner.

I caught him up in the outer hall just going through the door to the stairway.

�Just going up to see the elder brother,’ he explained.

I put my problem to him without more ado.

�Look here, Taverner, who am I supposed to be?’

He looked surprised.

�Who are you supposed to be?’

�Yes, what am I doing here in this house? If anyone asks me, what do I say?’

�Oh I see.’ He considered for a moment. Then he smiled.